https://lostplays.folger.edu/_mw/api.php?action=feedcontributions&user=MeaghanBrown&feedformat=atomLost Plays Database - User contributions [en]2024-03-29T12:31:59ZUser contributionsMediaWiki 1.39.6https://lostplays.folger.edu/_mw/index.php?title=Tinker_of_Totnes,_The&diff=19437Tinker of Totnes, The2019-09-13T12:56:36Z<p>MeaghanBrown: </p>
<hr />
<div>{{Play<br />
|dramatists=Anon.<br />
|year=1596<br />
|venue=Rose<br />
|company=Admiral's<br />
|probableGenres=Comedy? (Harbage)<br />
|documentarySources=Performance Records (Henslowe's Diary)<br />
|contributors=David McInnis<br />
|wigginsNo=1039<br />
|gregNo=θ<br />
}}<br />
== Historical Records ==<br />
<br />
===Performance Records (''Henslowe's Diary'')===<br />
<br />
[http://www.archive.org/stream/henslowesdiary00unkngoog#page/n102/mode/1up F.21v (Greg I.42)]:<br />
<br />
y<sup>e</sup> 18 of July 1596 ne . . . R[d] at the tyncker of totnes . . . . . . . . . . iij<sup>ll</sup><br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
== Theatrical Provenance ==<br />
'The Tinker of Totnes' was performed by the Admiral’s men as a new play in July 1596.<br />
<br />
<br />
== Probable Genre(s) ==<br />
<!-- This template outputs the probable genres entered in the data section above. You can replace this comment and the line below if you'd like to write about the probable genres in more detail --><br />
{{Play/Probable Genres}}<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
== Possible Narrative and Dramatic Sources or Analogues ==<br />
(information welcome; see [[#"For What It's Worth|'''For What It's Worth''']] below)<br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
<br />
== References to the Play ==<br />
(information welcome)<br />
<br />
<br />
== Critical Commentary ==<br />
'''Robert Boies Sharpe''', noting that the play only received a single performance before the company ceased playing until October 27, inferred that the play was ‘offensive’ and potentially precipitated an inhibition against playing (79). He imagines that the play contained ‘some mild, complimentary propaganda in the Seymours’ favor, imbedded in a play about some merry Tinker and the landing of Brutus on the stone still to be seen in the town’. Although Henslowe inaccurately recorded the date of performance as being Sunday July 18, four days prior to the formal restraint of playing (July 22), Sharpe relied on Greg’s corrected date of July 23 ('''Wiggins''' corrects again to Saturday July 24), and should thus have noticed that the dates rule ‘The Tinker of Totnes’ out from contributing to the inhibition (see Wiggins #1039). Sharpe’s conjecture about ‘political allusion’ involving the Seymours is therefore unfounded, since the premise that led to that conjecture (the play’s ostensible contributory role in the restraint) is false.<br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
<br />
== For What It's Worth ==<br />
<br />
Currently in EEBO TCP, the only substantial narratives about a tinker (one who mends pots, kettles, etc.) are from writers associated with the public theatres: Robert Greene and Thomas Dekker. Neither narrative is concerned with a tradesman from the market town of southern Devon, but each has dramatic potential for a comedy either at the tinker’s expense or in his celebration. <br />
<br />
===Greene===<br />
In ''The Second Part of Conny-Catching'' (1591), Greene tells a ‘true and merry Tale of a Knight, and a Tinker that was a pick-locke’, set in Bolton le Moors in north-west England (Greene, sig. F3r). Numerous of the knight’s tenants complain of having their locks picked in the night, and the chief suspect is the tinker who is known to spend very lavishly about the country. The knight promises to avenge the townsfolk if he can establish the tinker’s guilt, and conveniently the tinker soon arrives at the knight’s house seeking employment. When the tinker comes in to mend pots, he lays out his bag of tools and the knight sifts through them until he discovers the picklocks. Feigning not to recognise what such tools are used for, the knight politely enquires (over drinks) where the tinker will travel to next. Upon learning that Lancaster is the tinker’s destination, the knight asks him to carry a letter to the jailor there (the letter is actually a mittimus, or warrant for arrest – it thus predates Shakespeare’s introduction of the ‘letters sealed’ which Hamlet carries to England, and which would have resulted in Hamlet’s execution). The tinker makes his way to Lancaster hastily and delivers the letter to the jailer, who promptly claps ‘a strong pair of bolts’ on his heels and mocks him by asking whether he can gain freedom by picking his own locks. When the tinker hears the mittimus read out, ‘his hart was cold’ and he went silent, his ‘conscience accused’ (Greene, sig. F4r). There he remained until the next sessions, after which he was hanged in Lancaster.<br />
<br />
===Dekker===<br />
By contrast, in ''The Wonderful Year'' (1603), Dekker recounts the story of a tinker who was pointedly not one of those ‘rascally’ tinkers who prefers to steal purses than mend pots; rather, he was a ‘devout’ and ‘Musicall’ tinker who played country dances on his kettle drum, and whose sweet tunes lured the very bees from their hives such that they followed him in swarms, to the fear of townsmen (sig. F2v). Stopping for a drink at a tavern where a citizen of London has recently died of suspected plague, the tinker is approached by the host, who offers him a crown (a considerable sum for the tinker) to identify the body in the chamber and safely bury it. Fortified by drink, the tinker agrees (negotiating a higher fee from the townsfolk in the process), and carries the body off to a distant field where he souvenirs the dead man’s clothes and raids his pockets with satisfying results: seven pounds in coins. (Unlike the battlefield pilfering and ‘pocketing up of wrongs’ by Nim, Bardolph and Pistol in Shakespeare’s Henry V [3.2.44], the tinker’s confiscation of the dead man’s property is here seen as a just reward for the tinker bravely undertaking to remove the potentially plaguey body that no one else would touch for fear of their lives). The tinker cheerfully returns to town, enquiring through song whether there were any more Londoners to bury: ‘Haue yée any more Londoners to bury, hey downe a downe dery, haue ye any more Londoners to bury’ (sig. F3r). The moral of the story is that Death makes ‘fooles euen of wisemen, and cowards of the most valiant’ (sig. F3v), but the fearless tinker is rewarded for his foolhardiness in the face of plague. <br />
<br />
<br />
Whether the lost play’s tinker had his comeuppance or profited by his rashness, a common conceit about tinkers is their dual identity as craftsmen and cunning thieves. Henslowe records only a single, though successful (£3), performance of the play on what he calls July 18 (critics have corrected this to July 23), 1596. (See '''Chambers''', ''Elizabethan Stage'', 2.144 on the dating.) The repertorial context provides only a slight clue to the lost play’s subject matter, in that it featured a play about a thief (like Greene’s tinker) who was hanged: ‘Bellendon’. This proposition is tempting inasmuch as the hanged-thief tinker-story by Greene antedates the lost play, thus potentially providing source material. Unfortunately the Bolton le Moors setting of Greene’s story doesn’t gel with what we know of the play’s setting from Henslowe, though ‘Totnes’ in the play’s title may simply have been added for alliteration, of course.<br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
<br> <br />
<br />
== Works Cited ==<br />
<lpd-pre>Dekker, ''The Wonderful Year'' (1603). <br />
Greene, Robert. ''The Second Part of Conny-Catching'' (1591). <br />
Sharpe, Robert Boies. ''The Real War of the Theatres'' (Boston: D. C. Heath & Company, 1935).</lpd-pre></div>MeaghanBrownhttps://lostplays.folger.edu/_mw/index.php?title=Tinker_of_Totnes,_The&diff=19436Tinker of Totnes, The2019-09-13T12:55:19Z<p>MeaghanBrown: </p>
<hr />
<div>{{Play<br />
|dramatists=Anon.<br />
|year=1596<br />
|venue=Rose<br />
|company=Admiral's<br />
|probableGenres=Comedy? (Harbage)<br />
|documentarySources=Performance Records (Henslowe's Diary)<br />
|contributors=David McInnis<br />
|wigginsNo=1039<br />
|gregNo=θ<br />
}}<br />
== Historical Records ==<br />
<br />
===Performance Records (''Henslowe's Diary'')===<br />
<br />
[http://www.archive.org/stream/henslowesdiary00unkngoog#page/n102/mode/1up F.21v (Greg I.42)]:<br />
<br />
y<sup>e</sup> 18 of July 1596 ne . . . R[d] at the tyncker of totnes . . . . . . . . . . iij<sup>ll</sup><br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
== Theatrical Provenance ==<br />
'The Tinker of Totnes' was performed by the Admiral’s men as a new play in July 1596.<br />
<br />
<br />
== Probable Genre(s) ==<br />
<!-- This template outputs the probable genres entered in the data section above. You can replace this comment and the line below if you'd like to write about the probable genres in more detail --><br />
{{Play/Probable Genres}}<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
== Possible Narrative and Dramatic Sources or Analogues ==<br />
(information welcome; see [[#"For What It's Worth|'''For What It's Worth''']] below)<br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
<br />
== References to the Play ==<br />
(information welcome)<br />
<br />
<br />
== Critical Commentary ==<br />
'''Robert Boies Sharpe''', noting that the play only received a single performance before the company ceased playing until October 27, inferred that the play was ‘offensive’ and potentially precipitated an inhibition against playing (79). He imagines that the play contained ‘some mild, complimentary propaganda in the Seymours’ favor, imbedded in a play about some merry Tinker and the landing of Brutus on the stone still to be seen in the town’. Although Henslowe inaccurately recorded the date of performance as being Sunday July 18, four days prior to the formal restraint of playing (July 22), Sharpe relied on Greg’s corrected date of July 23 ('''Wiggins''' corrects again to Saturday July 24), and should thus have noticed that the dates rule ‘The Tinker of Totnes’ out from contributing to the inhibition (see Wiggins #1039). Sharpe’s conjecture about ‘political allusion’ involving the Seymours is therefore unfounded, since the premise that led to that conjecture (the play’s ostensible contributory role in the restraint) is false.<br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
<br />
== For What It's Worth ==<br />
<br />
Currently in EEBO TCP, the only substantial narratives about a tinker (one who mends pots, kettles, etc.) are from writers associated with the public theatres: Robert Greene and Thomas Dekker. Neither narrative is concerned with a tradesman from the market town of southern Devon, but each has dramatic potential for a comedy either at the tinker’s expense or in his celebration. <br />
<br />
===Greene===<br />
In ''The Second Part of Conny-Catching'' (1591), Greene tells a ‘true and merry Tale of a Knight, and a Tinker that was a pick-locke’, set in Bolton le Moors in north-west England (Greene, sig. F3r). Numerous of the knight’s tenants complain of having their locks picked in the night, and the chief suspect is the tinker who is known to spend very lavishly about the country. The knight promises to avenge the townsfolk if he can establish the tinker’s guilt, and conveniently the tinker soon arrives at the knight’s house seeking employment. When the tinker comes in to mend pots, he lays out his bag of tools and the knight sifts through them until he discovers the picklocks. Feigning not to recognise what such tools are used for, the knight politely enquires (over drinks) where the tinker will travel to next. Upon learning that Lancaster is the tinker’s destination, the knight asks him to carry a letter to the jailor there (the letter is actually a mittimus, or warrant for arrest – it thus predates Shakespeare’s introduction of the ‘letters sealed’ which Hamlet carries to England, and which would have resulted in Hamlet’s execution). The tinker makes his way to Lancaster hastily and delivers the letter to the jailer, who promptly claps ‘a strong pair of bolts’ on his heels and mocks him by asking whether he can gain freedom by picking his own locks. When the tinker hears the mittimus read out, ‘his hart was cold’ and he went silent, his ‘conscience accused’ (Greene, sig. F4r). There he remained until the next sessions, after which he was hanged in Lancaster.<br />
<br />
===Dekker===<br />
By contrast, in ''The Wonderful Year'' (1603), Dekker recounts the story of a tinker who was pointedly not one of those ‘rascally’ tinkers who prefers to steal purses than mend pots; rather, he was a ‘devout’ and ‘Musicall’ tinker who played country dances on his kettle drum, and whose sweet tunes lured the very bees from their hives such that they followed him in swarms, to the fear of townsmen (sig. F2v). Stopping for a drink at a tavern where a citizen of London has recently died of suspected plague, the tinker is approached by the host, who offers him a crown (a considerable sum for the tinker) to identify the body in the chamber and safely bury it. Fortified by drink, the tinker agrees (negotiating a higher fee from the townsfolk in the process), and carries the body off to a distant field where he souvenirs the dead man’s clothes and raids his pockets with satisfying results: seven pounds in coins. (Unlike the battlefield pilfering and ‘pocketing up of wrongs’ by Nim, Bardolph and Pistol in Shakespeare’s Henry V [3.2.44], the tinker’s confiscation of the dead man’s property is here seen as a just reward for the tinker bravely undertaking to remove the potentially plaguey body that no one else would touch for fear of their lives). The tinker cheerfully returns to town, enquiring through song whether there were any more Londoners to bury: ‘Haue yée any more Londoners to bury, hey downe a downe dery, haue ye any more Londoners to bury’ (sig. F3r). The moral of the story is that Death makes ‘fooles euen of wisemen, and cowards of the most valiant’ (sig. F3v), but the fearless tinker is rewarded for his foolhardiness in the face of plague. <br />
<br />
<br />
