NOTE

I have found it convenient, especially in Appendix A, to use the symbol < following a date, to indicate an uncertain date not earlier than that named, and the symbol > followed by a date, to indicate an uncertain date not later than that named. Thus 1903 < > 23 would indicate the composition date of any part of this book. I have sometimes placed the date of a play in italics, where it was desirable to indicate the date of production rather than publication.

The documents from J. R. Dasent, Acts of the Privy Council (1890–1907), are reprinted by permission of the Controller of His Majesty’s Stationery Office.

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XXIV ANONYMOUS WORK

[Here I bring together, giving them the same treatment as the individual works in ch. xxiii, pieces of which the authorship, as regards the whole or a large part, is unknown or conjectural. They are grouped as (A) Plays, (B) Masks, (C) Receptions and Entertainments. It has been convenient, for the sake of classification, to include in the third group a few which might alternatively have been brought into ch. xxiii under the name of a part-author or describer.]

A. PLAYS

An Alarum for London > 1600

S. R. 1600, May 27. ‘Allarum to London’ is included in a memorandum of ‘my lord chamberlens menns plaies Entred’ and noted as entered on this day to J. Roberts (Arber, iii. 37).

1600, May 29. ‘The Allarum to London, provided that yt be not printed without further Aucthoritie.’ John Roberts (Arber, iii. 161).

1602. A Larum for London, or The Siedge of Antwerpe. With the ventrous actes and valorous deeds of the lame Soldier. As it hath been playde by the right Honorable the Lord Chamberlaine his Seruants. For William Ferbrand. [Prologue and Epilogue.]

Editions by R. Simpson (1872), J. S. Farmer (1912, T.F.T.), and W. W. Greg (1913, M.S.R.).

The play has been ascribed to Shakespeare by Collier, to Shakespeare and Marston by Simpson, and to Lodge by Fleay, Shakespeare, 291, but no serious case has been made out for any of these claims. Bullen, Marlowe, 1, lxxiv, says that Collier had a copy with doggerel rhymes on the t.p. including the line,

which Bullen calls ‘a very ridiculous piece of forgery’.

Albion Knight > 1566

S. R. 1565–6. ‘A play intituled a merye playe bothe pytthy and pleasaunt of Albyon knyghte.’ Thomas Colwell (Arber, i. 295).

Fragment in Devonshire collection.

[The t.p. is lost, but the seventeenth-century play lists (Greg, Masques, xlvii) include an interlude called Albion. A fragment on Temperance and Humility, conjecturally assigned by Collier, i. 284, to the same play, is of earlier printing by thirty years or so (M.S.C. i. 243).]

[2]

Editions by J. P. Collier (1844, Sh. Soc. Papers, i. 55) and W. W. Greg (1910, M. S. C. i. 229).—Dissertations: M. H. Dodds, The Date of A. K. (1913, 3 Library, iv. 157); G. A. Jones, The Political Significance of A. K. (1918, J. G. P. xvii. 267).

Collier suggests that this was the play disliked at court on 31 Dec. 1559, but, as Fleay, 66, points out, that would hardly have been licensed for printing. Dodds thinks it motived by the Pilgrimage of Grace (1536–7) and written shortly after.

Alice and Alexis

A fragment (to iii. 1) of a play on the loves of Alice and Alexis, thwarted by Tanto, with an argument of the whole, is in Douce MS. 171 (Bodl. 21745), f. 48v. The date ‘1604’ is scribbled amongst the pages. The manuscript also contains sixteenth-century accounts. There seems nothing to connect this with Massinger’s Alexius, or the Chaste Lover, licensed by Herbert on 25 Sept. 1639 and apparently included in Warburton’s list of burnt plays (3 Library, ii. 232, 249).

Alphonsus, Emperor of Germany > 1636

S. R. 1653, Sept. 9. ‘A play called Alphonso, Emperor of Germany, by John Poole.’ H. Moseley (Eyre, i. 428).

1654. The Tragedy of Alphonsus Emperour of Germany. As it hath been very often Acted (with great applause) at the Privat house in Black-Friers by his late Maiesties Servants. By George Chapman Gent. For Humphrey Moseley. [Epistle to the Reader. The B.M. copy of the play is dated ‘Novemb. 29, 1653’.]

