Chapter CXLV: Epilogue (1)

_Within._ Master Pollard! Where’s Master Pollard, for the epilogue?
_He is thrust upon the stage, and falls._

_Epi._ [_rising._] I am coming to you, gentlemen; the poet
Has help’d me thus far on my way, but I’ll
Be even with him. the play is a tragedy,
The first that ever he compos’d for us, 5
Wherein he thinks he has done prettily.
_Enter_ Servant.
And I am sensible.—I prithee look,
Is nothing out of joint? Has he broke nothing?

_Serv._ No, sir, I hope.

_Epi._ Yes, he has broke his epilogue all to pieces. 10
Canst thou put it together again?

_Serv._ Not I, sir.

_Epi._ Nor I; prithee be gone. [_Exit_ Serv.]—Hum!—Master poet,
I have a teeming mind to be reveng’d.—
You may assist, and not be seen in’t now, 15
If you please, gentlemen, for I do know
He listens to the issue of his cause;
But blister not your hands in his applause;
Your private smile, your nod, or hem! to tell
My fellows that you like the business well; 20
And when, without a clap, you go away,
I’ll drink a small-beer health to his second day;
And break his heart, or make him swear and rage
He’ll write no more for the unhappy stage.
But that’s too much; so we should lose; faith, shew it, 25
And if you like his play, ’t ’s as well he knew it.

ADDITIONAL NOTES ON THE PLAYS

ENDYMION

_Endymion_ was published in 1591, and the title-page states that it had been played “before the Queenes Maiestie at Greenwich on Candlemas day at night, by the Chyldren of Paules.” It is fairly certain that this performance took place on Feb. 2, 1586. The present text is based on Bond’s reprint of the quarto of 1591, with slight additions from the version included by Blount in his _Sixe Court Comedies_, 1632. Like most of Lyly’s plays, _Endymion_ is an allegory of the court, with a mythological basis. Very little, however, is here borrowed from the myth of the Moon-goddess and her lover, and the plot is evidently invented with a view to carrying contemporary allusions. Beginning with Halpin’s paper in 1843, many attempts have been made to read the riddle, the latest and most ingenious being that of M. Feuillerat, who identities Cynthia with Elizabeth, Tellus with Mary of Scots, and Endymion with her son, James VI. The credit of having disproved the Endymion-Leicester identification is shared with M. Feuillerat by Dr. P. W. Long, who seeks to read the play as mainly an allegory of Heavenly Beauty (Cynthia) and Earthly Beauty (Tellus), an interpretation perhaps not wholly incompatible with the more personal solution.

THE OLD WIVES TALE

_The Old Wife’s Tale_, as the title should appear in modern spelling (the reference being, of course, to Madge), was first published in 1595, and on this quarto, as reprinted by Gummere, the present text is based. The precise date of production has not been definitely ascertained, but it was probably not far from 1590. Source, in the usual sense of the term, the play can hardly be said to have; it is a medley of a dozen themes from current English folk-tales. Realistic in diction, romantic in subject-matter, the play was a notable innovation in its day; and through the peculiar irony of the satire on romance, Peele introduced a new and subtler form of humor into English comedy. Both in its main theme, and in its use of the induction, this drama is an interesting forerunner of _The Knight of the Burning Pestle_.

FRIAR BACON AND FRIAR BUNGAY

This play was first printed in quarto in 1594, and that edition (Q₁), as printed by Collins and Gayley, forms the basis of the present text. The existence of a second quarto, said to have been issued in 1599, has been rendered highly doubtful by Gayley. Later editions appeared in 1630 (Q₃) and 1655 (Q₄). The date of production was probably 1589-90. That part of the plot dealing with the marvelous exploits of Friar Bacon is drawn from _The Famous Historic of Friar Bacon_, a late sixteenth-century account of the legends that had gathered round the name of the Oxford Franciscan, Roger Bacon (born 1214). The love story is Greene’s own. It seems probable that this comedy was conceived as a foil to Marlowe’s tragedy of _Doctor Faustus_, some of the scenes approaching an actual parody, and stress being laid on the superiority of the English to the German necromancer.

TAMBURLAINE

Both parts of _Tamburlaine_ were entered in the Stationers’ Register on Aug. 14, 1590, and they appeared together in octavo in 1590, and again in 1592. The alleged existence of editions of 1593, 1597, and 1600 is unsupported by evidence; and the third edition seems to be that of 1605 (part i.) and 1606 (part ii.) printed from the first. The issue of 1590 is the basis of the present text. The first part of the play was probably produced three years before, in 1587, and the second part in the following year. All the early editions are anonymous, nor does there survive any pre-Restoration statement as to the authorship; yet so convincing is the internal evidence that the ascription to Marlowe may be regarded as indubitable.

The main source of part i. is Fortescue’s _Foreste_, 1571, a translation of Pedro Mexia’s _Silva de varia lecion_, 1543. Additional details were derived from _The Notable History of the Saracens_ by Thomas Newton, 1575, and from Petrus Perondinus, 1553. The title-role was first acted by the gigantic Edward Alleyn.

DOCTOR FAUSTUS

Allusions to contemporary events in the Low Countries fix the limits for the date of _Doctor Faustus_ as 1585 and 1590; and the evidence of style places it after _Tamburlaine_. A ballad which seems to be inspired by the play was licensed in February, 1589, so that it is generally agreed that the first production of the play fell in the winter of 1588-89. “A booke calld _the plaie of Doctor Faustus_” was entered in the Stationers’ Register on Jan. 7, 1601, but if an edition was published in that year, no copy has survived. The earliest extant edition is that of 1604 (Q₁), on which the present text is based. This version was reprinted in 1609 and 1611; and in 1616 appeared an enlarged form, followed in the later quartos of 1619, 1620, 1624, and 1631. An edition issued in 1663 has many additions and excisions, but none with any claim to authority. The question of the authorship of the amplifications in the quarto of 1616 is still under discussion, but recent opinion tends to the view that, except for a few scattered lines, the additions may well be the work of William Birde and Samuel Rowley, engaged by Henslowe in 1602 for this purpose. Marlowe’s knowledge of the Faust legend is derived from the German _Faustbuch_, published at Frankfurt by Johann Spies in 1587, which he probably knew through an English translation.

THE JEW OF MALTA

The earliest mention of this play occurs in Henslowe’s _Diary_, where a performance is noted as taking place on February 26, 1592, and it is implied that the tragedy was not then new. Its composition is conjecturally placed about 1590. On May 17, 1594, it was entered on the Stationers’ Register, but no edition had come down to us earlier than a corrupt quarto of 1633, which is thus our sole authority for the text. As to the source from which Marlowe drew his material, nothing definite is known. Kellner (_Englishe Studien_, X. 80) has elaborated a parallel between the career of Marlowe’s hero and that of a sixteenth-century Portuguese Jew, Michesius, who is mentioned by a number of historians; but such accounts as have been found could have furnished only suggestions.

This play was one of the most popular on the Elizabethan stage, Henslowe recording thirty-six performances before June 21, 1596.