Whether the lost play’s tinker had his comeuppance or profited by his rashness, a common conceit about tinkers is their dual identity as craftsmen and cunning thieves. Henslowe records only a single, though successful (£3), performance of the play on what he calls July 18 (critics have corrected this to July 23), 1596. (See '''Chambers''', ''Elizabethan Stage'', 2.144 on the dating.) The repertorial context provides only a slight clue to the lost play’s subject matter, in that it featured a play about a thief (like Greene’s tinker) who was hanged: ‘Bellendon’. This proposition is tempting inasmuch as the hanged-thief tinker-story by Greene antedates the lost play, thus potentially providing source material. Unfortunately the Bolton le Moors setting of Greene’s story doesn’t gel with what we know of the play’s setting from Henslowe, though ‘Totnes’ in the play’s title may simply have been added for alliteration, of course.<br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
<br> <br />
<br />
== Works Cited ==<br />
<div style="padding-left: 2em; text-indent: -2em">Dekker, ''The Wonderful Year'' (1603).</div><br />
<div style="padding-left: 2em; text-indent: -2em">Greene, Robert. ''The Second Part of Conny-Catching'' (1591).</div><br />
<div style="padding-left: 2em; text-indent: -2em">Sharpe, Robert Boies. ''The Real War of the Theatres'' (Boston: D. C. Heath & Company, 1935).</div></div>MeaghanBrownhttps://lostplays.folger.edu/_mw/index.php?title=Tinker_of_Totnes,_The&diff=19435Tinker of Totnes, The2019-09-13T12:54:53Z<p>MeaghanBrown: </p>
<hr />
<div>{{Play<br />
|dramatists=Anon.<br />
|year=1596<br />
|venue=Rose<br />
|company=Admiral's<br />
|probableGenres=Comedy? (Harbage)<br />
|documentarySources=Performance Records (Henslowe's Diary)<br />
|contributors=David McInnis<br />
|wigginsNo=1039<br />
|gregNo=θ<br />
}}<br />
== Historical Records ==<br />
<br />
===Performance Records (''Henslowe's Diary'')===<br />
<br />
[http://www.archive.org/stream/henslowesdiary00unkngoog#page/n102/mode/1up F.21v (Greg I.42)]:<br />
<br />
y<sup>e</sup> 18 of July 1596 ne . . . R[d] at the tyncker of totnes . . . . . . . . . . iij<sup>ll</sup><br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
== Theatrical Provenance ==<br />
'The Tinker of Totnes' was performed by the Admiral’s men as a new play in July 1596.<br />
<br />
<br />
== Probable Genre(s) ==<br />
<!-- This template outputs the probable genres entered in the data section above. You can replace this comment and the line below if you'd like to write about the probable genres in more detail --><br />
{{Play/Probable Genres}}<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
== Possible Narrative and Dramatic Sources or Analogues ==<br />
(information welcome; see [[#"For What It's Worth|'''For What It's Worth''']] below)<br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
<br />
== References to the Play ==<br />
(information welcome)<br />
<br />
<br />
== Critical Commentary ==<br />
'''Robert Boies Sharpe''', noting that the play only received a single performance before the company ceased playing until October 27, inferred that the play was ‘offensive’ and potentially precipitated an inhibition against playing (79). He imagines that the play contained ‘some mild, complimentary propaganda in the Seymours’ favor, imbedded in a play about some merry Tinker and the landing of Brutus on the stone still to be seen in the town’. Although Henslowe inaccurately recorded the date of performance as being Sunday July 18, four days prior to the formal restraint of playing (July 22), Sharpe relied on Greg’s corrected date of July 23 ('''Wiggins''' corrects again to Saturday July 24), and should thus have noticed that the dates rule ‘The Tinker of Totnes’ out from contributing to the inhibition (see Wiggins #1039). Sharpe’s conjecture about ‘political allusion’ involving the Seymours is therefore unfounded, since the premise that led to that conjecture (the play’s ostensible contributory role in the restraint) is false.<br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
<br />
== For What It's Worth ==<br />
<br />
Currently in EEBO TCP, the only substantial narratives about a tinker (one who mends pots, kettles, etc.) are from writers associated with the public theatres: Robert Greene and Thomas Dekker. Neither narrative is concerned with a tradesman from the market town of southern Devon, but each has dramatic potential for a comedy either at the tinker’s expense or in his celebration. <br />
<br />
===Greene===<br />
In ''The Second Part of Conny-Catching'' (1591), Greene tells a ‘true and merry Tale of a Knight, and a Tinker that was a pick-locke’, set in Bolton le Moors in north-west England (Greene, sig. F3r). Numerous of the knight’s tenants complain of having their locks picked in the night, and the chief suspect is the tinker who is known to spend very lavishly about the country. The knight promises to avenge the townsfolk if he can establish the tinker’s guilt, and conveniently the tinker soon arrives at the knight’s house seeking employment. When the tinker comes in to mend pots, he lays out his bag of tools and the knight sifts through them until he discovers the picklocks. Feigning not to recognise what such tools are used for, the knight politely enquires (over drinks) where the tinker will travel to next. Upon learning that Lancaster is the tinker’s destination, the knight asks him to carry a letter to the jailor there (the letter is actually a mittimus, or warrant for arrest – it thus predates Shakespeare’s introduction of the ‘letters sealed’ which Hamlet carries to England, and which would have resulted in Hamlet’s execution). The tinker makes his way to Lancaster hastily and delivers the letter to the jailer, who promptly claps ‘a strong pair of bolts’ on his heels and mocks him by asking whether he can gain freedom by picking his own locks. When the tinker hears the mittimus read out, ‘his hart was cold’ and he went silent, his ‘conscience accused’ (Greene, sig. F4r). There he remained until the next sessions, after which he was hanged in Lancaster.<br />
<br />
===Dekker===<br />
By contrast, in ''The Wonderful Year'' (1603), Dekker recounts the story of a tinker who was pointedly not one of those ‘rascally’ tinkers who prefers to steal purses than mend pots; rather, he was a ‘devout’ and ‘Musicall’ tinker who played country dances on his kettle drum, and whose sweet tunes lured the very bees from their hives such that they followed him in swarms, to the fear of townsmen (sig. F2v). Stopping for a drink at a tavern where a citizen of London has recently died of suspected plague, the tinker is approached by the host, who offers him a crown (a considerable sum for the tinker) to identify the body in the chamber and safely bury it. Fortified by drink, the tinker agrees (negotiating a higher fee from the townsfolk in the process), and carries the body off to a distant field where he souvenirs the dead man’s clothes and raids his pockets with satisfying results: seven pounds in coins. (Unlike the battlefield pilfering and ‘pocketing up of wrongs’ by Nim, Bardolph and Pistol in Shakespeare’s Henry V [3.2.44], the tinker’s confiscation of the dead man’s property is here seen as a just reward for the tinker bravely undertaking to remove the potentially plaguey body that no one else would touch for fear of their lives). The tinker cheerfully returns to town, enquiring through song whether there were any more Londoners to bury: ‘Haue yée any more Londoners to bury, hey downe a downe dery, haue ye any more Londoners to bury’ (sig. F3r). The moral of the story is that Death makes ‘fooles euen of wisemen, and cowards of the most valiant’ (sig. F3v), but the fearless tinker is rewarded for his foolhardiness in the face of plague. <br />
<br />
<br />
Whether the lost play’s tinker had his comeuppance or profited by his rashness, a common conceit about tinkers is their dual identity as craftsmen and cunning thieves. Henslowe records only a single, though successful (£3), performance of the play on what he calls July 18 (critics have corrected this to July 23), 1596. (See '''Chambers''', ''Elizabethan Stage'', 2.144 on the dating.) The repertorial context provides only a slight clue to the lost play’s subject matter, in that it featured a play about a thief (like Greene’s tinker) who was hanged: ‘Bellendon’. This proposition is tempting inasmuch as the hanged-thief tinker-story by Greene antedates the lost play, thus potentially providing source material. Unfortunately the Bolton le Moors setting of Greene’s story doesn’t gel with what we know of the play’s setting from Henslowe, though ‘Totnes’ in the play’s title may simply have been added for alliteration, of course.<br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
<br> <br />
<br />
== Works Cited ==<br />
<div style="padding-left: 2em; text-indent: -2em">Dekker, ''The Wonderful Year'' (1603).</div><br />
<div style="padding-left: 2em; text-indent: -2em">Greene, Robert. ''The Second Part of Conny-Catching'' (1591).</div><br />
<div style="padding-left: 2em; text-indent: -2em">Sharpe, Robert Boies. ''The Real War of the Theatres'' (Boston: D. C. Heath & Company, 1935).</div><br />
<lpd-pre><br />
Example author, ''Example entry text'' (date).<br />
Example author2, ''example entry text'' (Date 2)<br />
</lpd-pre></div>MeaghanBrownhttps://lostplays.folger.edu/_mw/index.php?title=Tinker_of_Totnes,_The&diff=19434Tinker of Totnes, The2019-09-13T12:53:41Z<p>MeaghanBrown: </p>
<hr />
<div>{{Play<br />
|dramatists=Anon.<br />
|year=1596<br />
|venue=Rose<br />
|company=Admiral's<br />
|probableGenres=Comedy? (Harbage)<br />
|documentarySources=Performance Records (Henslowe's Diary)<br />
|contributors=David McInnis<br />
|wigginsNo=1039<br />
|gregNo=θ<br />
}}<br />
== Historical Records ==<br />
<br />
===Performance Records (''Henslowe's Diary'')===<br />
<br />
[http://www.archive.org/stream/henslowesdiary00unkngoog#page/n102/mode/1up F.21v (Greg I.42)]:<br />
<br />
y<sup>e</sup> 18 of July 1596 ne . . . R[d] at the tyncker of totnes . . . . . . . . . . iij<sup>ll</sup><br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
== Theatrical Provenance ==<br />
'The Tinker of Totnes' was performed by the Admiral’s men as a new play in July 1596.<br />
<br />
<br />
== Probable Genre(s) ==<br />
<!-- This template outputs the probable genres entered in the data section above. You can replace this comment and the line below if you'd like to write about the probable genres in more detail --><br />
{{Play/Probable Genres}}<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
== Possible Narrative and Dramatic Sources or Analogues ==<br />
(information welcome; see [[#"For What It's Worth|'''For What It's Worth''']] below)<br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
<br />
== References to the Play ==<br />
(information welcome)<br />
<br />
<br />
== Critical Commentary ==<br />
'''Robert Boies Sharpe''', noting that the play only received a single performance before the company ceased playing until October 27, inferred that the play was ‘offensive’ and potentially precipitated an inhibition against playing (79). He imagines that the play contained ‘some mild, complimentary propaganda in the Seymours’ favor, imbedded in a play about some merry Tinker and the landing of Brutus on the stone still to be seen in the town’. Although Henslowe inaccurately recorded the date of performance as being Sunday July 18, four days prior to the formal restraint of playing (July 22), Sharpe relied on Greg’s corrected date of July 23 ('''Wiggins''' corrects again to Saturday July 24), and should thus have noticed that the dates rule ‘The Tinker of Totnes’ out from contributing to the inhibition (see Wiggins #1039). Sharpe’s conjecture about ‘political allusion’ involving the Seymours is therefore unfounded, since the premise that led to that conjecture (the play’s ostensible contributory role in the restraint) is false.<br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
<br />
== For What It's Worth ==<br />
<br />
Currently in EEBO TCP, the only substantial narratives about a tinker (one who mends pots, kettles, etc.) are from writers associated with the public theatres: Robert Greene and Thomas Dekker. Neither narrative is concerned with a tradesman from the market town of southern Devon, but each has dramatic potential for a comedy either at the tinker’s expense or in his celebration. <br />
<br />
===Greene===<br />
In ''The Second Part of Conny-Catching'' (1591), Greene tells a ‘true and merry Tale of a Knight, and a Tinker that was a pick-locke’, set in Bolton le Moors in north-west England (Greene, sig. F3r). Numerous of the knight’s tenants complain of having their locks picked in the night, and the chief suspect is the tinker who is known to spend very lavishly about the country. The knight promises to avenge the townsfolk if he can establish the tinker’s guilt, and conveniently the tinker soon arrives at the knight’s house seeking employment. When the tinker comes in to mend pots, he lays out his bag of tools and the knight sifts through them until he discovers the picklocks. Feigning not to recognise what such tools are used for, the knight politely enquires (over drinks) where the tinker will travel to next. Upon learning that Lancaster is the tinker’s destination, the knight asks him to carry a letter to the jailor there (the letter is actually a mittimus, or warrant for arrest – it thus predates Shakespeare’s introduction of the ‘letters sealed’ which Hamlet carries to England, and which would have resulted in Hamlet’s execution). The tinker makes his way to Lancaster hastily and delivers the letter to the jailer, who promptly claps ‘a strong pair of bolts’ on his heels and mocks him by asking whether he can gain freedom by picking his own locks. When the tinker hears the mittimus read out, ‘his hart was cold’ and he went silent, his ‘conscience accused’ (Greene, sig. F4r). There he remained until the next sessions, after which he was hanged in Lancaster.<br />
<br />
===Dekker===<br />
By contrast, in ''The Wonderful Year'' (1603), Dekker recounts the story of a tinker who was pointedly not one of those ‘rascally’ tinkers who prefers to steal purses than mend pots; rather, he was a ‘devout’ and ‘Musicall’ tinker who played country dances on his kettle drum, and whose sweet tunes lured the very bees from their hives such that they followed him in swarms, to the fear of townsmen (sig. F2v). Stopping for a drink at a tavern where a citizen of London has recently died of suspected plague, the tinker is approached by the host, who offers him a crown (a considerable sum for the tinker) to identify the body in the chamber and safely bury it. Fortified by drink, the tinker agrees (negotiating a higher fee from the townsfolk in the process), and carries the body off to a distant field where he souvenirs the dead man’s clothes and raids his pockets with satisfying results: seven pounds in coins. (Unlike the battlefield pilfering and ‘pocketing up of wrongs’ by Nim, Bardolph and Pistol in Shakespeare’s Henry V [3.2.44], the tinker’s confiscation of the dead man’s property is here seen as a just reward for the tinker bravely undertaking to remove the potentially plaguey body that no one else would touch for fear of their lives). The tinker cheerfully returns to town, enquiring through song whether there were any more Londoners to bury: ‘Haue yée any more Londoners to bury, hey downe a downe dery, haue ye any more Londoners to bury’ (sig. F3r). The moral of the story is that Death makes ‘fooles euen of wisemen, and cowards of the most valiant’ (sig. F3v), but the fearless tinker is rewarded for his foolhardiness in the face of plague. <br />