Editions by K. Elze (1867) and H. F. Schwarz (1913), and in collections of Chapman (q.v.).

Alphonsus may reasonably be identified with the Alfonso given before the Queen and the Elector Palatine at the Blackfriars on 5 May 1636 (Cunningham, xxiv). The ascription on the title-page to Chapman is repeated therefrom by Langbaine who rejects that of Kirkman in 1661 and 1671 (Greg, Masques, xlviii) to Peele, but the intimate knowledge of German shown in the dialogue has led Elze and Ward, ii. 428, to give Chapman a German collaborator, conceivably one Rudolf Weckerlin of Würtemberg, who after a preliminary visit before 1614 settled permanently in England about 1624 and obtained political employment, which he varied with literary exercises. Later critics are inclined to reject Chapman’s authorship altogether, and the case against it has been effectively put by E. Koeppel, Quellen-Studien zu den Dramen Chapman’s, 78, and Parrott. The ascription to Peele has been revived by Robertson, T. A. 123, and though Parrott does not accept the full argument, he agrees in regarding the play as originally of Peele’s date, possibly by him, with or

without a collaborator, and drastically revised at a later period, perhaps by Weckerlin in 1636. Fleay, ii. 156, 311, also accepts Peele and identifies the play with Harry of Cornwall,[3] revived by Strange’s for Henslowe on 25 Feb. 1592, but, as Greg (Henslowe, ii. 151) points out, the character in Alphonsus is not Henry, but Richard of Cornwall. It must be observed that no critic has noticed the S. R. ascription to John Poole, which may quite well be the origin of Kirkman’s ‘Peele’. Who John Poole was, I do not know.

Apius and Virginia > 1567–8

S. R. 1567–8. ‘A Tragedy of Apius and Virgine.’ Richard Jones (Arber, i. 357).

1575. A new Tragicall Comedie of Apius and Virginia, Wherein is liuely expressed a rare example of the vertue of Chastitie, by Virginias constancy, in wishing rather to be slaine at her owne Fathers handes, then to be deflowred of the wicked Iudge Apius. By R. B. William How for Richard Jones. [Prologue and Epilogue.]

Editions in Dodsley3, 4 (1825–76), and by J. S. Farmer (1908, T. F. T.) and R. B. McKerrow (1911, M. S. R.).

‘Haphazard, the Vice’ is a character. The stage-directions name ‘the stage’, ‘the scaffold’. A prologue addresses ‘lordings’; an epilogue has a prayer for the queen, nobles, and commons. The play is not controversial, but the tone is Protestant. Fleay, 61, thinks it a Westminster play of 1563–4; but no Westminster play of 1563–4 is on record. If Fleay means 1564–5, the Westminster play of that Christmas was Miles Gloriosus. There is nothing but the initials to identify the author with Richard Bower of the Chapel (q.v.), but the suggestion is more plausible than that of Wallace, i. 108, who gives the play to Richard Edwardes (q.v.), finding that the ‘R. E.’ subscribed to some of his manuscript poems is capable of being misread ‘R. B.’.

Arden of Feversham > 1592

S. R. 1592, April 3 (Bishop of London). ‘The tragedie of Arden of Feuersham and Blackwall.’ Edward White (Arber, ii. 607). [See s.v. Kyd, Spanish Tragedy, for the record of a piracy of the play in 1592 by Abel Jeffes.]

1592. The Lamentable and True Tragedie of M. Arden of Feuersham in Kent. Who was most wickedlye murdered, by the meanes of his disloyall and wanton wyfe, who for the love she bare to one Mosbie, hyred two desperat ruffins Blackwill and Shakbag, to kill him. Wherin is shewed the great mallice and discimulation of a wicked woman, the vnsatiable desire of filthie lust and the shamefull end of all murderers. For Edward White. [Epilogue.]

1599. J. Roberts for Edward White.

1633. Eliz. Allde.

Editions by E. Jacob (1770), A. H. Bullen (1887), R. Bayne (1897, T. D.), J. S. Farmer (1911, T. F. T.), and in Sh. Apocrypha.—Dissertations: C. E. Donne, Essay on the Tragedy of A. of F. (1873); C. Crawford, The Authorship of A. of F. (1903, Jahrbuch, xxxix. 74; Collectanea, i. 101); W. Miksch, Die Verfasserschaft des A. of F. (1907,[4] Breslau diss.); K. Wiehl, Thomas Kyd und die Autorschaft von ... A. of F. (1912, E. S. xliv. 356); H. D. Sykes, Sidelights upon Shakespeare, 48 (1919); L. Cust, A. of F. (1920, Arch. Cant. xxxiv. 101).