EDWARD II

When _The troublesom Reign and Lamentable Death of Edward the Second_ was entered in the Stationers’ Register on July 6, 1593, the play had been already on the stage for some time; and it is probable that it was first produced in 1591 or 1592. No copy issued in 1593 is extant, and the earliest surviving quarto belongs to 1594. On this, the best of the early prints, the present text is based. Other editions followed in 1598, 1612, and 1622. Marlowe’s main source for the historical basis of the play was Holinshed, Fabyan’s and Stowe’s _Chronicles_ having also supplied some minor details. Chronological accuracy is often disregarded, yet in its main lines the action in substantially faithful to history. The play is Marlowe’s ripest production, and we are fortunate in having the text preserved in a purer state than that of any of his other plays.

In the four plays by Marlowe, Tucker Brooke’s reprints of the early editions haye been used.

THE SPANISH TRAGEDY

The most definite indication of the date of this, one of the most popular of all Elizabethan plays, is found in an allusion in the Induction to Ben Jonson’s _Bartholomew Fair_ (1614), where it seems to be implied that _The Spanish Tragedy_ was then twenty-five or thirty years old. This gives us the years 1584-89 as limits, and the absence of any reference to the Armada, in a play laid in Spain, has led critics to place it before 1588. The year 1586 may, perhaps, be fairly conjectured as coming within a year of the date of composition. In 1592 it was being successfully performed; and on October 6 of that year it was entered for publication. The first edition has disappeared entirely; and the earliest extant is an undated quarto in the British Museum. Other quartos appeared in 1594 and 1599; and in the edition of 1602 are first found the additions made to the play by Ben Jonson, and included in the later quartos of 1610, 1615, 1618, 1623, and 1633. The present text is based on the B. M. quarto for Kyd’s part of the play, and on that of 1602 for the additions, which are pointed out in the foot-notes; and I have availed myself of the collations of both Manly and Boas. All the early editions are anonymous; and the ascription of the play to Kyd is made on the authority of a passage in Heywood’s _Apology for Actors_, 1612.

BUSSY D’AMBOIS

The first quarto of _Bussy D’Ambois_ appeared in 1607, and a second in 1608. In 1641 a third quarto appeared, which claimed to be “much corrected and amended by the author before his death,” and this was reissued in 1646 and 1657. The present text is based on Boas’s reprint of the quarto of 1641. The date of the production of the play is uncertain. Certain entries in Henslowe’s _Diary_ point to 1598, but if the play was on the stage as early as this, it must have been revised before its publication in 1607. _Bussy D’Ambois_ belongs to the group of Chapman’s plays dealing with almost contemporary French politics. D’Ambois himself was born in 1549, and was murdered by Monsoreau’s retainers in 1579. The earliest extant accounts of his career are later in date than the play, and the precise sources of Chapman’s information have not yet been found. But from the later descriptions it is clear that the action of the play, and the view given of the hero’s character, are substantially historical.

EVERY MAN IN HIS HUMOUR

This play, the first example of the “comedy of humours,” was performed in 1598 with great success. It was published in quarto in 1601, and in this version the characters bear Italian names, and the scene is laid in Italy. It was revised about 1606, and this second version, with the names and scene made English and with many other changes, was published in the folio of 1616. The present text is based directly on the folio. The plot, which seems to have been entirely of Jonson’s invention, is constructed with a view to those classical standards of comedy, which Jonson sought to uphold against the prevailing romantic license.

SEJANUS, HIS FALL

_Sejanus_ was first performed in 1603, but, as Jonson admits, failed to please the audience. It was published in 1605, and again in the folio of 1616. On this latter the present text is based. It is not necessary to discuss the sources of this impressive tragedy, since Jonson has supplied us in his ample foot-notes with documentary evidence for nearly every fact in the play. These notes have been reproduced in the present edition, through the first scene, which is probably as far as the modern reader will care to study them. The delineation of Tiberius is one of the most successful attempts in our literature to recreate a highly complex historical character.

VOLPONE, OR THE FOX

_Volpone_ was performed in 1605 or 1606 at the Globe theatre and at both Oxford and Cambridge, and in 1607 was printed in quarto. It was included in the folio of 1616, on which the present text is based. The main plot is founded on an episode in the _Satiricon_ of Petronius Arbiter; but the parts of Celia and of Sir Politic and Lady Would-be are of Jonson’s own invention. The song, “Drink to me only with thine eyes,” is practically a translation from Philostratus, and “Come, my Celia” is imitated from Catullus. The comedy is a terrible satire on some of the most sordid aspects of human nature, and the superb skill with which it is constructed barely suffices to counteract the depressing effect of the types of character it displays.

THE ALCHEMIST

_The Alchemist_, which may, perhaps, be regarded as Jonson’s supreme masterpiece in comedy, was performed in 1610, and published in quarto in 1612. The present text is based on that of the folio of 1616. It has been frequently stated that for the plot of this play Jonson was indebted to Plautus, but the borrowing is very slight. In the _Mostellaria_ there is a scene which might have suggested the opening dialogue of _The Alchemist_, and another which bears a slight resemblance to Face’s attempt to hoodwink his master in V. i. In the _Poenulus_, a man speaks Punic, and is misunderstood somewhat as Surly’s Spanish is misunderstood in IV. iii. But the plot as a whole is Jonson’s own, and the alchemical and astrological matter is drawn from a wide acquaintance with current treatises on these subjects. Attempts have been made to identify Subtle and Face with the famous Dee and Kelley, but identification is much too strong a word. Hathaway has pointed out a more striking correspondence with the activities of Simon Forman, a notorious quack of Jonson’s day. _The Alchemist_ has been credited with a considerable effectiveness in clearing London of the type of impostors which it ridicules and exposes so trenchantly and amusingly.

THE SHOEMAKERS’ HOLIDAY

This, the first of Dekker’s comedies, was acted in 1599, and printed in the following year. On the text of this quarto, as reprinted by Warnke and Proescholdt, the present text is based. The story of the partly historical Simon Eyre was found by Dekker in one of the tales in Thomas Deloney’s _Gentle Craft_, 1597; but the main interest of the play lies in its picture of London tradespeople in the author’s own day, and for this Dekker needed no literary source.

THE HONEST WHORE

From a passage in Henslowe’s _Diary_ it appears that Middleton had some share in the first part of _The Honest Whore_, but it is not supposed that he wrote any considerable portion of it. The second part is wholly Dekker’s, and is generally regarded as superior to the first. The first edition of part i. appeared in 1604, of part ii. in 1630. Pearson’s reprint, on which the present text is based, follows the 1605 quarto of part i. and the 1630 of part ii. A copy of the 1635 quarto of the double play has been used to check Pearson’s text. No source of the plot has been discovered. The play is a highly characteristic product of the time, both in its picture of the vices of the city, and in its sound and straightforward, if somewhat coarse, handling of the moral issues involved. The character of Friscobaldo, in part ii., afforded Hazlitt the theme for what he himself justly regarded as one of his finest pieces of critical interpretation.

THE MALCONTENT

_The Malcontent_ was first issued in 1604; and in the same year a second quarto appeared with the title-page, “The Malcontent. Augmented by Marston. With the Additions played by the Kings Maiesties servants. Written by Ihon Webster. 1604. At London Printed by V. S. for William Aspley, and are to be sold at his shop in Paules Church-yard.” The title-page of the first edition gives John Marston as author; the date and publisher are the same. The second edition, on which the present text is directly based, contains, as new matter, the Induction and a number of additions, marked in the present text by brackets and specified in the foot-notes. Its title-page has proved highly misleading; the facts seem to be that Webster supplied the Induction when the play was revived by the King’s men; and that the other additions are restorations of passages from Marston’s original play which had been cut for acting purposes. Stoll, who has made this clear, places the composition of the play in 1600, and has given the tragi-comedy a new importance, in addition to its intrinsic vigor and effectiveness, by arguing forcibly for it as an influence on the characters of Shakespeare’s Jaques and Hamlet. The source of the plot has so far not been discovered.