<br />
<br />
Whether the lost play’s tinker had his comeuppance or profited by his rashness, a common conceit about tinkers is their dual identity as craftsmen and cunning thieves. Henslowe records only a single, though successful (£3), performance of the play on what he calls July 18 (critics have corrected this to July 23), 1596. (See '''Chambers''', ''Elizabethan Stage'', 2.144 on the dating.) The repertorial context provides only a slight clue to the lost play’s subject matter, in that it featured a play about a thief (like Greene’s tinker) who was hanged: ‘Bellendon’. This proposition is tempting inasmuch as the hanged-thief tinker-story by Greene antedates the lost play, thus potentially providing source material. Unfortunately the Bolton le Moors setting of Greene’s story doesn’t gel with what we know of the play’s setting from Henslowe, though ‘Totnes’ in the play’s title may simply have been added for alliteration, of course.<br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
<br> <br />
<br />
== Works Cited ==<br />
<div style="padding-left: 2em; text-indent: -2em">Dekker, ''The Wonderful Year'' (1603).</div><br />
<div style="padding-left: 2em; text-indent: -2em">Greene, Robert. ''The Second Part of Conny-Catching'' (1591).</div><br />
<div style="padding-left: 2em; text-indent: -2em">Sharpe, Robert Boies. ''The Real War of the Theatres'' (Boston: D. C. Heath & Company, 1935).</div><br />
<lpdPre><br />
Example author, ''Example entry text'' (date).<br />
Example author2, ''example entry text'' (Date 2)<br />
</lpdPre></div>MeaghanBrownhttps://lostplays.folger.edu/_mw/index.php?title=Tinker_of_Totnes,_The&diff=19433Tinker of Totnes, The2019-09-13T12:53:02Z<p>MeaghanBrown: </p>
<hr />
<div>{{Play<br />
|dramatists=Anon.<br />
|year=1596<br />
|venue=Rose<br />
|company=Admiral's<br />
|probableGenres=Comedy? (Harbage)<br />
|documentarySources=Performance Records (Henslowe's Diary)<br />
|contributors=David McInnis<br />
|wigginsNo=1039<br />
|gregNo=θ<br />
}}<br />
== Historical Records ==<br />
<br />
===Performance Records (''Henslowe's Diary'')===<br />
<br />
[http://www.archive.org/stream/henslowesdiary00unkngoog#page/n102/mode/1up F.21v (Greg I.42)]:<br />
<br />
y<sup>e</sup> 18 of July 1596 ne . . . R[d] at the tyncker of totnes . . . . . . . . . . iij<sup>ll</sup><br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
== Theatrical Provenance ==<br />
'The Tinker of Totnes' was performed by the Admiral’s men as a new play in July 1596.<br />
<br />
<br />
== Probable Genre(s) ==<br />
<!-- This template outputs the probable genres entered in the data section above. You can replace this comment and the line below if you'd like to write about the probable genres in more detail --><br />
{{Play/Probable Genres}}<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
== Possible Narrative and Dramatic Sources or Analogues ==<br />
(information welcome; see [[#"For What It's Worth|'''For What It's Worth''']] below)<br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
<br />
== References to the Play ==<br />
(information welcome)<br />
<br />
<br />
== Critical Commentary ==<br />
'''Robert Boies Sharpe''', noting that the play only received a single performance before the company ceased playing until October 27, inferred that the play was ‘offensive’ and potentially precipitated an inhibition against playing (79). He imagines that the play contained ‘some mild, complimentary propaganda in the Seymours’ favor, imbedded in a play about some merry Tinker and the landing of Brutus on the stone still to be seen in the town’. Although Henslowe inaccurately recorded the date of performance as being Sunday July 18, four days prior to the formal restraint of playing (July 22), Sharpe relied on Greg’s corrected date of July 23 ('''Wiggins''' corrects again to Saturday July 24), and should thus have noticed that the dates rule ‘The Tinker of Totnes’ out from contributing to the inhibition (see Wiggins #1039). Sharpe’s conjecture about ‘political allusion’ involving the Seymours is therefore unfounded, since the premise that led to that conjecture (the play’s ostensible contributory role in the restraint) is false.<br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
<br />
== For What It's Worth ==<br />
<br />
Currently in EEBO TCP, the only substantial narratives about a tinker (one who mends pots, kettles, etc.) are from writers associated with the public theatres: Robert Greene and Thomas Dekker. Neither narrative is concerned with a tradesman from the market town of southern Devon, but each has dramatic potential for a comedy either at the tinker’s expense or in his celebration. <br />
<br />
===Greene===<br />
In ''The Second Part of Conny-Catching'' (1591), Greene tells a ‘true and merry Tale of a Knight, and a Tinker that was a pick-locke’, set in Bolton le Moors in north-west England (Greene, sig. F3r). Numerous of the knight’s tenants complain of having their locks picked in the night, and the chief suspect is the tinker who is known to spend very lavishly about the country. The knight promises to avenge the townsfolk if he can establish the tinker’s guilt, and conveniently the tinker soon arrives at the knight’s house seeking employment. When the tinker comes in to mend pots, he lays out his bag of tools and the knight sifts through them until he discovers the picklocks. Feigning not to recognise what such tools are used for, the knight politely enquires (over drinks) where the tinker will travel to next. Upon learning that Lancaster is the tinker’s destination, the knight asks him to carry a letter to the jailor there (the letter is actually a mittimus, or warrant for arrest – it thus predates Shakespeare’s introduction of the ‘letters sealed’ which Hamlet carries to England, and which would have resulted in Hamlet’s execution). The tinker makes his way to Lancaster hastily and delivers the letter to the jailer, who promptly claps ‘a strong pair of bolts’ on his heels and mocks him by asking whether he can gain freedom by picking his own locks. When the tinker hears the mittimus read out, ‘his hart was cold’ and he went silent, his ‘conscience accused’ (Greene, sig. F4r). There he remained until the next sessions, after which he was hanged in Lancaster.<br />
<br />
===Dekker===<br />
By contrast, in ''The Wonderful Year'' (1603), Dekker recounts the story of a tinker who was pointedly not one of those ‘rascally’ tinkers who prefers to steal purses than mend pots; rather, he was a ‘devout’ and ‘Musicall’ tinker who played country dances on his kettle drum, and whose sweet tunes lured the very bees from their hives such that they followed him in swarms, to the fear of townsmen (sig. F2v). Stopping for a drink at a tavern where a citizen of London has recently died of suspected plague, the tinker is approached by the host, who offers him a crown (a considerable sum for the tinker) to identify the body in the chamber and safely bury it. Fortified by drink, the tinker agrees (negotiating a higher fee from the townsfolk in the process), and carries the body off to a distant field where he souvenirs the dead man’s clothes and raids his pockets with satisfying results: seven pounds in coins. (Unlike the battlefield pilfering and ‘pocketing up of wrongs’ by Nim, Bardolph and Pistol in Shakespeare’s Henry V [3.2.44], the tinker’s confiscation of the dead man’s property is here seen as a just reward for the tinker bravely undertaking to remove the potentially plaguey body that no one else would touch for fear of their lives). The tinker cheerfully returns to town, enquiring through song whether there were any more Londoners to bury: ‘Haue yée any more Londoners to bury, hey downe a downe dery, haue ye any more Londoners to bury’ (sig. F3r). The moral of the story is that Death makes ‘fooles euen of wisemen, and cowards of the most valiant’ (sig. F3v), but the fearless tinker is rewarded for his foolhardiness in the face of plague. <br />
<br />
<br />
Whether the lost play’s tinker had his comeuppance or profited by his rashness, a common conceit about tinkers is their dual identity as craftsmen and cunning thieves. Henslowe records only a single, though successful (£3), performance of the play on what he calls July 18 (critics have corrected this to July 23), 1596. (See '''Chambers''', ''Elizabethan Stage'', 2.144 on the dating.) The repertorial context provides only a slight clue to the lost play’s subject matter, in that it featured a play about a thief (like Greene’s tinker) who was hanged: ‘Bellendon’. This proposition is tempting inasmuch as the hanged-thief tinker-story by Greene antedates the lost play, thus potentially providing source material. Unfortunately the Bolton le Moors setting of Greene’s story doesn’t gel with what we know of the play’s setting from Henslowe, though ‘Totnes’ in the play’s title may simply have been added for alliteration, of course.<br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
<br> <br />
<br />
== Works Cited ==<br />
<div style="padding-left: 2em; text-indent: -2em">Dekker, ''The Wonderful Year'' (1603).</div><br />
<div style="padding-left: 2em; text-indent: -2em">Greene, Robert. ''The Second Part of Conny-Catching'' (1591).</div><br />
<div style="padding-left: 2em; text-indent: -2em">Sharpe, Robert Boies. ''The Real War of the Theatres'' (Boston: D. C. Heath & Company, 1935).</div><br />
<br />
Example author, ''Example entry text'' (date).<br />
<br />
Example author2, ''example entry text'' (Date 2)</div>MeaghanBrownhttps://lostplays.folger.edu/_mw/index.php?title=Tinker_of_Totnes,_The&diff=19432Tinker of Totnes, The2019-09-13T12:52:22Z<p>MeaghanBrown: </p>
<hr />
<div>{{Play<br />
|dramatists=Anon.<br />
|year=1596<br />
|venue=Rose<br />
|company=Admiral's<br />
|probableGenres=Comedy? (Harbage)<br />
|documentarySources=Performance Records (Henslowe's Diary)<br />
|contributors=David McInnis<br />
|wigginsNo=1039<br />
|gregNo=θ<br />
}}<br />
== Historical Records ==<br />
<br />
===Performance Records (''Henslowe's Diary'')===<br />
<br />
[http://www.archive.org/stream/henslowesdiary00unkngoog#page/n102/mode/1up F.21v (Greg I.42)]:<br />
<br />
y<sup>e</sup> 18 of July 1596 ne . . . R[d] at the tyncker of totnes . . . . . . . . . . iij<sup>ll</sup><br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
== Theatrical Provenance ==<br />
'The Tinker of Totnes' was performed by the Admiral’s men as a new play in July 1596.<br />
<br />
<br />
== Probable Genre(s) ==<br />
<!-- This template outputs the probable genres entered in the data section above. You can replace this comment and the line below if you'd like to write about the probable genres in more detail --><br />
{{Play/Probable Genres}}<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
== Possible Narrative and Dramatic Sources or Analogues ==<br />
(information welcome; see [[#"For What It's Worth|'''For What It's Worth''']] below)<br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
<br />
== References to the Play ==<br />
(information welcome)<br />
<br />
<br />
== Critical Commentary ==<br />
'''Robert Boies Sharpe''', noting that the play only received a single performance before the company ceased playing until October 27, inferred that the play was ‘offensive’ and potentially precipitated an inhibition against playing (79). He imagines that the play contained ‘some mild, complimentary propaganda in the Seymours’ favor, imbedded in a play about some merry Tinker and the landing of Brutus on the stone still to be seen in the town’. Although Henslowe inaccurately recorded the date of performance as being Sunday July 18, four days prior to the formal restraint of playing (July 22), Sharpe relied on Greg’s corrected date of July 23 ('''Wiggins''' corrects again to Saturday July 24), and should thus have noticed that the dates rule ‘The Tinker of Totnes’ out from contributing to the inhibition (see Wiggins #1039). Sharpe’s conjecture about ‘political allusion’ involving the Seymours is therefore unfounded, since the premise that led to that conjecture (the play’s ostensible contributory role in the restraint) is false.<br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
<br />
== For What It's Worth ==<br />
<br />
Currently in EEBO TCP, the only substantial narratives about a tinker (one who mends pots, kettles, etc.) are from writers associated with the public theatres: Robert Greene and Thomas Dekker. Neither narrative is concerned with a tradesman from the market town of southern Devon, but each has dramatic potential for a comedy either at the tinker’s expense or in his celebration. <br />
<br />
===Greene===<br />
In ''The Second Part of Conny-Catching'' (1591), Greene tells a ‘true and merry Tale of a Knight, and a Tinker that was a pick-locke’, set in Bolton le Moors in north-west England (Greene, sig. F3r). Numerous of the knight’s tenants complain of having their locks picked in the night, and the chief suspect is the tinker who is known to spend very lavishly about the country. The knight promises to avenge the townsfolk if he can establish the tinker’s guilt, and conveniently the tinker soon arrives at the knight’s house seeking employment. When the tinker comes in to mend pots, he lays out his bag of tools and the knight sifts through them until he discovers the picklocks. Feigning not to recognise what such tools are used for, the knight politely enquires (over drinks) where the tinker will travel to next. Upon learning that Lancaster is the tinker’s destination, the knight asks him to carry a letter to the jailor there (the letter is actually a mittimus, or warrant for arrest – it thus predates Shakespeare’s introduction of the ‘letters sealed’ which Hamlet carries to England, and which would have resulted in Hamlet’s execution). The tinker makes his way to Lancaster hastily and delivers the letter to the jailer, who promptly claps ‘a strong pair of bolts’ on his heels and mocks him by asking whether he can gain freedom by picking his own locks. When the tinker hears the mittimus read out, ‘his hart was cold’ and he went silent, his ‘conscience accused’ (Greene, sig. F4r). There he remained until the next sessions, after which he was hanged in Lancaster.<br />