Jacob first claimed the authorship for Shakespeare. In spite of the advocacy of Swinburne (Study of Sh., 129) modern criticism remains wholly unconvinced. The play has tragic merit, but it is not of a Shakespearian character, and it is impossible to fit its manner, before 1592, into any coherent theory of Shakespeare’s development. More plausible is the case for Kyd, suggested by Fleay, ii. 28, who puts the date as far back as 1585 on quite unreliable grounds of improbable guess-work, and supported by Robertson, T. A. 151, and elaborately argued by Crawford and Sykes. But Boas, Kyd, lxxxix, thinks that the author was more likely an imitator of Kyd, and opinion remains divided. Oliphant (M. P. viii. 420) suggests Kyd and Marlowe, possibly with a third. The theme may also have been that of the Murderous Michael played at court by Sussex’s in 1579.

The Birth of Hercules. 1597 <

[MS.] B.M. Add. MS. 28722. ‘The birthe of hercules.’ [Prologus Laureatus; Mercurius Prologus; after text, ‘Testamentum poetae, ad peleum. Comoedarum pariter et histrionum princeps Peleu, tuo pro iudicio, volo hanc meam Comoediam, vel recitari, vel reticeri: hoc est: aut vivere aut mori. Scripsi, nec poeta, nec moriens: et tamen poeta moriens’. Written in one hand, with stage-directions by a second and corrections by a third and possibly a fourth, on paper datable by the watermark in 1597.]

Editions by M. W. Wallace (1903) and R. W. Bond (1911, M. S. R.).

This is pretty clearly a University play, and any connexion with the Hercules of the Admiral’s men in 1595 is highly improbable. As George Peele died in 1596, it seems difficult to identify him with the Peleus of the MS. Bond thinks that ‘the styles of composition and writing agree in placing a date before 1600 out of the question’.

Caesar’s Revenge > 1606

S. R. 1606, June 5. ‘A booke called Julius Caesars reuenge.’ J. Wright and N. Fosbrook, licensed by Dr. Covell and the wardens (Arber, iii. 323).

N.D. The Tragedie of Caesar and Pompey Or Caesars Reuenge. G. E. for Iohn Wright.

1607.... Priuately acted by the Studentes of Trinity Colledge in Oxford. For Nathaniel Fosbrook and Iohn Wright. [Re-issue with cancel t.p.]

Editions by F. S. Boas (1911, M. S. R.) and W. Mühlfeld (1911, 1912, Jahrbuch, xlvii. 132; xlviii. 37), and J. S. Farmer (S. F. T.).—Dissertations: T. M. Parrott, The Academic Tragedy of C. and P. (1910, M. L. R. v. 435); H. M. Ayres, C. R. (1915, M. L. A. xxx. 771); G. C. Moore Smith, The Tragedy of C. R. (1916, 12 N. Q. ii. 305).

There is no traceable connexion between this and any other of the[5] several plays on Caesar, extant and lost, which are upon record. C. Crawford (M. S. C. i. 290) indicates some parallels which suggest a date of authorship between 1592 and 1596.

Charlemagne or The Distracted Emperor c. 1600

[MS.] Egerton MS. 1994. At the end is the note, ‘Nella Φ δ Φ ν ρ la B’ = ‘Nella fedeltà finirò la vita’.

Editions by A. H. Bullen (1884, O. E. P. iii) and F. L. Schoell (1920).—Dissertation: F. L. Schoell, Un Drame Élisabéthain Anonyme C (1912, Revue Germanique, viii. 155).

Bullen suggests that the author was Chapman, and also thinks Tourneur or Marston conceivable. He quotes Fleay’s opinion in favour of Field. Fleay, ii. 319, withdraws Field and substitutes Dekker. He identifies the play with the ‘King Charlemagne’ of Peele’s Farewell of 1589 (cf. s.v. Peele, Battle of Alcazar). Schoell makes an elaborate case for Chapman, and thinks that the play might be The Fatall Love, a French Tragedy, entered as his in S. R. on 29 June 1660, and included, without author’s name, in Warburton’s list of burnt plays (3 Library, ii. 231). A date later than 1584 is indicated by the use of Du Bartas’s Seconde Semaine of that year. It may be added that the style points to c. 1600 rather than c. 1590.