A WOMAN KILLED WITH KINDNESS

This tragedy, one of the earliest and most pathetic examples of domestic drama, was first published in 1607; and the present text is based on Pearson’s reprint of this quarto. The play was acted in 1603, as appears from an entry in Henslowe’s _Diary_. The title, like those of several other plays by Heywood, was a proverbial phrase. Creizenach (IV. 264) states that Heywood borrowed the two plots of this drama from Margaret of Navarre and from Bandello. The thirty-second tale in the _Heptameron_ does indeed tell of a husband who refrained from killing a wife taken in adultery, but the resemblance is far from close.

THE KNIGHT OF THE BURNING PESTLE

_The Knight of the Burning Pestle_ was printed in quarto in 1613, and on Murch’s reproduction of this edition the present text is based. A second and a third quarto were issued in 1635, and the play was included in the second folio edition of Beaumont and Fletcher in 1679. The date of composition is uncertain, but recent opinion tends to place it about 1610. It cannot be said that there is as yet a general agreement as to the respective snares of the two authors in this comedy, but according to the most careful examination of the question so far made, that of Dr. Murch, most of the play should be ascribed to Beaumont, Fletcher having probably written only the three love scenes, I. i. 1-60; III. i.; and IV. iv. 18-93. In spite of the similarity between the satirical purpose of this play and of _Don Quixote_, it has not been shown that the authors had any knowledge of the work of Cervantes, or that they could read Spanish. (The first English translation of _Don Quixote_ appeared in 1612.) In the mock-heroic part of the play, the object of the satire was the type of play founded upon medieval romance and popular at that time among the tradespeople of London; and of this type, Heywood’s _Four Prentices of London_ seems to have been especially in view. Koeppel has pointed out the resemblance between the coffin scene in Act IV. and an episode in Marston’s _Antonio and Mellida_ (1602). The love-plot is too commonplace to have a definitely assignable source, and the scenes between Merrythought and his wife, like those of the Induction, are, one may be sure, due to direct observation of contemporary life and manners.

PHILASTER

The first quarto of _Philaster_, issued in 1620, seems to have been unauthorized, and to have been made up in part from a report taken down at a performance. At the beginning and end it is quite different from the other quartos. The second quarto, 1622, as reprinted by Thorndike, is the basis for the present text, with occasional readings from the later quartos and the folio of 1679. The play was probably written about 1608-10. The respective shares of the two authors are difficult to assign. Oliphant and Thorndike give to Fletcher I. i. 99-360; II. ii.; II. iv. 69-203; passages in III. ii.; V. iii.; and V. iv.; the rest to Beaumont; the prose scenes with less assurance. Macaulay gives little beyond V. iii., iv. to Fletcher. This distribution is made mainly on the grounds of the characteristics of the metre; it does not exclude the probability of intimate collaboration in plot and characterization. The story of the play seems to have been original, though several of the motives are common enough. There is marked indebtedness to _Hamlet_, and much resemblance to _Cymbeline_, though Thorndike has argued plausibly for the view that in the latter case Shakespeare was the borrower.

THE MAID’S TRAGEDY

As in the case of _Philaster_, the first quarto of the _The Maid’s Tragedy_ (1619) is corrupt and unauthorized. The second quarto (1622), with Thorndike’s collations of the first and third (1630), is the basis for the present text. The date of composition is probably about 1609-11. There is more agreement here than in the case of _Philaster_ as to the respective shares of the joint authors. Most critics give Fletcher II. ii; IV. i; V. i. 1-111; V. ii; the rest to Beaumont, with the exception of I. ii, which is uncertain. Macaulay gives II. ii. also to Beaumont. The source of the plot has not been found, though minor resemblances have been noted, such as that of the duel between Aspatia and Amintor, to the fight between Parthenia and Amphialus in Sidney’s _Arcadia_, book iii, and that of the quarrel between Melantius and Amintor to that between Brutus and Cassius in _Julius Caesar_.

THE FAITHFUL SHEPHERDESS

The first quarto of _The Faithful Shepherdess_ is undated, but it was certainly issued before May, 1610, and the play had been unsuccessfully produced not long before, perhaps in 1608 or 1609. The present text is based on the first edition, and is dependent on the collations in the Glover and Waller edition of Beaumont and Fletcher. Fletcher’s chief model in this pastoral seems to have been Guarini’s _Pastor Fido_, and some few details are borrowed from Spenser; but the plot itself seems to be original. The play, as Fletcher confesses in his address _To the Reader_, was unsuccessful on the stage, but the beauty of its lyric and descriptive poetry has given it, in spite of its weak dramatic quality, a distinguished place in literature. It is notable also as having in part suggested Milton’s _Comus_.

THE WILD-GOOSE CHASE

_The Wild-Goose Chase_, we are told by the publisher of the first folio edition of Beaumont and Fletcher, was lost when that volume was compiled; it reappeared later, and was issued separately, in folio, in 1652. A second edition appeared in the folio of 1679. The present text is based on the reprint of Waller, following, however, the edition of 1652 in preference to that of 1679. The comedy is known to have been acted as early as 1621. No source for the plot seems as yet to have been found. Farquhar based on it his comedy of _The Inconstant_, a fact which points to the obvious relationship between the Fletcherian comedy, of which this is a typical example, and the drama of the Restoration.

THE DUCHESS OF MALFI

The first edition of _The Duchess of Malfi_ appeared in quarto in 1623, and was followed by others in 1640, 1678, and 1708. The present text follows chiefly the Harvard copy of the first quarto, with occasional readings supplied by Sampson’s collation of the other editions. The date of first performance cannot be later than 1614, since the actor who created the part of Antonio died in that year. The main plot is taken from Painter’s _Palace of Pleasure_, vol. II, Nov. 23 (1567). Painter translated his story from Belle-Forest’s paraphrase (1565) of the twenty-sixth novella of Bandello (1554). The story appears in many places, and had been dramatized by Lope de Vega. Crawford (_Notes and Queries_, Sept. 17-Nov. 12, 1904) has shown many incidental and even literal borrowings from Sidney’s _Arcadia_. Among the elements in the play not found in Painter are the underplot of Julia and the Cardinal, the scenes of torture, and the most of the fifth act. Some of these are derived from the tradition of the tragedy of revenge, especially as represented by Shakespeare, Marston, and Tourneur; but, in spite of frequent echoes, this impressive tragedy, almost the last of its kind, derives its vitality mainly from the powerful and sombre imagination of Webster.

A TRICK TO CATCH THE OLD ONE

This comedy was licensed October 7, 1607, and published in quarto in 1608. A second edition appeared in 1616. The present text is based directly on the copy of the first quarto in the Boston Public Library, with the aid of the readings from the second quarto given by Bullen. The plot is supposed to have given Massinger a suggestion for _A New Way to Pay Old Debts_, but where Middleton found it, if he did not originate it, is not known. This play is an excellent example of Middleton’s comedies of intrigue and manners, full of bustle and fun, more careful of theatrical effect than of moral or aesthetic consistency.