<br />
===Dekker===<br />
By contrast, in ''The Wonderful Year'' (1603), Dekker recounts the story of a tinker who was pointedly not one of those ‘rascally’ tinkers who prefers to steal purses than mend pots; rather, he was a ‘devout’ and ‘Musicall’ tinker who played country dances on his kettle drum, and whose sweet tunes lured the very bees from their hives such that they followed him in swarms, to the fear of townsmen (sig. F2v). Stopping for a drink at a tavern where a citizen of London has recently died of suspected plague, the tinker is approached by the host, who offers him a crown (a considerable sum for the tinker) to identify the body in the chamber and safely bury it. Fortified by drink, the tinker agrees (negotiating a higher fee from the townsfolk in the process), and carries the body off to a distant field where he souvenirs the dead man’s clothes and raids his pockets with satisfying results: seven pounds in coins. (Unlike the battlefield pilfering and ‘pocketing up of wrongs’ by Nim, Bardolph and Pistol in Shakespeare’s Henry V [3.2.44], the tinker’s confiscation of the dead man’s property is here seen as a just reward for the tinker bravely undertaking to remove the potentially plaguey body that no one else would touch for fear of their lives). The tinker cheerfully returns to town, enquiring through song whether there were any more Londoners to bury: ‘Haue yée any more Londoners to bury, hey downe a downe dery, haue ye any more Londoners to bury’ (sig. F3r). The moral of the story is that Death makes ‘fooles euen of wisemen, and cowards of the most valiant’ (sig. F3v), but the fearless tinker is rewarded for his foolhardiness in the face of plague. <br />
<br />
<br />
Whether the lost play’s tinker had his comeuppance or profited by his rashness, a common conceit about tinkers is their dual identity as craftsmen and cunning thieves. Henslowe records only a single, though successful (£3), performance of the play on what he calls July 18 (critics have corrected this to July 23), 1596. (See '''Chambers''', ''Elizabethan Stage'', 2.144 on the dating.) The repertorial context provides only a slight clue to the lost play’s subject matter, in that it featured a play about a thief (like Greene’s tinker) who was hanged: ‘Bellendon’. This proposition is tempting inasmuch as the hanged-thief tinker-story by Greene antedates the lost play, thus potentially providing source material. Unfortunately the Bolton le Moors setting of Greene’s story doesn’t gel with what we know of the play’s setting from Henslowe, though ‘Totnes’ in the play’s title may simply have been added for alliteration, of course.<br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
<br> <br />
<br />
== Works Cited ==<br />
<div style="padding-left: 2em; text-indent: -2em">Dekker, ''The Wonderful Year'' (1603).</div><br />
<div style="padding-left: 2em; text-indent: -2em">Greene, Robert. ''The Second Part of Conny-Catching'' (1591).</div><br />
<div style="padding-left: 2em; text-indent: -2em">Sharpe, Robert Boies. ''The Real War of the Theatres'' (Boston: D. C. Heath & Company, 1935).</div><br />
Example author, ''Example entry text'' (date).<br />
Example author2, ''example entry text'' (Date 2)</div>MeaghanBrownhttps://lostplays.folger.edu/_mw/index.php?title=Tinker_of_Totnes,_The&diff=19431Tinker of Totnes, The2019-09-13T12:52:01Z<p>MeaghanBrown: </p>
<hr />
<div>{{Play<br />
|dramatists=Anon.<br />
|year=1596<br />
|venue=Rose<br />
|company=Admiral's<br />
|probableGenres=Comedy? (Harbage)<br />
|documentarySources=Performance Records (Henslowe's Diary)<br />
|contributors=David McInnis<br />
|wigginsNo=1039<br />
|gregNo=θ<br />
}}<br />
== Historical Records ==<br />
<br />
===Performance Records (''Henslowe's Diary'')===<br />
<br />
[http://www.archive.org/stream/henslowesdiary00unkngoog#page/n102/mode/1up F.21v (Greg I.42)]:<br />
<br />
y<sup>e</sup> 18 of July 1596 ne . . . R[d] at the tyncker of totnes . . . . . . . . . . iij<sup>ll</sup><br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
== Theatrical Provenance ==<br />
'The Tinker of Totnes' was performed by the Admiral’s men as a new play in July 1596.<br />
<br />
<br />
== Probable Genre(s) ==<br />
<!-- This template outputs the probable genres entered in the data section above. You can replace this comment and the line below if you'd like to write about the probable genres in more detail --><br />
{{Play/Probable Genres}}<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
== Possible Narrative and Dramatic Sources or Analogues ==<br />
(information welcome; see [[#"For What It's Worth|'''For What It's Worth''']] below)<br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
<br />
== References to the Play ==<br />
(information welcome)<br />
<br />
<br />
== Critical Commentary ==<br />
'''Robert Boies Sharpe''', noting that the play only received a single performance before the company ceased playing until October 27, inferred that the play was ‘offensive’ and potentially precipitated an inhibition against playing (79). He imagines that the play contained ‘some mild, complimentary propaganda in the Seymours’ favor, imbedded in a play about some merry Tinker and the landing of Brutus on the stone still to be seen in the town’. Although Henslowe inaccurately recorded the date of performance as being Sunday July 18, four days prior to the formal restraint of playing (July 22), Sharpe relied on Greg’s corrected date of July 23 ('''Wiggins''' corrects again to Saturday July 24), and should thus have noticed that the dates rule ‘The Tinker of Totnes’ out from contributing to the inhibition (see Wiggins #1039). Sharpe’s conjecture about ‘political allusion’ involving the Seymours is therefore unfounded, since the premise that led to that conjecture (the play’s ostensible contributory role in the restraint) is false.<br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
<br />
== For What It's Worth ==<br />
<br />
Currently in EEBO TCP, the only substantial narratives about a tinker (one who mends pots, kettles, etc.) are from writers associated with the public theatres: Robert Greene and Thomas Dekker. Neither narrative is concerned with a tradesman from the market town of southern Devon, but each has dramatic potential for a comedy either at the tinker’s expense or in his celebration. <br />
<br />
===Greene===<br />
In ''The Second Part of Conny-Catching'' (1591), Greene tells a ‘true and merry Tale of a Knight, and a Tinker that was a pick-locke’, set in Bolton le Moors in north-west England (Greene, sig. F3r). Numerous of the knight’s tenants complain of having their locks picked in the night, and the chief suspect is the tinker who is known to spend very lavishly about the country. The knight promises to avenge the townsfolk if he can establish the tinker’s guilt, and conveniently the tinker soon arrives at the knight’s house seeking employment. When the tinker comes in to mend pots, he lays out his bag of tools and the knight sifts through them until he discovers the picklocks. Feigning not to recognise what such tools are used for, the knight politely enquires (over drinks) where the tinker will travel to next. Upon learning that Lancaster is the tinker’s destination, the knight asks him to carry a letter to the jailor there (the letter is actually a mittimus, or warrant for arrest – it thus predates Shakespeare’s introduction of the ‘letters sealed’ which Hamlet carries to England, and which would have resulted in Hamlet’s execution). The tinker makes his way to Lancaster hastily and delivers the letter to the jailer, who promptly claps ‘a strong pair of bolts’ on his heels and mocks him by asking whether he can gain freedom by picking his own locks. When the tinker hears the mittimus read out, ‘his hart was cold’ and he went silent, his ‘conscience accused’ (Greene, sig. F4r). There he remained until the next sessions, after which he was hanged in Lancaster.<br />
<br />
===Dekker===<br />
By contrast, in ''The Wonderful Year'' (1603), Dekker recounts the story of a tinker who was pointedly not one of those ‘rascally’ tinkers who prefers to steal purses than mend pots; rather, he was a ‘devout’ and ‘Musicall’ tinker who played country dances on his kettle drum, and whose sweet tunes lured the very bees from their hives such that they followed him in swarms, to the fear of townsmen (sig. F2v). Stopping for a drink at a tavern where a citizen of London has recently died of suspected plague, the tinker is approached by the host, who offers him a crown (a considerable sum for the tinker) to identify the body in the chamber and safely bury it. Fortified by drink, the tinker agrees (negotiating a higher fee from the townsfolk in the process), and carries the body off to a distant field where he souvenirs the dead man’s clothes and raids his pockets with satisfying results: seven pounds in coins. (Unlike the battlefield pilfering and ‘pocketing up of wrongs’ by Nim, Bardolph and Pistol in Shakespeare’s Henry V [3.2.44], the tinker’s confiscation of the dead man’s property is here seen as a just reward for the tinker bravely undertaking to remove the potentially plaguey body that no one else would touch for fear of their lives). The tinker cheerfully returns to town, enquiring through song whether there were any more Londoners to bury: ‘Haue yée any more Londoners to bury, hey downe a downe dery, haue ye any more Londoners to bury’ (sig. F3r). The moral of the story is that Death makes ‘fooles euen of wisemen, and cowards of the most valiant’ (sig. F3v), but the fearless tinker is rewarded for his foolhardiness in the face of plague. <br />
<br />
<br />
Whether the lost play’s tinker had his comeuppance or profited by his rashness, a common conceit about tinkers is their dual identity as craftsmen and cunning thieves. Henslowe records only a single, though successful (£3), performance of the play on what he calls July 18 (critics have corrected this to July 23), 1596. (See '''Chambers''', ''Elizabethan Stage'', 2.144 on the dating.) The repertorial context provides only a slight clue to the lost play’s subject matter, in that it featured a play about a thief (like Greene’s tinker) who was hanged: ‘Bellendon’. This proposition is tempting inasmuch as the hanged-thief tinker-story by Greene antedates the lost play, thus potentially providing source material. Unfortunately the Bolton le Moors setting of Greene’s story doesn’t gel with what we know of the play’s setting from Henslowe, though ‘Totnes’ in the play’s title may simply have been added for alliteration, of course.<br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
<br> <br />
<br />
== Works Cited ==<br />
<div style="padding-left: 2em; text-indent: -2em">Dekker, ''The Wonderful Year'' (1603).</div><br />
<div style="padding-left: 2em; text-indent: -2em">Greene, Robert. ''The Second Part of Conny-Catching'' (1591).</div><br />
<div style="padding-left: 2em; text-indent: -2em">Sharpe, Robert Boies. ''The Real War of the Theatres'' (Boston: D. C. Heath & Company, 1935).</div><br />
Example author, ''Example entry text'' (date).<br />
<br />
Example author2, ''example entry text'' (Date 2)</div>MeaghanBrownhttps://lostplays.folger.edu/_mw/index.php?title=Earl_of_Hertford,_The&diff=19430Earl of Hertford, The2019-09-13T12:24:37Z<p>MeaghanBrown: updated anon to anon.</p>
<hr />
<div>{{Play<br />
|dramatists=Anon.<br />
|year=1602<br />
|company=Admiral's<br />
|themes=Domestic politics<br />
|probableGenres=History (Harbage)<br />
}}<br />
== Historical Records ==<br />
===Payments to Miscellaneous Craftsmen (''Henslowe's Diary'')===<br />
<br />
[[category:Henslowe's records]]<br />
'''F. 107<sup>v</sup> ([http://www.archive.org/stream/henslowesdiary00unkngoog#page/n230/mode/1up Greg I, 170])'''<br />
<br><br />
:Lent vnto the company 1602 to }<br />
:paye ther billes for tayllers & others } xxxij<sup>s</sup><br />
:for the new playe of the earlle of }<br />
:Harfurd the some of }<br />
<br />
<br><br />
In the margin, preceding the entry of payment to the craftsmen, Henslowe entered the following:<br />
<br />
:totalles<br />
:li — s — d<br />
:718 — 12 — 00<br />
<br />
== Theatrical Provenance ==<br />
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The Admiral's company acquired the play at the start of their second full year at the Fortune playhouse.<br />
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== Probable Genre(s) ==<br />
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== Possible Narrative and Dramatic Sources or Analogues ==<br />
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Information welcome.<br />
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== References to the Play ==<br />
Information welcome.<br />
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== Critical Commentary ==<br />
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[[WorksCited|'''Greg II''']] does not offer any details on the provenance of this play or its narrative.<br />
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<br><br />
'''Gurr''' does not list "The Earl of Hertford: among the plays acquired by the Admiral's men, but he does note the tally of payments to the craftsmen, adding that the unrelated mention of the play for which the company spent 32s. might be for "an unnamed play from Herford's Men, or … a play about the earl, the queen's cousin" (266, n135).<br />
<br />
<br><br />
[[WorksCited|'''Wiggins, ''Catalogue''''']], considering the possible earls of Hertford who might have been part of sufficiently interesting historical action to be the subject of a play, offers "Edward Seymour, who became Edward VI's first Lord Protector" and had a role in the "Anglo-Scottish war of 1544-51" (#1347). Wiggins is persuaded in part because of the proximity in the repertory ''c''. 1602 of contemporary history plays such as the serials on Thomas Wolsey and Lady Jane. "The Earl of Hertford," then, might have continued "an early Tudor history cycle."<br />
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== For What It's Worth ==<br />
Information welcome.<br />
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== Works Cited ==<br />
<br><br />
<div style="padding-left: 2em; text-indent: -2em;">Gurr, Andrew. ''Shakespeare's Opposites: The Admiral's Company 1594-1625''. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009.</div><br />
<br><br><br><br />
Site created and maintained by [[Roslyn L. Knutson]], Professor Emerita, University of Arkansas at Little Rock; updated 14 June 2019.<br />