Claudius Tiberius Nero > 1607

S. R. 1607, April 10 (Buck). ‘A booke called the tragicall Life and Death of Claudius Tiberius Nero.’ Francis Burton (Arber, iii. 346).

1607. The Tragedie of Claudius Tiberius Nero, Rome’s greatest Tyrant. Truly represented out of the purest Records of those Times. For Francis Burton. [Epistle to Sir Arthur Mannering, son of Sir George of Eithfield, Shropshire; Verses Ad Lectores.]

1607. The Statelie Tragedie of Claudius Tiberius Nero.... For Francis Burton. [Another issue.]

Edition by J. S. Farmer (S. F. T.).

The play, which is on Tiberius, not Nero, is to be distinguished from Nero (1624). The epistle, not apparently by the author, says that the play’s ‘Father was an Academician’.

Club Law. 1599–1600

[MS.] St. John’s College, Cambridge, MS. S. 62. [Without t.p. and imperfect; probably identical with a MS. of the play owned by Richard Farmer.]

Edition by G. C. Moore Smith (1907). [Epilogue.]—Dissertation: G. C. Moore Smith, The Date of C. L. (1909, M. L. R. iv. 268).

The play is described by Fuller, Hist. of Cambridge (1655), 156, as given at Clare Hall in 1597–8. But J. S. Hawkins, in his edition of Ruggle’s Ignoramus (1787), xvi, gives the alternative date 1599, and this has now been confirmed by the discovery of manuscript annals of Cambridge, probably by Fuller himself, with the entry, under the[6] academic year 1599–1600, ‘Aula Clarensis. Club Law fabula festivissima data multum ridentibus Academicis, frustra Oppidanis dolentibus’. The play is a satire on the townsmen, and especially the anti-gown mayor of 1599–1600, John Yaxley. Fuller says that the townsmen were invited to the performance and made to sit it through, and that they complained to the Privy Council, who first ‘sent some slight and private check to the principall Actors therein’, and then, when pressed, said that they would come to Cambridge, and see the comedy acted over again in the presence of the townsmen. The fact that there is no record of these letters in the extant register of the Council hardly disproves the

substance of Fuller’s story. Hawkins ascribed the play to Ruggle (q.v.) on the authority of an eighteenth-century memorandum.

Sir Clyomon and Clamydes c. 1570

1599. The Historie of the two valiant Knights, Syr Clyomon knight of the Golden Sheeld, sonne to the King of Denmarke: And Clamydes the White Knight, sonne to the King of Suauia. As it hath been sundry times Acted by her Maiesties Players. Thomas Creede. [Prologue.]

Editions by W. W. Greg (1913, M. S. R.) and J. S. Farmer (S. F. T.), and in collections of Peele.

Subtle Shift ‘the vice’, Providence, and Rumour are among the characters.

Dyce ascribed the play to George Peele on the strength of a manuscript note ‘in a very old hand’ on a copy of the 1599 edition. Bullen thinks it of earlier date than Peele. Greg agrees, regarding it as about contemporary with Common Conditions. L. Kellner, in Englische Studien, xiii. 187, compares the language and style at great length with Peele’s and concludes against his authorship, unless indeed he wrote it in a spirit of parody. His arguments are challenged by R. Fischer in Englische Studien, xiv. 344. Fleay, 70, assigned it, with Common Conditions, to R. Wilson. Later (ii. 295), he substituted R[ichard] B[ower]. He noted a parallel to Thomas Preston’s Cambyses, and suggested as a date 1570 or 1578, the years, according to him, of the original production and of a revival of Cambyses. G. L. Kittredge, in Journal of Germanic Philology, ii. 8, suggests that Preston himself was the author of Sir Clyomon and Clamydes. If the ‘her Maiesties Players’ of the title-page means the later company of that name, the play, if

not written, must have been revived 1583–94. Fleay, ii. 296, further identifies it with The Four Kings licensed for Henslowe (i. 103) in March 1599; but an old Queen’s play would not have needed a licence. An Anglo-German repertory of 1626 includes a ‘Tragikomödie vom König in Dänemark und König in Schweden’ (Herz, 66, 72).