THE CHANGELING

_The Changeling_ was performed as early as 1623, but did not appear in print till 1653. On a copy of this quarto in the Harvard Library the present text is based. The source of the tragic plot is the fourth history in book i. of John Reynolds’s _Triumph of God’s Revenge against Murder_ (1621), but the prose narrative is not followed closely. The under-plot, which gives its title to the play, may be original. Miss Wiggin assigns to Rowley the whole under-plot, and the opening and closing scenes of the main plot. Symons finds the greatness of the play as a whole due to the collaboration of the two authors, and beyond the powers of either alone (Cf. Camb. Hist. of Eng. Lit., vi. 76-7).

A NEW WAY TO PAY OLD DEBTS

This play, Massinger’s masterpiece in comedy, appeared in quarto in 1633, and on the Harvard Library copy of this edition the present text is based. The play was acted before 1626, and Fleay places it as early as 1622. Few plays of this whole period have held the English stage so continuously or so long as this. The central idea of the plot seems to have been taken from Middleton’s _A Trick to Catch the Old One_; but there is almost as great a difference in the dramatic method between the two plays as there is in moral tone. Massinger’s didacticism here finds eloquent expression, without destroying theatrical effectiveness. Prototypes of Sir Giles Overreach and Greedy have been found in the notorious monopolist, Sir Giles Mompesson and his tool, Michael.

THE BROKEN HEART

The only early edition of _The Broken Heart_ was published in 1633, and the present text is based on a copy of this quarto in the Boston Public Library. There is no evidence as to the date of composition except the hitherto unnoted fact that _The Garland of Good Will_, mentioned in IV. ii. 15, was published in 1631. The prologue seems to imply that the plot of the play is founded on fact, and Sherman has argued plausibly that the reference is to the story of Penelope Devereux, Sidney’s “Stella,” whose second husband Ford had eulogised in his first publication, _Fame’s Memorial_ (1606). It is certain that Ford was interested in both Sidney and Stella, and there are many correspondences between their situation and that of Orgilus and Penthea. The catastrophe is, of course, entirely changed; but in the spiritual situation there is much to recall the sonnets of Astrophel to Stella. There are traces of the influence of the _Arcadia_ also in the play, such as the laying of the plot in Sparta; and in the delineation of the jealousy of Bassanes Ford draws upon Burton’s _Anatomy of Melancholy_.

THE LADY OF PLEASURE

_The Lady of Pleasure_ was published in quarto in 1637, and the present text is based on a copy of this edition in the Harvard Library. The play, a good example of Shirley’s comedy of manners, was produced in 1635. No source has been discovered for the plot. Like Fletcher’s _Wild-Goose Chase_, this type of Shirley’s comedies is important in measuring the approach made toward the Restoration comedy before the Puritan Revolution.

THE CARDINAL

This tragedy, regarded by Shirley as his greatest play, and in fact no unworthy piece to close a volume representing the drama of that age, appeared in a volume of _Six New Plays_ in 1653, the date on the title-page of _The Cardinal_ being 1652. On a copy of this octavo in the Harvard Library the present text is based. The play was acted in 1641, and thus belongs to the last few months before the theatres were closed by the Long Parliament. It is probable that Webster’s _Duchess of Malfi_ afforded more than a suggestion for the plot, but otherwise no source has been found. The play was popular both on its first appearance and when it was revived after the Restoration.

BIBLIOGRAPHIES

GENERAL WORKS ON THE ELIZABETHAN DRAMA

REGISTER OF THE STATIONERS’ COMPANY, 1554-1640. Transcript by E. Arber. 5 vols. 1875-94.

HENSLOWE’S DIARY. Ed. W. W. Greg. 2 vols. 1904.

COLLIER (J. P.), History of English Dramatic Poetry. New ed. 3 vols. 1879.

FLEAY (F. G.), Biographical Chronicle of the English Drama, 1559-1642. 2 vols. 1891.

FLEAY (F. G.), A Chronicle History of the London Stage, 1890.

WARD (A. W.), History of English Dramatic Literature to the Death of Queen Anne. 2d ed. 3 vols. 1899.

GREG (W. W.), A List of English Plays written before 1643 and printed before 1700. Bibliographical Society. 1900.

CREIZENACH (W.), Geschichte des neueren Dramas. Vols. I-IV. Halle, 1893-1909.

THORNDIKE (A. H.), Tragedy. Boston, 1908.

SCHELLING (F. E.), Elizabethan Drama. Boston, 1908.

HAZLITT (W.), Lectures on the Dramatic Poets of the Age of Elizabeth, in Works, ed. Waller and Glover, vol. VI., 1903.

LAMB (C.), Specimens of English Dramatic Poets. Ed. Gollancz (I.), 2 vols. 1908.

COLERIDGE (S. T.), Literary Remains, vol. II., 1836.

SYMONDS (J. A.), Shakespere’s Predecessors in the English Drama. 1881.

LOWELL (J. R.), The Old English Dramatists, 1892.

SWINBURNE (A. C.), The Age of Shakespeare, 1908.

The Cambridge History of English Literature, vols. V. and VI. Cambridge, 1910.

The Dictionary of National Biography (for lives of the dramatists).

JOHN LYLY

ORIGINAL EDITIONS

Campaspe, 1584. Sapho and Phao, 1584. Endymion, 1591. Gallathea, 1592. Midas, 1592. Mother Bombie, 1594. The Woman in the Moon, 1597. Love’s Metamorphosis, 1601.

COLLECTED EDITIONS

Blount (E.), Six Court Comedies, 1632.—Fairholt (F. W.), 2 vols., 1858.—Bond (R. W.), 3 vols., Oxford, 1902.

ENDYMION

Ed. Baker (G. P.), New York, 1894.

CRITICISM, etc.[4408]

Child (C. G.), John Lyly and Euphuism, in Münchener Beiträge, VII., Erlangen and Leipzig, 1894.—Halpin (N. J.), Oberon’s Vision in M. N. Dream, illustrated by comparison with Lyly’s Endymion, [Old] Shakespeare Soc. Pub. 1843.—Long (P. W.), The Purport of Lyly’s Endymion, Pub. Mod. Lang. Ass. Amer., XXIV., 1909.—Feuillerat (A.), John Lyly, Cambridge, 1910.—Brooke (C. F. T.), The Allegory in Lyly’s Endymion, Mod. Lang. Notes, Jan. 1911.

GEORGE PEELE

ORIGINAL EDITIONS

Arraignment of Paris, 1584. Edward I, 1593. Battle of Alcazar, 1594. Old Wives Tale, 1596. David and Bethsabe, 1599.

COLLECTED EDITIONS

Dyce (A.), 3 vols. 1828-39; 1861, 1879.—Bullen (A. H), 2 vols. 1888.

OLD WIVES TALE

Ed. Gummere (F. B.), in Gayley’s Representative English Comedies, 1903.—Greg (W. W.), In Malone Society Reprints, 1907.

CRITICISM, etc.

Lämmerhirt (R.), George Peele, Untersuchungen über sein Leben und seine Werke. Rostock, 1882.—Bayley (A. R.), Peele as a Dramatic Artist. The Oxford Point of View, 15 Feb. 1903.—Odell (G. C.), Peele as a Dramatist. The Bibliographer, vol. II., 1903.