[[category:all]][[category:Roslyn L. Knutson]][[category:Henslowe's records]]</div>MeaghanBrownhttps://lostplays.folger.edu/_mw/index.php?title=Abuses&diff=19429Abuses2019-09-13T12:13:22Z<p>MeaghanBrown: fixed now that auspices is two categories</p>
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<div>{{Play<br />
|dramatists=Anon.<br />
|year=1606<br />
|company=Paul's<br />
}}<br />
== Historical Records ==<br />
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== Theatrical Provenance ==<br />
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== Probable Genre(s) ==<br />
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== For What It's Worth ==<br />
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== Works Cited ==</div>MeaghanBrownhttps://lostplays.folger.edu/_mw/index.php?title=Absalom&diff=19419Absalom2019-08-27T12:23:20Z<p>MeaghanBrown: </p>
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<div>{{Play<br />
|dramatists=Anon.<br />
|year=1602<br />
|company=Worcester's<br />
|gregNo=θ<br />
}}<br />
== Historical Records ==<br />
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== Theatrical Provenance ==<br />
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== Probable Genre(s) ==<br />
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{{Play/Probable Genres}}<br />
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== Works Cited ==</div>MeaghanBrownhttps://lostplays.folger.edu/_mw/index.php?title=Absalom&diff=19418Absalom2019-08-27T12:21:41Z<p>MeaghanBrown: testing new form by making blank Absalom page</p>
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<div>{{Play<br />
|gregNo=θ<br />
}}<br />
== Historical Records ==<br />
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== Theatrical Provenance ==<br />
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== Probable Genre(s) ==<br />
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== Possible Narrative and Dramatic Sources or Analogues ==<br />
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== Works Cited ==</div>MeaghanBrownhttps://lostplays.folger.edu/_mw/index.php?title=Abuses&diff=19277Abuses2019-06-18T21:45:19Z<p>MeaghanBrown: </p>
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<div>{{Play<br />
|dramatists=Anon.<br />
|year=1606<br />
|auspices=Paul's<br />
}}<br />
== Historical Records ==<br />
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== Theatrical Provenance ==<br />
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== Probable Genre(s) ==<br />
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== Possible Narrative and Dramatic Sources or Analogues ==<br />
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== For What It's Worth ==<br />
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== Works Cited ==</div>MeaghanBrownhttps://lostplays.folger.edu/_mw/index.php?title=French_Doctor&diff=19217French Doctor2019-06-15T17:25:34Z<p>MeaghanBrown: </p>
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<div>{{Play<br />
|dramatists=Anon.<br />
|year=1594<br />
|probableGenres=Comedy?<br />
}}<br />
== Historical Records ==<br />
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=== Performance Records (''Henslowe's Diary'')===<br />
<br><br />
'''F. 10 ([https://archive.org/details/henslowesdiary00unkngoog/page/n79 Greg I, 19])'''<br />
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<lpd-pre><br />
::y<sup>e</sup> 18 of octobʒ 1594 R''es'' at the frenshe docter xxij<sup>s</sup></lpd-pre><br />
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<br />
<br><br><br />
'''F. 10<sup>v</sup>''' ([http://www.archive.org/stream/henslowesdiary00unkngoog#page/n78/mode/2up Greg, I.19])<br />
:{| {{table}}<br />
|y<sup>e</sup> 28 of octobʒ 1594 ||||||||||||||||||R''es'' at the frenshe docter . . . . . . . . . xv<sup>s</sup><br />
|-<br />
| y<sup>e</sup> 18 of novmbʒ 1594||||||||||||||||||R''es'' at the frenshe docter . . . . . . . . . xxvij<sup>s</sup><br />
|}<br />
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== Theatrical Provenance ==<br />
<br />
The theatrical provenance of "French Doctor" is complicated by the fact that Henslowe did not mark the play "ne" at its debut in his records for the autumn of 1594. Theater historians consequently assume that the play was in revival. But where had it been when new, and with which company?<br />
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== Probable Genre(s) ==<br />
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== For What It's Worth ==<br />
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== Works Cited ==</div>MeaghanBrownhttps://lostplays.folger.edu/_mw/index.php?title=French_Doctor&diff=19216French Doctor2019-06-15T17:23:49Z<p>MeaghanBrown: converted one bit to lpd-pre</p>
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<div>{{Play<br />
|dramatists=Anon.<br />
|year=1594<br />
|probableGenres=Comedy?<br />
}}<br />
== Historical Records ==<br />
<br />
=== Performance Records (''Henslowe's Diary'')===<br />
<br><br />
'''F. 10 ([https://archive.org/details/henslowesdiary00unkngoog/page/n79 Greg I, 19])<br />
<br><br />
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<br />
<lpd-pre><br />
::y<sup>e</sup> 18 of octobʒ 1594 R''es'' at the frenshe docter xxij<sup>s</sup></lpd-pre><br />
<br />
<br />
<br><br><br />
'''F. 10<sup>v</sup>''' ([http://www.archive.org/stream/henslowesdiary00unkngoog#page/n78/mode/2up Greg, I.19])<br />
:{| {{table}}<br />
|y<sup>e</sup> 28 of octobʒ 1594 ||||||||||||||||||R''es'' at the frenshe docter . . . . . . . . . xv<sup>s</sup><br />
|-<br />
| y<sup>e</sup> 18 of novmbʒ 1594||||||||||||||||||R''es'' at the frenshe docter . . . . . . . . . xxvij<sup>s</sup><br />
|}<br />
<br />
== Theatrical Provenance ==<br />
<br />
The theatrical provenance of "French Doctor" is complicated by the fact that Henslowe did not mark the play "ne" at its debut in his records for the autumn of 1594. Theater historians consequently assume that the play was in revival. But where had it been when new, and with which company?<br />
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== Probable Genre(s) ==<br />
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== Works Cited ==</div>MeaghanBrownhttps://lostplays.folger.edu/_mw/index.php?title=User:MeaghanBrown&diff=19163User:MeaghanBrown2019-06-13T12:29:05Z<p>MeaghanBrown: Created page with "Meaghan Brown is the Digital Production Editor at the Folger Shakespeare Library."</p>
<hr />
<div>Meaghan Brown is the Digital Production Editor at the Folger Shakespeare Library.</div>MeaghanBrownhttps://lostplays.folger.edu/_mw/index.php?title=Dumb_Bawd&diff=19078Dumb Bawd2019-06-06T12:18:09Z<p>MeaghanBrown: </p>
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<div>{{Play<br />
|dramatists=Shirley, Henry<br />
|year=1623<br />
|auspices=King's<br />
}}<br />
== Historical Records ==<br />
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== Theatrical Provenance ==<br />
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{{Play/Probable Genres}}<br />
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== Works Cited ==</div>MeaghanBrownhttps://lostplays.folger.edu/_mw/index.php?title=Dumb_Bawd&diff=19077Dumb Bawd2019-06-06T12:17:42Z<p>MeaghanBrown: Created page with "{{Play |dramatists=Shirley, Henry |year=1623 }} == Historical Records == == Theatrical Provenance == == Probable Genre(s) == <!-- This template outputs the probable..."</p>
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<div>{{Play<br />
|dramatists=Shirley, Henry<br />
|year=1623<br />
}}<br />
== Historical Records ==<br />
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== Theatrical Provenance ==<br />
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== Probable Genre(s) ==<br />
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== Works Cited ==</div>MeaghanBrownhttps://lostplays.folger.edu/_mw/index.php?title=Burleigh_Masque&diff=19076Burleigh Masque2019-06-06T12:15:53Z<p>MeaghanBrown: Created page with "{{Play |dramatists=Maynard, John |year=1624 |auspices=Burleigh-on-the-Hill }} == Historical Records == == Theatrical Provenance == == Probable Genre(s) == <!-- This..."</p>
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<div>{{Play<br />
|dramatists=Maynard, John<br />
|year=1624<br />
|auspices=Burleigh-on-the-Hill<br />
}}<br />
== Historical Records ==<br />
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== Works Cited ==</div>MeaghanBrownhttps://lostplays.folger.edu/_mw/index.php?title=Lusty_London&diff=19075Lusty London2019-06-06T12:10:42Z<p>MeaghanBrown: </p>
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<div>{{Play<br />
|dramatists=Puttenham, George<br />
|year=1580<br />
|auspices=Unknown<br />
}}<br />
== Historical Records ==<br />
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== Theatrical Provenance ==<br />
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== Probable Genre(s) ==<br />
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== Works Cited ==</div>MeaghanBrownhttps://lostplays.folger.edu/_mw/index.php?title=Lusty_London&diff=19074Lusty London2019-06-06T12:10:10Z<p>MeaghanBrown: Created page with "{{Play |dramatists=Puttenham, George |year=1580 }} == Historical Records == == Theatrical Provenance == == Probable Genre(s) == <!-- This template outputs the proba..."</p>
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<div>{{Play<br />
|dramatists=Puttenham, George<br />
|year=1580<br />
}}<br />
== Historical Records ==<br />
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== Works Cited ==</div>MeaghanBrownhttps://lostplays.folger.edu/_mw/index.php?title=Amyntas&diff=19069Amyntas2019-06-05T22:34:52Z<p>MeaghanBrown: Created page with "{{Play |dramatists=Digby, Kenelm |year=1635 |auspices=closet }} == Historical Records == == Theatrical Provenance == == Probable Genre(s) == <!-- This template outp..."</p>
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<div>{{Play<br />
|dramatists=Digby, Kenelm<br />
|year=1635<br />
|auspices=closet<br />
}}<br />
== Historical Records ==<br />
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== Theatrical Provenance ==<br />
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== Possible Narrative and Dramatic Sources or Analogues ==<br />
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== Works Cited ==</div>MeaghanBrownhttps://lostplays.folger.edu/_mw/index.php?title=Abuses&diff=19068Abuses2019-06-05T22:07:17Z<p>MeaghanBrown: </p>
<hr />
<div>{{Play<br />
|dramatists=Anon; Anon. Play Titles A<br />
|year=1606<br />
|auspices=Paul's<br />
}}<br />
== Historical Records ==<br />
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== Theatrical Provenance ==<br />
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== Probable Genre(s) ==<br />
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== Possible Narrative and Dramatic Sources or Analogues ==<br />
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== For What It's Worth ==<br />
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== Works Cited ==</div>MeaghanBrownhttps://lostplays.folger.edu/_mw/index.php?title=Abuses&diff=19067Abuses2019-06-05T22:04:19Z<p>MeaghanBrown: creating 'Abuses" as an example for Ros</p>
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<div>{{Play<br />
|dramatists=Anon<br />
|year=1606<br />
|auspices=Paul's<br />
}}<br />
== Historical Records ==<br />
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== Theatrical Provenance ==<br />
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== Possible Narrative and Dramatic Sources or Analogues ==<br />
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== For What It's Worth ==<br />
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== Works Cited ==</div>MeaghanBrownhttps://lostplays.folger.edu/_mw/index.php?title=Alba&diff=19064Alba2019-06-04T18:10:15Z<p>MeaghanBrown: </p>
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<div>{{Play<br />
|dramatists=Burton, Robert<br />
|year=1605<br />
|auspices=Christ Church Men<br />
|probableGenres=Latin Pastoral (Harbage)<br />
}}<br />
==Historical Records==<br />
<br />
===Cambridge University Library MS. Add. 34===<br />
<br />
(Narratives by Cambridge Men)<br />
<br />
Under the heading---<br />
:"The preparacion at Oxford in August 1605, against the comminge <br />
:thither of king Iames with the quene and Younge Prince, together with<br />
:the thinges then and there done, and the maner thereof./"<br />
<br>---is an account of the play by Philip Stringer, visiting from Cambridge:<br />
<blockquote>f 35* (27 August)<br />
<br><br />
The Comedie began between 9. and 10., and ended at one, the name of<br />
<br>yt was Alba, whereof I never saw reason, it was a passtorall much like one<br />
<br>w''hi''ch I have seene in King''es'' Colledg in Cambridge, but acted farr worse,<br />
<br>in the actinge thereof they brought in 5. or 6. men almost naked w''h''ich<br />
<br>were much disliked by the Queene and Ladyes, and alsoe manye rusticall<br />
<br> songes and daunces, which made it seeme verye tedious in soe much that<br />
<br>if the Chauncelors of both the Vniu''er''sityes had not intreated his Ma''ies''tie<br />
<br>earnestlye, he would have bene gone before half the Comedie had bene<br />
<br>ended./</blockquote><br />
<br />
Quoted by Elliott and Nelson, [http://www.archive.org/stream/oxfordREED01elliuoft#page/n313/mode/2up REED Oxford 1.298]<br />
<br />
<br />
===Staffordshire Record Office ms. D649/1/1===<br />
<br />
This manuscript is a letter of Burton to his brother, William Burton. The first part of Burton's letter has been known for some time through second-hand accounts. Nichols, for example, quoted it in his ''The Progresses, Processions, and Magnificent Festivities of King James the First'' (1828), iv.1067, and it is also cited recently by Elliot and Nelson [http://www.archive.org/stream/oxfordREED01elliuoft#page/n313/mode/2up REED Oxford 1.294]. Nochimson (327) provided a fuller extract from the manuscript once its whereabouts at the Staffordshire Record Office had been discovered:<br />
<blockquote>Heare is no newes but praeparation for <br />
<br>the Kinges cominge, who will be heare on Teusday come forthe<br />
<br>nighte. playes ^<sup>Verses</sup> etc, that parte of y<sup>e</sup> play w''hi''ch I made is very <br />
<br>well liked, especially those scenes of the Magus, and I haue <br />
<br>had greate thanckes for my paynes of .D. Kinge o''u''r newe Deane.<br />
<br>i wolde knowe nowe howe longe you meane to tarry in London.<br />
<br>after the kinge is gone from hence or a little after I wolde<br />