Common Conditions > 1576

S. R. 1576, July 26. ‘A newe and pleasant comedie or plaie after the maner of common condycons.’ John Hunter (Arber, ii. 301). [Clearly ‘maner’ is a misreading of the ‘name’ of the t.p.]

[7]

Q1, N.D. An excellent and pleasant Comedie, termed after the name of the Vice, Common Condicions, drawne out of the most famous historie of Galiarbus Duke of Arabia, and of the good and eeuill successe of him and his two children, Sedmond his sun, and Clarisia his daughter: Set foorth with delectable mirth, and pleasant shewes. William How for John Hunter. [T.p. adds ‘The Players names’ and ‘Six may play this Comedie’; Prologue.]

Q2. Fragment, without t.p. or date, under r.t. ‘A pleasant Comedie called Common Conditions’.

Editions in Brandl, 597 (1898), and by J. S. Farmer (1908, Five Anonymous Plays) from Q2, and by Tucker Brooke (1915, Yale Elizabethan Club Reprints, i) from Q1.

The prologue refers to the audience ‘that sit in place’ and the ‘actours’ that ‘redy stand’. Fleay, ii. 296, suggests the authorship of Richard Bower, on grounds of style.

The Contention of York and Lancaster > 1592

S. R. 1594, March 12. ‘A booke intituled, the firste parte of the Contention of the twoo famous houses of York and Lancaster with the deathe of the good Duke Humfrey and the banishement and Deathe of the Duke of Suffolk and the tragicall ende of the prowd Cardinall of Winchester, with the notable rebellion of Jack Cade and the Duke of Yorkes ffirste clayme vnto the Crowne. Thomas Millington (Arber, ii. 646). [Part i.]

1602, April 19. Transfer from T. Millington to T. Pavier, ‘The first and Second parte of Henry the Vjt, ij bookes’ (Arber, iii. 204). [Parts i and ii.]

1594. The First Part of the Contention betwixt the two famous Houses of Yorke and Lancaster, with the death of the good Duke Humphrey: And the banishment and death of the Duke of Suffolke, and the Tragicall end of the proud Cardinall of Winchester, with the notable Rebellion of Iacke Cade: And the Duke of Yorkes first claime vnto the Crowne. Thomas Creede for Thomas Millington. [Part i.]

1595. The true Tragedie of Richard Duke of Yorke, and the death of good King Henrie the Sixt, with the whole contention betweene the two Houses Lancaster and Yorke, as it was sundrie times acted by the Right Honourable the Earle of Pembrooke his seruants. P. S. for Thomas Millington. [Part ii.]

1600. Valentine Simmes for Thomas Millington. [Part i.]

1600. W. W. for Thomas Millington. [Part ii.]

[1619] N.D. The Whole Contention betweene the two Famous Houses, Lancaster and Yorke. With the Tragicall ends of the good Duke Humfrey, Richard Duke of Yorke, and King Henrie the sixt. Diuided into two Parts: And newly corrected and enlarged. Written by William Shakespeare, Gent. For T. P. [Parts i and ii, printed continuously with Pericles, 1619 (q.v.).]

Editions by J. O. Halliwell (1843, Sh. Soc.), Wright and Clark (1863–6, 1893, Cambridge Shakespeare), W. C. Hazlitt (1875, Sh. Libr.[8] v, vi), F. J. Furnivall and T. Tyler (1886, 1889, 1891, Sh. Q), and J. S. Farmer (S. F. T.).—Dissertations: E. Malone, On the Three Parts of Hen. 6 (1821, Variorum, xviii. 553); R. Grant White, On the Authorship of Hen. 6 (Works of Sh. 1859–65, vii); J. Lee, On the Authorship of 2, 3 Hen. vi and their Originals (N. S. S. Trans. 1875–6, 219); C. F. T. Brooke, The Authorship of 2, 3 Hen. 6 (1912, Trans. of Connecticut Academy, xvii. 141).

The various claims of Marlowe, Kyd, Greene, Peele, Lodge, and Shakespeare himself to the Contention can only be discussed in relation to Shakespeare’s revision of them as 2, 3 Henry VI, which probably belongs approximately to the date of 1 Henry vi, produced by Strange’s on 3 March 1592.