ROBERT GREENE

ORIGINAL EDITIONS

Orlando Furioso, 1594; 1599. Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay, 1594; 1599; 1630; 1655. James the Fourth, 1598. Alphonsus of Aragon, 1599. A Looking Glass for London and England (with Lodge), 1594.

COLLECTED EDITIONS

Dyce (A.), 2 vols. 1831; 1861,1879.—Grosart (A. B.), 15 vols. 1881-6.—Collins (J. C), 2 vols. Oxford, 1905.—Dickinson (T. A.), six plays in Mermaid Series, 1909.

FRIAR BACON AND FRIAR BUNGAY

Ed. Manly (J. M.), in Specimens of Pre-Shakespearean Drama, Boston, 1897-8.—Ward (A. W.), in Old English Drama, Oxford, 1878; New ed. 1901.—Gayley (C. M.), in Representative English Comedies, 1903.

CRITICISM, etc.

Conrad (H.), Robert Greene als Dramatiker, in Shak. Jahrbuch, XXIX., 1894.—Ehrke (K.) Robert Greene’s Dramen, 1904.—Woodberry (G.), Greene’s Place in Comedy, in Gayley’s Representative English Comedies, 1903.—Ritter (O.), De Rob. Greeni Fabula, Fr. Bacon et Fr. Bungay, Thorn, 1886.

CHRISTOPHER MARLOWE

ORIGINAL EDITIONS

Tamburlaine the Great (parts i and ii), 1590; 1592; part i, 1605; part ii, 1606. Dr. Faustus, 1604; 1609; 1616; 1619; 1620; 1624; 1631; 1663. The Jew of Malta, 1633. Edward II, 1594; 1598; 1612; 1622. The Massacre at Paris, n. d. Dido, Queen of Carthage (with Nashe), 1594.

COLLECTED EDITIONS

Robinson (G.), 3 vols. 1826.—Dyce (A.), 3 vols., 1850, 1858; 1 vol., 1865, 1876.—Cunningham (F), 1871. —Bullen (A. H.), 3 vols., 1884-5.—Breymann (H.), and Wagner (A.), 1885-9.—Ellis (H.), five plays in Mermaid Series, 1887.—Brooke (C. F. T.), 1 vol., Oxford, 1910.

TAMBURLAINE

Ed. Vollmöller (K.), Heilbronn, 1885.

DR. FAUSTUS

Ed. Wagner (W.), 1877—-Ward (A. W.), in Old English Drama, Oxford, new ed. 1891.—Gollancz, (I.), in Temple Dramatists, 1897.

THE JEW OF MALTA

Ed. Thayer (W. R.), in Best Elizabethan Plays, Boston, 1890.

EDWARD II

Ed. Wagner (W.), Hamburg. 1871.—Fleay (F. G.), 1873, 1877.—Tancock (O. W.), Oxford, 1879, 1899.—Verity (A. W.), in Temple Dramatists, 1896.—McLaughlin (E. T.), New York, 1894.

CRITICISM, etc.

Ingram (J. H.), Christopher Marlowe and his Associates, 1904, _q. v._ for further bibliography.—Tzschaschel (C.), Marlowe’s Edward II und seine Quelle, Halle, 1902.

THOMAS KYD

ORIGINAL EDITIONS

Cornelia, 1594, 1595. The Spanish Tragedy, 1592(?), 2d ed. n. d., 1594, 1599; with additions, 1602, 1610, 1615, 1618, 1623, 1633. The First Part of Jeronimo, 1605. Soliman and Perseda, 1599.

COLLECTED EDITIONS

Boas (F. S.), Oxford, 1901.

THE SPANISH TRAGEDY

Ed. Manly (J. M.), in Specimens, vol. II., 1897-8.—Schick (J.), in Temple Dramatists, 1898.—Markscheffel (K.), in Litterarhist. Forsch., Berlin, 1901.

CRITICISM, etc.

Sarrazin (G.), Thomas Kyd und sein Kreis, Berlin, 1892. (Cf. Schick in Herrig’s Archiv, XC.; Koeppel in Englische Studien, XVIII. 125.)—Bang (W.), Engl. Stud. XXVIII. 229.—Brereton (J. LeG.), Notes on the text of Kyd, Engl. Stud., XXXVII.—Crawford (C.), Concordance to the Works of T. Kyd, in Bang’s Materialien, Louvain, 1909.

GEORGE CHAPMAN

ORIGINAL EDITIONS

The Blind Beggar of Alexandria, 1598. A Humorous Day’s Mirth, 1599. All Fools, 1605. Monsieur D’Olive, 1606. The Gentleman Usher, 1606. Bussy D’Ambois, 1607, 1608, 1641, 1646, 1657. The Conspiracy and Tragedy of Charles, Duke of Byron, 1608. May-Day, 1611. The Widow’s Tears, 1612. The Revenge of Bussy D’Ambois, 1613. Pompey and Cæsar, 1631, 1653. Alphonsus of Germany(?), 1654. Revenge for Honour, 1654. Chabot, Admiral of France (with Shirley), 1639.

COLLECTED EDITIONS

Pearson (J.), 1873.—Shepherd (R. H.), 3 vols., 1874; 1889. Phelps (W. L.), five plays in Mermaid Series, 1895.

BUSSY D’AMBOIS

Ed. Boas (F. S.), in Belles Lettres Series, Boston, 1906.

CRITICISM, etc.

Coleridge (S. T.), Literary Remains, I. 259, 1836.—Koeppel (E.), Quellenstudien zu Dramen George Chapman’s, etc., in Quellen und Forschungen, LXXXII., Strassburg. 1897—Parrott (T. M.), Notes on the Text of Chapman’s Plays, Anglia, XXX., 1907.—Stoll (E. E.), On the Dates of Some of Chapman’s Plays, Mod. Lang. Notes, XX., 1905.

BEN JONSON

ORIGINAL EDITIONS

Every Man Out of his Humour, 1600. Every Man in his Humour, 1601 (S. R. 1600). Cynthia’s Revels, 1601. The Poetaster, 1602 (S. R. 1601). Sejanus, 1605 (S. R. 1604). Volpone, 1607. The Case is Altered, 1606. Catiline, 1611. The Alchemist, 1612 (S. R. 1610). Epicoene, or The Silent Woman, 1609(?), 1612(?), (Acted 1609; S. R. 1610), Fol. 1616. The New Inn, 1631 (Acted 1629). Bartholomew Fair, 1631 (Acted 1614). The Devil is an Ass, 1631 (Acted 1616). The Staple of News, 1631 (Acted 1625). The Magnetic Lady, 1640 (S. R. 1632). A Tale of a Tub, 1640 (S. R. 1633). The Sad Shepherd, 1640. Mortimer, his Fall, 1640.

COLLECTED EDITIONS

First Folio, 1616.—Second Folio, 1640.—Whalley (P.), 7 vols., 1756.—Gifford (W.), 9 vols., 1816.—Cunningham (F.), rep. of Gifford, 1871, 1875.—Morley (H.), Plays and Poems of Ben Jonson, 1885.—Herford (C. H.), and Nicholson (B.), 3 vols. in Mermaid Series, 1893-4.—Bang (W.), Reprints from Folios and Quartos in his Materialien; in process.—Eight of the plays have appeared in Yale Studies in English, 1903-8. A new edition by Herford (C. H.) and Simpson (P.) is announced, Oxford.