<br>not care to make an odde voyage to London if yourre<br />
<br>chamberfellowe be not their. etc lette me knowe your <minde><br />
<br>I pray you that if you chance to walke vppe into London<br />
<br>amongest the brokers, you wolde see if you can meete w''i''th<br />
<br>Seneca the philosophers work''es'' at seconde hande, and sende me<br />
<br> the loest price etc. or if you cannenot meete w''i''the th''em'' so, tell me<br />
<br>howe they be solde newe theire in one volume .8uo./ And so<br />
<br>for this time fare you well. the xjth. of August./1605<br />
:Ille ego qui quand''am''.<br />
:Robert''u''s Burton./</blockquote><br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
==Theatrical Provenance==<br />
<br />
Performed by Thomas Goodwin and other Christ Church men at Oxford on 27 August 1605 for a royal visitation (Chambers I.130). The plays performed were ''Alba'', ''[[Ajax Flagellifer]]'', ''Vertumnus'' (Matthew Gwinne), and ''The Queen's Arcadia'' (Samuel Daniel).<br />
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==Probable Genre(s)==<br />
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{{Play/Probable Genres}}<br />
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==Possible Narrative and Dramatic Sources or Analogues==<br />
<br />
Boas and Greg have provided a transcript of property lists from the University archives. From what is known about the two extant plays (''Vertumnus'' and ''The Queen's Arcadia''), and what is conjectured about ''[[Ajax Flagellifer]]'', Boas and Greg deduce that most of the property list refers to ''Alba'':<br />
<blockquote>the subject of ''Alba'' was evidently drawn in part at least from classical mythology, for it introduced Neptune, Apollo, Pan, and 'old Nestor' among its characters. There is also figured in it eight or ten kings, twenty nymphs, four 'Heremites', ten satyrs, three 'sylvanes', six morris-dancers, a magician, and an old woman... (249-50).</blockquote><br />
<br>Nochimson draws further inferences from the properties list:<br />
<blockquote>With regard to Robert Burton's 'magus', we should note the item calling for 'I. longe black beard and hayre vncurled for a magitian'. One list includes '10. goates beard''es'' and pols of short hayre of goates color for Satyres./3 suites of greene close to the bodye for sylvanes'. Boas and Greg speculate that the sylvanes' costumes may have suggested nudity and thus caused the displeasure of the Queen. They suggest also that the " 'many rusticall songes and dances', which proved so tedious..., were doubtless contributed by the satyrs and nymphs, and by the morris-dancers decked in suits 'all lyke with garters of bels, 2 for every on' " (329).</blockquote><br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
==References to the Play==<br />
<br />
See the [[#Historical Records| historical records]] above.<br />
<br />
<br />
==Critical Commentary==<br />
<br />
(Information needed)<br />
<br><br><br />
<br />
==For What It's Worth==<br />
<br />
(Information needed)<br />
<br />
<br />
==Works Cited==<br />
<br />
Boas, F. S. and W. W. Greg. "James I at Oxford in 1605. Property Lists from the University Archives." ''Malone Society Collections'', vol. i, part III. Oxford, 1909. Print.<br />
<br />
Nochimson, R. L. “Robert Burton’s Authorship of Alba: A Lost Letter Recovered.” ''Review of English Studies'' 21 (1970): 325-31. Print. [http://www.jstor.org/stable/512742 JSTOR] <br />
<br />
[[category:Christ Church]][[category:all]][[category:David McInnis]]<br />
<br />
Site created and maintained by [[David McInnis]], University of Melbourne; updated 24 Feb 2010.</div>MeaghanBrownhttps://lostplays.folger.edu/_mw/index.php?title=Alba&diff=19063Alba2019-06-04T18:08:15Z<p>MeaghanBrown: </p>
<hr />
<div>{{Play<br />
|dramatists=Burton, Robert<br />
|year=1605<br />
|auspices=Christ Church Men<br />
|probableGenres=Latin Pastoral (Harbage)<br />
}}<br />
==Historical Records==<br />
<br />
===Cambridge University Library MS. Add. 34===<br />
<br />
(Narratives by Cambridge Men)<br />
<br />
Under the heading---<br />
:"The preparacion at Oxford in August 1605, against the comminge <br />
:thither of king Iames with the quene and Younge Prince, together with<br />
:the thinges then and there done, and the maner thereof./"<br />
<br>---is an account of the play by Philip Stringer, visiting from Cambridge:<br />
<blockquote>f 35* (27 August)<br />
<br><br />
The Comedie began between 9. and 10., and ended at one, the name of<br />
<br>yt was Alba, whereof I never saw reason, it was a passtorall much like one<br />
<br>w''hi''ch I have seene in King''es'' Colledg in Cambridge, but acted farr worse,<br />
<br>in the actinge thereof they brought in 5. or 6. men almost naked w''h''ich<br />
<br>were much disliked by the Queene and Ladyes, and alsoe manye rusticall<br />
<br> songes and daunces, which made it seeme verye tedious in soe much that<br />
<br>if the Chauncelors of both the Vniu''er''sityes had not intreated his Ma''ies''tie<br />
<br>earnestlye, he would have bene gone before half the Comedie had bene<br />
<br>ended./</blockquote><br />
<br />
Quoted by Elliott and Nelson, [http://www.archive.org/stream/oxfordREED01elliuoft#page/n313/mode/2up REED Oxford 1.298]<br />
<br />
<br />
===Staffordshire Record Office ms. D649/1/1===<br />
<br />
This manuscript is a letter of Burton to his brother, William Burton. The first part of Burton's letter has been known for some time through second-hand accounts. Nichols, for example, quoted it in his ''The Progresses, Processions, and Magnificent Festivities of King James the First'' (1828), iv.1067, and it is also cited recently by Elliot and Nelson [http://www.archive.org/stream/oxfordREED01elliuoft#page/n313/mode/2up REED Oxford 1.294]. Nochimson (327) provided a fuller extract from the manuscript once its whereabouts at the Staffordshire Record Office had been discovered:<br />
<blockquote>Heare is no newes but praeparation for <br />
<br>the Kinges cominge, who will be heare on Teusday come forthe<br />
<br>nighte. playes ^<sup>Verses</sup> etc, that parte of y<sup>e</sup> play w''hi''ch I made is very <br />
<br>well liked, especially those scenes of the Magus, and I haue <br />
<br>had greate thanckes for my paynes of .D. Kinge o''u''r newe Deane.<br />
<br>i wolde knowe nowe howe longe you meane to tarry in London.<br />
<br>after the kinge is gone from hence or a little after I wolde<br />
<br>not care to make an odde voyage to London if yourre<br />
<br>chamberfellowe be not their. etc lette me knowe your <minde><br />
<br>I pray you that if you chance to walke vppe into London<br />
<br>amongest the brokers, you wolde see if you can meete w''i''th<br />
<br>Seneca the philosophers work''es'' at seconde hande, and sende me<br />
<br> the loest price etc. or if you cannenot meete w''i''the th''em'' so, tell me<br />
<br>howe they be solde newe theire in one volume .8uo./ And so<br />
<br>for this time fare you well. the xjth. of August./1605<br />
:Ille ego qui quand''am''.<br />
:Robert''u''s Burton./</blockquote><br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
==Theatrical Provenance==<br />
<br />
Performed by Thomas Goodwin and other Christ Church men at Oxford on 27 August 1605 for a royal visitation (Chambers I.130). The plays performed were ''Alba'', ''[[Ajax Flagellifer]]'', ''Vertumnus'' (Matthew Gwinne), and ''The Queen's Arcadia'' (Samuel Daniel).<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
==Probable Genre(s)==<br />
<br />
Latin Pastoral (Harbage)<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
==Possible Narrative and Dramatic Sources or Analogues==<br />
<br />
Boas and Greg have provided a transcript of property lists from the University archives. From what is known about the two extant plays (''Vertumnus'' and ''The Queen's Arcadia''), and what is conjectured about ''[[Ajax Flagellifer]]'', Boas and Greg deduce that most of the property list refers to ''Alba'':<br />
<blockquote>the subject of ''Alba'' was evidently drawn in part at least from classical mythology, for it introduced Neptune, Apollo, Pan, and 'old Nestor' among its characters. There is also figured in it eight or ten kings, twenty nymphs, four 'Heremites', ten satyrs, three 'sylvanes', six morris-dancers, a magician, and an old woman... (249-50).</blockquote><br />
<br>Nochimson draws further inferences from the properties list:<br />
<blockquote>With regard to Robert Burton's 'magus', we should note the item calling for 'I. longe black beard and hayre vncurled for a magitian'. One list includes '10. goates beard''es'' and pols of short hayre of goates color for Satyres./3 suites of greene close to the bodye for sylvanes'. Boas and Greg speculate that the sylvanes' costumes may have suggested nudity and thus caused the displeasure of the Queen. They suggest also that the " 'many rusticall songes and dances', which proved so tedious..., were doubtless contributed by the satyrs and nymphs, and by the morris-dancers decked in suits 'all lyke with garters of bels, 2 for every on' " (329).</blockquote><br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
==References to the Play==<br />
<br />
See the [[#Historical Records| historical records]] above.<br />
<br />
<br />
==Critical Commentary==<br />
<br />
(Information needed)<br />
<br><br><br />
<br />
==For What It's Worth==<br />
<br />
(Information needed)<br />
<br />
<br />
==Works Cited==<br />
<br />
Boas, F. S. and W. W. Greg. "James I at Oxford in 1605. Property Lists from the University Archives." ''Malone Society Collections'', vol. i, part III. Oxford, 1909. Print.<br />
<br />
Nochimson, R. L. “Robert Burton’s Authorship of Alba: A Lost Letter Recovered.” ''Review of English Studies'' 21 (1970): 325-31. Print. [http://www.jstor.org/stable/512742 JSTOR] <br />
<br />
[[category:Christ Church]][[category:all]][[category:David McInnis]]<br />
<br />
Site created and maintained by [[David McInnis]], University of Melbourne; updated 24 Feb 2010.</div>MeaghanBrownhttps://lostplays.folger.edu/_mw/index.php?title=Alba&diff=19062Alba2019-06-04T18:02:40Z<p>MeaghanBrown: converted to semantic media wiki format as demo</p>
<hr />
<div>{{Play<br />
|dramatists=Burton, Robert<br />
|year=1605<br />
|auspices=Christ Church<br />
|probableGenres=Latin Pastoral (Harbage)<br />
}}<br />
==Historical Records==<br />
<br />
===Cambridge University Library MS. Add. 34===<br />
<br />
(Narratives by Cambridge Men)<br />
<br />
Under the heading---<br />
:"The preparacion at Oxford in August 1605, against the comminge <br />
:thither of king Iames with the quene and Younge Prince, together with<br />
:the thinges then and there done, and the maner thereof./"<br />
<br>---is an account of the play by Philip Stringer, visiting from Cambridge:<br />
<blockquote>f 35* (27 August)<br />
<br><br />
The Comedie began between 9. and 10., and ended at one, the name of<br />
<br>yt was Alba, whereof I never saw reason, it was a passtorall much like one<br />
<br>w''hi''ch I have seene in King''es'' Colledg in Cambridge, but acted farr worse,<br />
<br>in the actinge thereof they brought in 5. or 6. men almost naked w''h''ich<br />
<br>were much disliked by the Queene and Ladyes, and alsoe manye rusticall<br />
<br> songes and daunces, which made it seeme verye tedious in soe much that<br />
<br>if the Chauncelors of both the Vniu''er''sityes had not intreated his Ma''ies''tie<br />
<br>earnestlye, he would have bene gone before half the Comedie had bene<br />
<br>ended./</blockquote><br />
<br />
Quoted by Elliott and Nelson, [http://www.archive.org/stream/oxfordREED01elliuoft#page/n313/mode/2up REED Oxford 1.298]<br />
<br />
<br />
===Staffordshire Record Office ms. D649/1/1===<br />
<br />
This manuscript is a letter of Burton to his brother, William Burton. The first part of Burton's letter has been known for some time through second-hand accounts. Nichols, for example, quoted it in his ''The Progresses, Processions, and Magnificent Festivities of King James the First'' (1828), iv.1067, and it is also cited recently by Elliot and Nelson [http://www.archive.org/stream/oxfordREED01elliuoft#page/n313/mode/2up REED Oxford 1.294]. Nochimson (327) provided a fuller extract from the manuscript once its whereabouts at the Staffordshire Record Office had been discovered:<br />
<blockquote>Heare is no newes but praeparation for <br />
<br>the Kinges cominge, who will be heare on Teusday come forthe<br />
<br>nighte. playes ^<sup>Verses</sup> etc, that parte of y<sup>e</sup> play w''hi''ch I made is very <br />
<br>well liked, especially those scenes of the Magus, and I haue <br />
<br>had greate thanckes for my paynes of .D. Kinge o''u''r newe Deane.<br />
<br>i wolde knowe nowe howe longe you meane to tarry in London.<br />
<br>after the kinge is gone from hence or a little after I wolde<br />
<br>not care to make an odde voyage to London if yourre<br />
<br>chamberfellowe be not their. etc lette me knowe your <minde><br />
<br>I pray you that if you chance to walke vppe into London<br />
<br>amongest the brokers, you wolde see if you can meete w''i''th<br />
<br>Seneca the philosophers work''es'' at seconde hande, and sende me<br />
<br> the loest price etc. or if you cannenot meete w''i''the th''em'' so, tell me<br />
<br>howe they be solde newe theire in one volume .8uo./ And so<br />
<br>for this time fare you well. the xjth. of August./1605<br />
:Ille ego qui quand''am''.<br />
:Robert''u''s Burton./</blockquote><br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
==Theatrical Provenance==<br />
<br />
Performed by Thomas Goodwin and other Christ Church men at Oxford on 27 August 1605 for a royal visitation (Chambers I.130). The plays performed were ''Alba'', ''[[Ajax Flagellifer]]'', ''Vertumnus'' (Matthew Gwinne), and ''The Queen's Arcadia'' (Samuel Daniel).<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
==Probable Genre(s)==<br />
<br />
Latin Pastoral (Harbage)<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
==Possible Narrative and Dramatic Sources or Analogues==<br />
<br />
Boas and Greg have provided a transcript of property lists from the University archives. From what is known about the two extant plays (''Vertumnus'' and ''The Queen's Arcadia''), and what is conjectured about ''[[Ajax Flagellifer]]'', Boas and Greg deduce that most of the property list refers to ''Alba'':<br />
<blockquote>the subject of ''Alba'' was evidently drawn in part at least from classical mythology, for it introduced Neptune, Apollo, Pan, and 'old Nestor' among its characters. There is also figured in it eight or ten kings, twenty nymphs, four 'Heremites', ten satyrs, three 'sylvanes', six morris-dancers, a magician, and an old woman... (249-50).</blockquote><br />