EVERY MAN IN HIS HUMOUR

Rep. from Q. of 1601 by Graban (C.), Shakespeare Jahrbuch, XXXVIII., 1903; and by Bang (W.) and Greg (W. W.), in Bang’s Materialien, XI., 1905.—Wheatley (H. B.), 1877.—Dixon (W. M.), in Temple Dramatists, 1905.

VOLPONE

Ed. Wilkins (H. B.), New York, 1905, in Yale Studies in English.

THE ALCHEMIST

Ed. Thayer (W. R.), Boston, 1890, in Best Elizabethan Plays.—Hathaway (C. H.), New York, 1903, in Yale Studies in English.—Hart (H. C.), 1903, in The King’s Library.—Schelling (F. E.), Boston, 1903, in Belles Lettres Series.

CRITICISM, etc.

Castelain (M.), Ben Jonson: l’Homme et l’Œuvre. Paris, 1907.—Koeppel (E.), Quellenstudien zu den Dramen Ben Jonson’s, etc., in Münchener Beiträge. XI., Erlangen and Leipzig, 1895.—Swinburne (A. C.), A Study of Ben Jonson, 1889.—Symonds (J. A.), Ben Jonson, 1886.—Woodbridge (E.), Studies in Jonson’s Comedy, Boston, 1898.

THOMAS DEKKER

ORIGINAL EDITIONS

The Shoemakers’ Holiday, 1600, 1610, 1618, 1631, 1657. Old Fortunatus, 1600. Satiro-mastix, 1602. The Honest Whore, part i, 1604, 1605, 1615, 1616, 1635. The Whore of Babylon, 1607. If it be not Good, the Devil is in it, 1612. The Honest Whore, part ii, 1630. Match me in London, 1631. A Wonder of a Kingdom, 1636. Patient Grisel (with Chettle and Haughton), 1603. Westward Ho! (with Webster), 1607. Northward Ho! (with Webster), 1607. Sir Thomas Wyatt (with Webster), 1607. The Witch of Edmonton (with W. Rowley and Ford), 1658. The Roaring Girl (with Middleton), 1611. The Virgin Martyr (with Massinger), 1622.

COLLECTED EDITIONS

Pearson (J.), 4 vols., 1873.—Rhys (E.), five plays in Mermaid Series, 1895.

THE SHOEMAKERS’ HOLIDAY

Ed. Fritsche (H.), Thorn, 1862.—Warnke (K.) and Proescholdt (L.), Halle, 1886.

CRITICISM, etc.

Swinburne (A. C.), Thomas Dekker, The Nineteenth Century, Jan. 1887.—Stoll (E. E.), The Influence of Jonson on Dekker, Mod. Lang. Notes, XXI.

JOHN MARSTON

ORIGINAL EDITIONS

Antonio and Mellida, 1602. Antonio’s Revenge, 1602. The Dutch Courtesan, 1605. Parasitaster, or The Fawn, 1606. The Wonder of Women, or Sophonisba, 1606. What you Will, 1607. The Insatiate Countess, 1613. The Malcontent (with Webster), 1604. Eastward Hoe! (with Chapman and Jonson), 1605.

COLLECTED EDITIONS

Plays. 1633.—Halliwell [-Phillipps] (J. O), 3 vols., 1856.—Bullen (A. H.), 3 vols., 1887.

CRITICISM, etc.

Koeppel (E.), Quellenstudien zu den Dramen Ben Jonson’s, John Marston’s, etc. Münchener Beiträge, XI., Erlangen and Leipzig, 1895—Swinburne (A. C.) in Nineteenth Century, XXIV., 1888.—Wurzbach (W. von), in Shak. Jahrbuch, XXXIII., 1897.—Stoll (E. E.), John Webster, chap, ii, sect, ii, Boston, 1905—Stoll (E. E.), Shakspere, Marston and the Malcontent Type, in Modern Philology, III., 1906.—Aronstein (P.), Marston als Dramatiker, Eng. Studien, XX.

THOMAS HEYWOOD

ORIGINAL EDITIONS

Edward the Fourth, parts i and ii, 1600. If You Know Not Me, You Know Nobody, part i, 1605; part ii, 1606. A Woman Killed with Kindness, 1607, 1617. The Rape of Lucrece, 1608. The Four Prentices of London, 1616. rev 1632. The Fair Maid of the West, part i, 1631; part ii, 1631. The Golden Age, 1610. The Silver Age, 1613. The Brazen Age, 1613. The Iron Age, part i, 1632; part ii, 1632. The English Traveller, 1633. A Maidenhead Well Lost, 1634. A Challenge for Beauty, 1636. The Royal King and the Loyal Subject, 1637. The Wise Woman of Hogsdon, 1638. Love’s Mistress, 1636. The Late Lancashire Witches (with Brome), 1634. Fortune by Land and Sea (with W. Rowley), 1655.

COLLECTED EDITIONS

Pearson’s Reprint, 6 vols., 1874.—Verity (A. W.), five plays in Mermaid Series, 1888.

A WOMAN KILLED WITH KINDNESS

Ed. Collier (J. P.), in Shak. Soc. Pub., 1850.—Ward (A. W.), in Temple Dramatists, 1897.—Cox (F. J.), 1907.

BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER

ORIGINAL EDITIONS OF SINGLE PLAYS BY BOTH AUTHORS

The Woman Hater (probably by Beaumont alone), 1607, 1648, 1649. The Knight of the Burning Pestle, 1613, 1635. Cupid’s Revenge, 1616, 1630, 1635. The Scornful Lady, 1616, 1625, 1630, 1635, 1639, 1651, 1677, 1691, 1695. A King and No King, 1619, 1625, 1631, 1639, 1655, 1661, 1676, 1693. The Maid’s Tragedy, 1619, 1622, 1630, 1638, 1641, 1650, 1661, 1686. Philaster, 1620, 1622, 1630, 1634, 1639, 1651, 1652 (2 edd.), 1660(?), 1687. Thierry and Theodoret, 1621, 1648, 1649.

ORIGINAL EDITIONS OF SINGLE PLAYS BY FLETCHER ALONE

The Faithful Shepherdess, n. d. (prob. 1609), 1629, 1634, 1656, 1665. Henry VIII (with Shakespeare), in Shakespeare Folio of 1623. The Two Noble Kinsmen (with Shakespeare), 1634. The Elder Brother, 1637, 1651, 1661, 1678. Wit Without Money, 1639, 1661. Monsieur Thomas, 1639. The Bloody Brother, 1639, 1640. Rule a Wife and Have a Wife, 1696, 1697. The Night-Walker, 1640, 1661. The Wild-Goose Chase, 1652. The Humorous Lieutenant, 1830 (from a MS. dated 1625).

FIRST FOLIO EDITION OF BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER’S PLAYS (1647)

The Mad Lover. The Spanish Curate. The Little French Lawyer. The Custom of the Country. The Noble Gentleman. The Captain.* The Beggar’s Bush. The Coxcomb.* The False One. The Chauces. The Loyal Subject. The Laws of Candy. The Lover’s Progress. The Island Princess. The Humorous Lieutenant. The Nice Valour, or The Passionate Mailman. The Maid in the Mill. The Prophetess. Bonduca. The Sea Voyage. The Double Marriage. The Pilgrim. The Knight of Malta. The Woman’s Prize, or The Tamer Tamed. Love’s Cure, or The Martial Maid.* The Honest Man’s Fortune. The Queen of Corinth. Women Pleased. A Wife for a Month. Wit at Several Weapons.* Valentinian. The Fair Maid of the Inn. Love’s Pilgrimage. The Masque at the Marriage of the Prince and Princess Palatine of the Rhine. Four Plays in One.*

(Plays followed by an asterisk are believed to be in part by Beaumont: the rest by Fletcher.)

COLLECTED EDITIONS

First Folio, 1647. Fifty Comedies and Tragedies (Second Folio), 1679.—Works of B. and F. (pub. Tonson), 7 vols., 1711.—Theobald, Seward, and Sympson, 10 vols., 1750.—Colman (G.), 10 vols., 1778.—Colman (G.), (with Jonson’s Works), 4 vols., 1811; (without Jonson) 3 Vols., 1811.—Weber (H.), 14 vols. Edin. 1812.—Darley (G.), 2 vols., 1839 (text of Weber).—Dyce (A.), 11 vols., 1843-6; 2 vols., Boston, 1852.—Strachey (J. St. L.), in Mermaid Series, ten plays in 2 vols., 1887.—Builen (A. H.), General editor of Variorum edition by various editors, 12 vols., 1904, (in process).—Glover (A.) and Waller (A. R.), in Cambridge English Classics, 10 vols., 1905. (In process, Text of folio of 1679 with collations of other edd.)

THE KNIGHT OF THE BURNING PESTLE

Ed. Morley (H.), in Burlesque Plays and Poems, Universal Library, 1885.—Moorman (F. W.), in Temple Dramatists, 1898.—Murch (H. S.), in Yale Studies in English, New York, 1908.—Alden (R. M.), in Belles Lettres Series, Boston, 1910.

PRILASTER

Ed. Thayer (W. R.), in Best Elizabethan Plays, Boston, 1890.—Boas (F. S.), in Temple Dramatists, 1898.—Thorndike (A. H.), in Belles Lettres Series, Boston, 1906.

THE MAID’S TRAGEDY

Ed. Thorndike (A. H.), in Belles Lettres Series, Boston, 1906.—Cox (F. J.), 1908.

THE FAITHFUL SHEPHERDESS

Ed. Moorman (F. W.), in Temple Dramatists, 1897.—Fletcher (J. B.), in Belles Lettres Series, announced.

CRITICISM, etc.

Koeppel (E.), Quellenstudien zu den Dramen...Beaumont’s and Fletcher’s, in Münchener Beiträge, XI. 1895.—Leonhardt (B.), Ucber B. and F.’s Knight of the Burning Pestle, Annaberg, 1885. Cf. also Anglia, VIII. 424; XIX. 34; XIX. 509; XXIII. 14; in Engl. Studien, XII. 307; 1885-1903.—Macaulay (G. C.), Francis Beaumont, a critical study, 1883.—Hatcher (O. L.), John Fletcher, a study in dramatic method, Chicago, 1905.—Swinburne (A. C), Beaumont and Fletcher, in Studies in Prose and Poetry, 1894.—Thorndike (A. H.), Influence of B. and F. on Shakespeare, Worcester, Mass., 1901.—Greg (W. W.), Pastoral Poetry and Pastoral Drama, London, 1906.

JOHN WEBSTER

ORIGINAL EDITIONS

The White Devil, 1612. The Duchess of Malfi, 1623, 1640, 1678. The Devil’s Law-case, 1623. Appins and Virginia, 1654. A Cure for a Cuckold (with W. Rowley), 1661. The Thracian Wonder (with W. Rowley), 1661. Induction to The Malcontent, 1604.

COLLECTED EDITIONS

Dyce (A.), 4 vols., 1830, 1867.—Hazlitt (W.), 4 vols., 1857.-Symonds (J. A.), two plays in Mermaid Series, 1888.

THE DUCHESS OF MALFI

Ed. Thayer (W. R.), In Best Elizabethan Plays, Boston. 1890.—Vaughan (C. E.), in Temple Dramatists, 1896.—Sampson (M. W.), in Belles Lettres Series, Boston, 1904.

CRITICISM, etc.

Gosse (E.), in Seventeenth Century Studies, 1883.—Stoll (E. E.), John Webster, the Periods of his work, Boston, 1905.—Pierce (F. E.), The Collaboration of Webster and Dekker, in Yale Studies in English, New York, 1909.—Kiesow (K.), Die Verschichenen Bearbeitungen der Novelle von der Herzogin v. Amalfi, Anglia, XVII. 198.

THOMAS MIDDLETON

ORIGINAL EDITIONS

Blurt, Master-Constable, 1602. The Phoenix, 1607, 1630. Michaelmas Term, 1607. A Trick to Catch the Old One, 1608, 1616. The Family of Love, 1608. A Mad World, my Masters, 1608. Your Five Gallants, n. d. (lic. 1608). A Game at Chess, 1625. A Chaste Maid in Cheapside, 1630. Women Beware Women, 1657. More Dissemblers Besides Women, 1657. No Wit, No Help like a Woman’s, 1657. The Mayor of Quinborough, 1661. Anything for a Quiet Life, 1662. The Witch, 1778. A Fair Quarrel (with W. Rowley), 1617. The Changeling (with W. Rowley), 1653. The Spanish Gipsy (with W. Rowley), 1653. The Old Law (with Massinger and W. Rowley), 1656. The Roaring Girl (with Dekker), 1611. The Widow (with Jonson and Fletcher), 1652.

COLLECTED EDITIONS

Dyce (A.), 5 vols., 1840.—Bullen (A. H.), 8 vols., 1885-6.—Swinburne (A. C), and Ellis (H.), ten plays, in Mermaid Series, 1890.

CRITICISM, etc.

Wiggin (P. G.), An Enquiry into the authorship of the Middleton-Rowley Plays, in Radcliffe College Monographs, Boston, 1897.—Christ (K.), Quellenstudien zu den Dramen Thomas Middleton’s, 1905.

WILLIAM ROWLEY

ORIGINAL EDITIONS

A Search for Money, 1609. A New Wonder, a Woman Never Vext, 1632. A Match at Midnight, 1633. All’s Lost by Lust, 1633. A Shoemaker a Gentleman, 1638. The Changeling (with Middleton), 1653. And many other collaborated plays.

CRITICISM, etc.

Stork (C. W.), Rowley’s Place in the Drama, in his ed. of All’s Lost by Lust, etc., Philadelphia, 1910.—Wiggin (P. G.), An Enquiry into the authorship of the Middleton-Rowley Plays, Boston, 1897.

PHILIP MASSINGER

ORIGINAL EDITIONS

The Virgin Martyr (with Dekker), 1622. The Duke of Milan, 1623. The Bondman, 1624. The Roman Actor, 1629. The Renegado, 1630. The Picture, 1630. The Maid of Honour, 1632. The Emperor of the East, 1632. The Fatal Dowry (with N. Field), 1632. A New Way to Pay Old Debts, 1633. The Great Duke of Florence, 1636. The Unnatural Combat, 1639. The Guardian. 1655. A Very Woman, 1655. The Bashful Lover, 1655. The City Madam, 1658. The Parliament of Love (lic. 1624), 1805. Believe as you List (S. R. 1653), 1849.