<br>Nochimson draws further inferences from the properties list:<br />
<blockquote>With regard to Robert Burton's 'magus', we should note the item calling for 'I. longe black beard and hayre vncurled for a magitian'. One list includes '10. goates beard''es'' and pols of short hayre of goates color for Satyres./3 suites of greene close to the bodye for sylvanes'. Boas and Greg speculate that the sylvanes' costumes may have suggested nudity and thus caused the displeasure of the Queen. They suggest also that the " 'many rusticall songes and dances', which proved so tedious..., were doubtless contributed by the satyrs and nymphs, and by the morris-dancers decked in suits 'all lyke with garters of bels, 2 for every on' " (329).</blockquote><br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
==References to the Play==<br />
<br />
See the [[#Historical Records| historical records]] above.<br />
<br />
<br />
==Critical Commentary==<br />
<br />
(Information needed)<br />
<br><br><br />
<br />
==For What It's Worth==<br />
<br />
(Information needed)<br />
<br />
<br />
==Works Cited==<br />
<br />
Boas, F. S. and W. W. Greg. "James I at Oxford in 1605. Property Lists from the University Archives." ''Malone Society Collections'', vol. i, part III. Oxford, 1909. Print.<br />
<br />
Nochimson, R. L. “Robert Burton’s Authorship of Alba: A Lost Letter Recovered.” ''Review of English Studies'' 21 (1970): 325-31. Print. [http://www.jstor.org/stable/512742 JSTOR] <br />
<br />
[[category:Christ Church Men]][[category:all]][[category:David McInnis]]<br />
<br />
Site created and maintained by [[David McInnis]], University of Melbourne; updated 24 Feb 2010.</div>MeaghanBrownhttps://lostplays.folger.edu/_mw/index.php?title=Alba&diff=19061Alba2019-06-04T18:00:42Z<p>MeaghanBrown: </p>
<hr />
<div>{{Play<br />
|dramatists=Burton, Robert<br />
|year=1605<br />
}}<br />
[[Burton, Robert]] ([[1605]])<br />
<br />
<br />
==Historical Records==<br />
<br />
===Cambridge University Library MS. Add. 34===<br />
<br />
(Narratives by Cambridge Men)<br />
<br />
Under the heading---<br />
:"The preparacion at Oxford in August 1605, against the comminge <br />
:thither of king Iames with the quene and Younge Prince, together with<br />
:the thinges then and there done, and the maner thereof./"<br />
<br>---is an account of the play by Philip Stringer, visiting from Cambridge:<br />
<blockquote>f 35* (27 August)<br />
<br><br />
The Comedie began between 9. and 10., and ended at one, the name of<br />
<br>yt was Alba, whereof I never saw reason, it was a passtorall much like one<br />
<br>w''hi''ch I have seene in King''es'' Colledg in Cambridge, but acted farr worse,<br />
<br>in the actinge thereof they brought in 5. or 6. men almost naked w''h''ich<br />
<br>were much disliked by the Queene and Ladyes, and alsoe manye rusticall<br />
<br> songes and daunces, which made it seeme verye tedious in soe much that<br />
<br>if the Chauncelors of both the Vniu''er''sityes had not intreated his Ma''ies''tie<br />
<br>earnestlye, he would have bene gone before half the Comedie had bene<br />
<br>ended./</blockquote><br />
<br />
Quoted by Elliott and Nelson, [http://www.archive.org/stream/oxfordREED01elliuoft#page/n313/mode/2up REED Oxford 1.298]<br />
<br />
<br />
===Staffordshire Record Office ms. D649/1/1===<br />
<br />
This manuscript is a letter of Burton to his brother, William Burton. The first part of Burton's letter has been known for some time through second-hand accounts. Nichols, for example, quoted it in his ''The Progresses, Processions, and Magnificent Festivities of King James the First'' (1828), iv.1067, and it is also cited recently by Elliot and Nelson [http://www.archive.org/stream/oxfordREED01elliuoft#page/n313/mode/2up REED Oxford 1.294]. Nochimson (327) provided a fuller extract from the manuscript once its whereabouts at the Staffordshire Record Office had been discovered:<br />
<blockquote>Heare is no newes but praeparation for <br />
<br>the Kinges cominge, who will be heare on Teusday come forthe<br />
<br>nighte. playes ^<sup>Verses</sup> etc, that parte of y<sup>e</sup> play w''hi''ch I made is very <br />
<br>well liked, especially those scenes of the Magus, and I haue <br />
<br>had greate thanckes for my paynes of .D. Kinge o''u''r newe Deane.<br />
<br>i wolde knowe nowe howe longe you meane to tarry in London.<br />
<br>after the kinge is gone from hence or a little after I wolde<br />
<br>not care to make an odde voyage to London if yourre<br />
<br>chamberfellowe be not their. etc lette me knowe your <minde><br />
<br>I pray you that if you chance to walke vppe into London<br />
<br>amongest the brokers, you wolde see if you can meete w''i''th<br />
<br>Seneca the philosophers work''es'' at seconde hande, and sende me<br />
<br> the loest price etc. or if you cannenot meete w''i''the th''em'' so, tell me<br />
<br>howe they be solde newe theire in one volume .8uo./ And so<br />
<br>for this time fare you well. the xjth. of August./1605<br />
:Ille ego qui quand''am''.<br />
:Robert''u''s Burton./</blockquote><br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
==Theatrical Provenance==<br />
<br />
Performed by Thomas Goodwin and other Christ Church men at Oxford on 27 August 1605 for a royal visitation (Chambers I.130). The plays performed were ''Alba'', ''[[Ajax Flagellifer]]'', ''Vertumnus'' (Matthew Gwinne), and ''The Queen's Arcadia'' (Samuel Daniel).<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
==Probable Genre(s)==<br />
<br />
Latin Pastoral (Harbage)<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
==Possible Narrative and Dramatic Sources or Analogues==<br />
<br />
Boas and Greg have provided a transcript of property lists from the University archives. From what is known about the two extant plays (''Vertumnus'' and ''The Queen's Arcadia''), and what is conjectured about ''[[Ajax Flagellifer]]'', Boas and Greg deduce that most of the property list refers to ''Alba'':<br />
<blockquote>the subject of ''Alba'' was evidently drawn in part at least from classical mythology, for it introduced Neptune, Apollo, Pan, and 'old Nestor' among its characters. There is also figured in it eight or ten kings, twenty nymphs, four 'Heremites', ten satyrs, three 'sylvanes', six morris-dancers, a magician, and an old woman... (249-50).</blockquote><br />
<br>Nochimson draws further inferences from the properties list:<br />
<blockquote>With regard to Robert Burton's 'magus', we should note the item calling for 'I. longe black beard and hayre vncurled for a magitian'. One list includes '10. goates beard''es'' and pols of short hayre of goates color for Satyres./3 suites of greene close to the bodye for sylvanes'. Boas and Greg speculate that the sylvanes' costumes may have suggested nudity and thus caused the displeasure of the Queen. They suggest also that the " 'many rusticall songes and dances', which proved so tedious..., were doubtless contributed by the satyrs and nymphs, and by the morris-dancers decked in suits 'all lyke with garters of bels, 2 for every on' " (329).</blockquote><br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
==References to the Play==<br />
<br />
See the [[#Historical Records| historical records]] above.<br />
<br />
<br />
==Critical Commentary==<br />
<br />
(Information needed)<br />
<br><br><br />
<br />
==For What It's Worth==<br />
<br />
(Information needed)<br />
<br />
<br />
==Works Cited==<br />
<br />
Boas, F. S. and W. W. Greg. "James I at Oxford in 1605. Property Lists from the University Archives." ''Malone Society Collections'', vol. i, part III. Oxford, 1909. Print.<br />
<br />
Nochimson, R. L. “Robert Burton’s Authorship of Alba: A Lost Letter Recovered.” ''Review of English Studies'' 21 (1970): 325-31. Print. [http://www.jstor.org/stable/512742 JSTOR] <br />
<br />
[[category:Christ Church]] [[category:Christ Church Men]][[category:all]][[category:David McInnis]]<br />
<br />
Site created and maintained by [[David McInnis]], University of Melbourne; updated 24 Feb 2010.</div>MeaghanBrownhttps://lostplays.folger.edu/_mw/index.php?title=Lost_Plays_Database:Play/Article_Outline&diff=19060Lost Plays Database:Play/Article Outline2019-06-04T17:58:25Z<p>MeaghanBrown: /* Probable Genre(s) */</p>
<hr />
<div>== Historical Records ==<br />
<br />
<br />
== Theatrical Provenance ==<br />
<br />
<br />
== Probable Genre(s) ==<br />
<!-- This template outputs the probable genres entered in the data section above. You can replace this comment and the line below if you'd like to write about the probable genres in more detail --><br />
{{Play/Probable Genres}}<br />
<br />
== Possible Narrative and Dramatic Sources or Analogues ==<br />
<br />
<br />
== References to the Play ==<br />
<br />
<br />
== Critical Commentary ==<br />
<br />
<br />
== For What It's Worth ==<br />
<br />
<br />
== Works Cited ==</div>MeaghanBrownhttps://lostplays.folger.edu/_mw/index.php?title=Estrild&diff=18568Estrild2018-08-27T15:26:00Z<p>MeaghanBrown: </p>
<hr />
<div>[[Charles Tilney]] (''c''. [[1585]])<br />
<br />
<br />
==Historical Records==<br />
<br />
===Buc's note===<br />
<br />
An undated note in the hand of Sir George Buc on the title page of one of five surviving copies of ''Locrine'' (printed 1595) reads:<br />
<blockquote>Char. Tilney wrote <a> <br><br />
Tragedy of this mattr <wch> <br><br />
hee named Estrild: <& wch> <br> <br />
J think is this. It was l<lost ?> <br><br />
by his death. & now [?] s<ome ? > <br><br />
fellow hath published <it.> <br><br />
J made the dūbe shewes for it. <br> <br />
wch J yet have. G. B<.>.<br />
</blockquote><br />
<br><br />
<br />
[[Image:Locrine%2C_Fondation_Martin_Bodmer.jpg|250px]]<br />
[[Image:Locrine_Estrild_Buc%27s_note%2C_Fondation_Martin_Bodmer.jpg|250px]]<br />
<br />
''Buc signature on the title page of Locrine; reproduced with permission from the Fondation Martin Bodmer, Cologny, Geneve.''<br />
<br />
<br />
==Theatrical Provenance==<br />
<br />
Unknown; information welcome.<br />
<br><br><br><br />
<br />
==Probable Genre(s)==<br />
<br />
Tragedy<br />
<br />
<br />
==Possible Narrative and Dramatic Sources or Analogues==<br />
<br />
The story would have to be a pseudo-biography of Estrildis, daughter of the King of Germany, in the time of the war between Brute, first king of the Britons, versus Humber, King of the Huns, ''c''. 1115-1075. B.C.E. According to Geoffrey of Monmouth, Estrildis was one of three captives aboard the ship of Humber, which held the spoil of Humber's recent conquests in Germany. Locrine, eldest son of Brute, defeated Humber in battle (Humber fled and drowned in the River Humber). Locrine then pillaged Humber's ships and claimed the girls. It was Estrildis who set him on fire, however: "so fair was she that scarce might any be found to compare with her for beauty, for no polished ivory, nor newly-fallen snow, nor no lilies could surpass the whiteness of her flesh" ([http://sacred-texts.com/neu/eng/gem/gem03.htm Sacred Text]). <br />
<br><br><br />
<br />
A more recent version of Estrild's story than Geoffrey of Monmouth's is in ''The Mirror of Magistrates,'' as expanded in 1574 by John Higgins, with the title, "How Queene Elstride the Concubine and second wife of King Locrinus was miserably drowned by Queene Guendoline, The year before Christ. 1064" ([https://archive.org/details/mirrorformagist01higggoog Haslewood])<br />
<blockquote><br />
Elstride begins her narrative at home, in Germany, where her beauty has already attracted many suitors. The most potent, Humber, cowed her father into handing her over. Humber then brought her with two other beauties to Britain, where he was soon "drencht, and drounde," to her distress (st. 6). Confronted now with an army of claimants, she appealed to their pity with "teares, … sobbes, … [and] wringing handes" (st. 10). <br />
<br><br><br />
The king, Locrinus, claims her as his own and agrees to marry her (rather than keep her as concubine), but on her wedding day Corinæus confronted Locrinus with the pre-contract to marry Guendoline, his daughter. Locrinus acquiesed, and Estride was filled with hate and vexation; she threatened to leave. Locrinus, to reassure her of his love, built vault where she would live secretly. In time, their daughter Sabrine was born. <br />
<br><br><br />
When Corinæus died, Locrinus rejected Guendoline, who then declared war on Locrinus. She was successful, and Locrinus was killed in battle by an arrow from one of Guendoline's warriors. Summoning Elstride, Guendoline berated her, calling her "harlot whoare" and "painted picture" (st. 32). She threatened to drown Elstride, bound hand and foot, and Sabrine with her. Sabrine begged to be killed in her mother's place, but Guendoline was pitiless. In a three-stanza-long "Adew," Elstride ended her lament with a description of bobbing in the water as Sabrine tried to join her. At length, she sank to the river bottom and lay "as dead and cold as marble stone" (st.49).</blockquote><br />
<br><br><br />
<br />
==References to the Play==<br />
<br />
The only surviving reference to "Estrild" is Buc's note (See [[#Historical Records|Historical Records]].)<br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
<br />
==Critical Commentary==<br />
<br />
The context for discussion of "Estrild" by scholars is the play, ''Locrine,'' initially in regard to Buc's handwritten note on the title page of one copy of the 1595 printing of ''Locrine'' and subsequently in regard to its having been an early version of ''Locrine'' somehow revised into and absorbed by the author or reviser of the extant play. Through arguments on the authorship of ''Locrine,'' "Estrild" is drawn into discussions of Robert Greene and ''Selimus,'' as well as of W. S., whose initials appear on the title page of ''Locrine''.<br />
<blockquote><br />
'''Collier''', in ''Catalogue of Early English Literature at Bridgewater House'' (1837), described the Buc note on the title page of ''Locrine'' ([https://ia600404.us.archive.org/28/items/cu31924029563750/cu31924029563750.pdf 41]); he added to that description in 1865 in ''Bibliographical Account of Early English Literature'' by providing a biographical blurb on Charles Tilney as well as asserting that "the authorship of "Locrine," falsely imputed to Shakespeare, is thus decided" (i.93-5, esp. 95 [as quoted by Greg, "Three Manuscript Notes," 313]).[[category:John Payne Collier]]<br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
'''Fleay''' knew of Buc's note, because he quotes Richard Simpson (without citation) as misattributing ''Locrine'' to Charles Tilney, whose name occurs in this matter only in the Buc note(''BECD'', 2.321))<br />