COLLECTED EDITIONS

Coxeter (T.), 4 Vols., 1759, 1761.—Mason (T. M.), 4 vols., 1779.—Gifford (W.), 4 vols., 1805, 1813, 1845, 1850; ed. Cunningham (F.), 1870.—Coleridge (H.), with Ford, 1 vol., 1840.—Symons (A.), in Mermaid Series, ten plays in two vols., 1887-89.

A NEW WAY TO PAY OLD DEBTS

Ed. Stronach (G.), in Temple Dramatists, 1904.

CRITICISM, etc.

Stephen (Sir L.), in Cornhill Magazine, Oct., 1877 (also in Hours in a Library, III., 1879).—Swinburne (A. C), in Fortnightly Review, July, 1889.—Tréverret (A. de). Étude sur Massinger, Revue de l’enseignement des langues vivantes, Dec. 1886, Jan. 1887.—Wurzbach (W. von), in Shakespeare Jahrbuch, XXXV. 214, XXXVI. 128.—Koeppel (E.), Quellenstudien, in Quellen und Forschungen, LXXXII., Strassburg, 1897.—Gardiner (S. R.), The Political Element in Massinger, Contemporary Review, XXVIII., 1876 (also New Shak. Soc. Trans., 1876).—Phelan (J.), Anglia, II., 1879.

JOHN FORD

ORIGINAL EDITIONS

The Lover’s Melancholy, 1629. The Broken Heart, 1633. Love’s Sacrifice, 1633. ’T is Pity She’s a Whore, 1633. Perkin Warbeck, 1634. The Fancies, Chaste and Noble, 1638. The Lady’s Trial, 1639. The Witch of Edmonton (with Dekker and W. Rowley). 1658.

COLLECTED EDITIONS

Weber (H.), 2 vols., 1811.—Gifford (W.), 2 vols., 1827; w. additions by Dyce (A.), 3 vols., 1869, 1895.—Coleridge (H.), (with Massinger’s Works), 1840.—Ellis (H.), five plays in Mermaid Series, 1888.—Bang (W.), Louvain, 1908 (in process).

THE BROKEN HEART

Ed. Scollard (C.), New York, 1905.—Smeaton (O.), in Temple Dramatists, 1906.

CRITICISM, etc.

Koeppel (E.), Quellenstudien zu den Dramen ... John Ford’s, in Quellen und Forschungen, LXXXII., Strassburg, 1897.—Swinburne (A. C.), in Essays and Studies, 1888.—Wolff (M.), John Ford, ein Nachahmer Shakespeare’s, Heidelberg, 1880.—Sherman (S. P.), Stella and The Broken Heart, in Publ. Mod. Lang. Ass. Amer. XXIV., 274, 1909; see also his Introduction to Bang’s Ford, and his MS. dissertation in the archives of Harvard University Library.—Pierce (F. E.), The Sequence of Ford’s Plays, The Nation, N. Y., Jan. 5, 1911.

JAMES SHIRLEY

ORIGINAL EDITIONS

The Wedding, 1629. The Grateful Servant, 1630. The School of Compliment, 1631, as Love Tricks, 1637, 1667. Changes, or Love in a Maze, 1632. The Witty Fair One, 1633. The Bird in a Cage, 1633. The Traitor, 1635. Hyde Park, 1637. The Gamester, 1637. The Young Admiral, 1637. The Example, 1637. The Lady of Pleasure, 1637. The Duke’s Mistress, 1638. The Royal Master, 1638. The Maid’s Revenge, 1639. Love’s Cruelty, 1640. The Opportunity, 1640. The Coronation (lic. 1635), 1640. The Constant Maid, 1640, as Love Will Find Out a Way, 1667. St Patrick for Ireland, 1640. The Humorous Courtier, 1640. The Arcadia, 1640. Six New Plays, viz., The Brothers, The Doubtful Heir, The Imposture, The Cardinal, The Sisters, The Court Secret, 1652-3. The Politician, 1655. The Gentleman of Venice, 1655. Honoria and Mammon, 1659. The Contention of Ajax and Ulysses, 1659. The Ball (with Chapman), 1639. Chabot, Admiral of France (with Chapman), 1639.

COLLECTED EDITIONS

Gifford (W.) and Dyce (A.), 6 vols., 1833.—Gosse (E.), six plays, in Mermaid Series, 1888.

CRITICISM, etc.

Swinburne (A. C.), in Fortnightly Review, April, 1890.—Stiefel (A. L.), Die Nachahmung spanischer Komödien in England, in Romanische Forschungen. V. 193, 1890.—Nissen (P.), James Shirley, Hamburg, 1901.—Gärtner (O.), Shirley, sein Leben und Werken, Halle, 1904.

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES

JOHN LYLY

John Lyly was born in Kent about 1554. His father was Peter Lyly, Registrar of Canterbury, and his grandfather the well-known grammarian, William Lyly, the friend of Colet and More. He entered Magdalen College, Oxford, in 1569, whence he graduated B. A. in 1573, and M. A. in 1575. Here he was more distinguished for wit than for scholarship. Going up to London, and living at first under the protection of Burleigh, be produced in 1578 his _Euphues: the Anatomy of Wit_, which was followed in 1580 by _Euphues and his England_, both of which gained a great and immediate popularity. He was now attached to the Earl of Oxford. _Campaspe_, his first play, was performed in 1581, and most of his dramatic work was done in that decade. _The Woman in the Moon_, however, may have been produced as late as 1594-5. In 1583, Lyly married Beatrice Browne, a well-connected lady, who bore him eight children. From 1588 he seems to have held an honorary position as Esquire of the Body to the Queen, and he lived for years in the vain hope of succeeding to the office of Master of the Revels. Between 1589 and 1601 he sat in four parliaments, and in his _Pappe with an Hatchet_ (1589) he took part with the Bishops in the Marprelate controversy. In spite of the distinction which Lyly won by his literary work, be failed to obtain from the Queen the substantial preferment which he craved, and he died in 1606, a disappointed place-seeker. Lyly’s reputation has depended largely on the extraordinary vogue of his _Euphues_, and the immense influence of the style of that work on the prose of the time; but he holds also a highly important position in the development of polite comedy in England.

GEORGE PEELE

The date of Peele’s birth is unknown, but is conjecturally placed about 1558. In 1565 he was a free scholar at Christ’s Hospital, of which his father was clerk, and in 1571 he went to Oxford. He was a student first at Broadgates Hall (now Pembroke College), and later at Christ Church, whence he graduated B. A. in 1577, and M. A. in 1579. From the University, where he had already achieved some reputation as a poet, he went to London, and apparently plunged at once into the irregularities that wrecked his career, for in the same year the governors of Christ’s Hospital forced his father to turn him out of the precincts of the hospital. His wife, whom he had married by 1583, brought him some property, which he soon dissipated; and he became a member of that group of authors who wrote plays, pageants, and all sorts of occasional productions, in the uncertain hope of earning a living. The famous _Jests_, fathered on Peele, are probably quite unauthentic; but there is an unfortunate appropriateness in many of them to his known mode of life. He seems to have been an actor as well as a playwright. Meres mentions him in _Palladis Tamia_ (1598) as dead.