<br><br><br />
'''Chambers''' knew of Collier's comments on Buc's note, indicating Tilney's authorship of ''Locrine''; but, skeptical generally of Collier's claim and persuaded by other evidence, Chambers inclined to date ''Locrine'' in 1591. He did, however, allow that the extant text might be "a very substantial revision" (4.27).<br />
<br><br><br />
'''Greg''', in the context of examining three manuscript notes by Sir George Buc, reviewed the contributions of John Payne Collier to scholarly awareness of Buc's note on the title page of one of five surviving copies of ''Locrine.'' He credited Collier with having been the "earliest informant"of Buc's note, which he also "reproduced, evidently in hand-traced facsimile," without the heading (312). Greg was primarily concerned with whether the Buc note was a Collier forgery, and he decided that it was not. In the course of his examination of the note, Greg claimed to have transcribed it accurately (in a note, he says, "None of the previous attempts are reliable" [314]). He closed with musings on the truth quotient in Buc's note on the ''Locrine'' title page: "Buc was in an excellent position to ascertain the authorship of contemporary drama. ... Was he correct in his conjecture—for it is nothing more—that Charles Tilney's ''Estrild'' was identical with W. S.'s ''Locrine''?" (319-20). Greg decided to let "literary historians ... thresh out" that question (320). However, footnoting his statement about Buc's authority on Tilney's authorship, Greg pointed to the uncertain date of Buc's note. He observed that if it were early, Buc had as yet no "connextion with the Revels Office"; and, if the note were late, Buc "died insane" (319, n.2).;<br />
<br><br><br />
'''Maxwell''', acknowledging that the title page of ''Locrine'' implies strongly that the play had been "reworked or revised," observed that the "original need not have been an old play" (26). He was more interested in the sources and authorship of ''Locrine'' than in the presence of ‘’Estrild’’ in the 1595 text of ''Locrine''.<br />
<br><br><br />
'''Berek''' accepts the Buc note at face value and argues confidently "that by 1586 there existed a play called Estrild on the subject of ''Locrine'', a play which included dumb-shows by Buc which he still had in his possession after 1595, and which for this reason—as well as for others which will emerge—were different from the ones surviving in the printed text of ''Locrine''" (34). Those other reasons include Berek's claim that "both comic scenes and dumb-shows were written by the same person" (35). Without reconciling the ascription of the dumb-shows to Buc, Berek dates the work of that "same person" to "post-1591" (35). Put another way, Berek ascribes to Tilney "Act V, the epilogue, and a few parts of scenes in Acts I-IV" (36). He considers Act V "the part of ''Locrine'' most likely to be by Charles Tilney" (36). "Estrild," he claims, was a revenge tragedy presenting Locrine as a just avenger who destroyed the invading Humber and punished him for the death of Albanact" (37). He attributes the "Senecan trappings" to Tilney (38). Berek also cites T. W. Baldwin, in ''The Literary Genetics of Shakespeare's Plays, 1592-1594,'' as having attributed "Estrild" to the repertory of the Queen's Men (40).<br />
<br><br><br />
'''Griffin,''' asserting the authenticity and reliability of the Buc note, focuses on the biography of Charles Tilney, whom he identifies as a "cousin to Edmund Tilney" (37). Putting that biography together with the politics of the Babington Plot, Griffin argues "that ''Estrild'' was more politically sensitive than we might now guess if we did not know who had written it" (38). He asks, "Was ''Estrild'' composed as a persuasion-piece along the lines of ''Gorboduc'', half-warning and half-threatening on the succession question?" (39). Given his suggested analogue of ''Gorboduc'', Griffin sees irony in the fact that Thomas Sacville sat in judgment on the Babington conspirators and probably witnessed the execution of Tilney, whose last words at the block were that "'all young gentlemen [should] take warning" from his fate (as if he were himself a speaker in ''The Mirror for Magistrates'' [39]).<br />
<br><br><br />
'''Wiggins''' finds Buc "less than certain" about the identity of the 1595 ''Locrine'' as the play he remembers (and worked on) by Charles Tilney (serial number 770). Wiggins is more comfortable considering the lost "Estrild" as a source used by the author of ''Locrine,'' rather than the text revised into the later play.<br />
<br><br> <br />
'''Knutson''' discusses "Estrild" in the context of Ur-plays, that is, supposed early versions of now-extant plays. Generally skeptical of lumping together plays with shared subject matter as versions of one another, she questions how the author of ''Locrine'' might have acquired a copy of "Estrild" and "why he would risk the blowback of folding it into his own, given public awareness of Tilney's treason and the availability of source materials without political baggage" (39).<br />
<br><br><br />
'''Sharpe''' defends the accuracy of Buc's note by defending Buc himself as "a respected scholar and antiquarian" who was furthermore a near-contemporary of Tilney (660). In support of ''Locrine'' as old enough to have been written by Tilney, Sharpe discusses its similarity to "the kind of Senecan Inns of Court tragedies pioneered by Norton and Sackville's ''Gorboduc'' (1562), even imitating its first scene from its progenitor" (660). He would place the absorption of "Estrild" into ''Locrine'' between 1591 and 1594.<br />
<br><br><br />
'''Kirwan''' is not persuaded (as are Berek and Sharpe) that Buc was identifying ''Locrine'' as a lost play by Charles Tilney called "Estrild" (133-4). <br />
<br><br><br />
</blockquote><br />
<br />
==For What It's Worth==<br />
<br />
Richard Dutton, in the Oxford DNB, identifies Charles Tilney as the son of Edmund Tilney's cousin, Phillip. He continues: "Phillip and Edmund Tilney were bitter about the treatment Charles received; in a Star Chamber suit Rafe Bott testified that they ‘thyrsted and longyd to be revengd on him’, believing he had had custody of Charles in the Tower."<br />
<br><br><br />
The poem,"The Complaint of Elstred," was published by Thomas Lodge in 1593. Its composition date is unknown. Baldwin Maxwell argued that Lodge's poem was a source for ''Locrine'' but stopped short of claiming that the author of "Estrild" also knew it. Lodge's interest in the narrative does nevertheless show that the story of Estrild had currency.<br />
<br />
<br><br><br />
<br />
==Works Cited==<br />
<br />
<div style="padding-left: 2em; text-indent: -2em">Berek, Peter. "''Locrine'' Revised, ''Selimus,''and Early Responses to ''Tamburlaine''." ''Research Opportunities in Renaissance Drama'' 23 (1980): 33-54.</div><br />
<div style="padding-left: 2em; text-indent: -2em">Collier, John Payne. ''Catalogue of Early English Literature at Bridgewater House''. London, Thomas Rodd, F. Shoberl, Jun. 1837.</div><br />
<div style="padding-left: 2em; text-indent: -2em">Dutton, Richard. "Edmund Tilney," ''Oxford DNB.''</div><br />
<div style="padding-left: 2em; text-indent: -2em">Geoffrey of Monmouth. ''The History of the Kings of Britain''. ''Internet Sacred Text Archive'' ([http://sacred-texts.com/index.htm ''Sacred Text'' Book II]).</div><br />
<div style="padding-left: 2em; text-indent: -2em">Greg, W. W. "Three Manuscript Notes by Sir George Buc." ''The Library'' 12 (1931): 307-321.</div><br />
<div style="padding-left: 2em; text-indent: -2em"> Griffin, Benjamin. "''Locrine'' and the Babington Plot," ''Notes and Queries'' 44:1 (1997): 37-40. </div><br />
<div style="padding-left: 2em; text-indent: -2em">Haslewood, Joseph, ed. ''Mirror for Magistrates''. 2 vols. London: Lackington, Allen, and Co. and Longmand, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, 1815 ([https://archive.org/details/mirrorformagist01higggoog Vol. I]).</div><br />
<div style="padding-left: 2em; text-indent: -2em">Kirwan, Peter. ''Shakespeare and the Idea of Apocrypha: Negotiating the Boundaries of the Dramatic Canon.'' Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015.</div><br />
<div style="padding-left: 2em; text-indent: -2em">Knutson, Roslyn L. "Ur-Plays and Other Exercises in Making Stuff Up." In ''Lost Plays in Shakespeare's England.'' Ed. David McInnis and Matthew Steggle. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014. 31-54.</div><br />
<div style="padding-left: 2em; text-indent: -2em">Maxwell, Baldwin. ''Studies in the Shakespeare Apocrypha.'' New York: Greenwood Press, 1956.</div><br />
<div style="padding-left: 2em; text-indent: -2em">Sharpe, Will. "Authorship and Attribution," in ''William Shakespeare and Others: Collaborative Plays,'' Ed. Jonathan Bate and Eric Rasmussen with Jan Sewell and Will Sharpe. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. 2013. 641-745.</div><br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
<br />
<br />
Site created and maintained by [[Roslyn L. Knutson]], Professor Emerita, University of Arkansas at Little Rock; updated 11 August 2015.<br />
[[category:Geoffrey of Monmouth]][[category:Roslyn L. Knutson]]<br />
[[category:Thomas Lodge]][[category:Babington Plot]][[category:Mirror for Magistrates]][[category:Ancient Britain]]</div>MeaghanBrownhttps://lostplays.folger.edu/_mw/index.php?title=Estrild&diff=18567Estrild2018-08-27T15:25:31Z<p>MeaghanBrown: </p>
<hr />
<div>[[Charles Tilney]] (''c''. [[1585]])<br />
<br />
<br />
==Historical Records==<br />
<br />
===Buc's note===<br />
<br />
An undated note in the hand of Sir George Buc on the title page of one of five surviving copies of ''Locrine'' (printed 1595) reads:<br />
<blockquote>Char. Tilney wrote <a> <br><br />
Tragedy of this mattr <wch> <br><br />
hee named Estrild: <& wch> <br> <br />
J think is this. It was l<lost ?> <br><br />
by his death. & now [?] s<ome ? > <br><br />
fellow hath published <it.> <br><br />
J made the dūbe shewes for it. <br> <br />
wch J yet have. G. B<.>.<br />
</blockquote><br />
<br><br />
<br />
[[Image:Locrine%2C_Fondation_Martin_Bodmer.jpg|thumb|250px]]<br />
[[Image:Locrine_Estrild_Buc%27s_note%2C_Fondation_Martin_Bodmer.jpg|thumb|250px]]<br />
<br />
''Buc signature on the title page of Locrine; reproduced with permission from the Fondation Martin Bodmer, Cologny, Geneve.''<br />
<br />
<br />
==Theatrical Provenance==<br />
<br />
Unknown; information welcome.<br />
<br><br><br><br />
<br />
==Probable Genre(s)==<br />
<br />
Tragedy<br />
<br />
<br />
==Possible Narrative and Dramatic Sources or Analogues==<br />
<br />
The story would have to be a pseudo-biography of Estrildis, daughter of the King of Germany, in the time of the war between Brute, first king of the Britons, versus Humber, King of the Huns, ''c''. 1115-1075. B.C.E. According to Geoffrey of Monmouth, Estrildis was one of three captives aboard the ship of Humber, which held the spoil of Humber's recent conquests in Germany. Locrine, eldest son of Brute, defeated Humber in battle (Humber fled and drowned in the River Humber). Locrine then pillaged Humber's ships and claimed the girls. It was Estrildis who set him on fire, however: "so fair was she that scarce might any be found to compare with her for beauty, for no polished ivory, nor newly-fallen snow, nor no lilies could surpass the whiteness of her flesh" ([http://sacred-texts.com/neu/eng/gem/gem03.htm Sacred Text]). <br />
<br><br><br />
<br />
A more recent version of Estrild's story than Geoffrey of Monmouth's is in ''The Mirror of Magistrates,'' as expanded in 1574 by John Higgins, with the title, "How Queene Elstride the Concubine and second wife of King Locrinus was miserably drowned by Queene Guendoline, The year before Christ. 1064" ([https://archive.org/details/mirrorformagist01higggoog Haslewood])<br />
<blockquote><br />
Elstride begins her narrative at home, in Germany, where her beauty has already attracted many suitors. The most potent, Humber, cowed her father into handing her over. Humber then brought her with two other beauties to Britain, where he was soon "drencht, and drounde," to her distress (st. 6). Confronted now with an army of claimants, she appealed to their pity with "teares, … sobbes, … [and] wringing handes" (st. 10). <br />
<br><br><br />
The king, Locrinus, claims her as his own and agrees to marry her (rather than keep her as concubine), but on her wedding day Corinæus confronted Locrinus with the pre-contract to marry Guendoline, his daughter. Locrinus acquiesed, and Estride was filled with hate and vexation; she threatened to leave. Locrinus, to reassure her of his love, built vault where she would live secretly. In time, their daughter Sabrine was born. <br />
<br><br><br />
When Corinæus died, Locrinus rejected Guendoline, who then declared war on Locrinus. She was successful, and Locrinus was killed in battle by an arrow from one of Guendoline's warriors. Summoning Elstride, Guendoline berated her, calling her "harlot whoare" and "painted picture" (st. 32). She threatened to drown Elstride, bound hand and foot, and Sabrine with her. Sabrine begged to be killed in her mother's place, but Guendoline was pitiless. In a three-stanza-long "Adew," Elstride ended her lament with a description of bobbing in the water as Sabrine tried to join her. At length, she sank to the river bottom and lay "as dead and cold as marble stone" (st.49).</blockquote><br />
<br><br><br />
<br />
==References to the Play==<br />
<br />
The only surviving reference to "Estrild" is Buc's note (See [[#Historical Records|Historical Records]].)<br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
<br />
==Critical Commentary==<br />
<br />
The context for discussion of "Estrild" by scholars is the play, ''Locrine,'' initially in regard to Buc's handwritten note on the title page of one copy of the 1595 printing of ''Locrine'' and subsequently in regard to its having been an early version of ''Locrine'' somehow revised into and absorbed by the author or reviser of the extant play. Through arguments on the authorship of ''Locrine,'' "Estrild" is drawn into discussions of Robert Greene and ''Selimus,'' as well as of W. S., whose initials appear on the title page of ''Locrine''.<br />
<blockquote><br />
'''Collier''', in ''Catalogue of Early English Literature at Bridgewater House'' (1837), described the Buc note on the title page of ''Locrine'' ([https://ia600404.us.archive.org/28/items/cu31924029563750/cu31924029563750.pdf 41]); he added to that description in 1865 in ''Bibliographical Account of Early English Literature'' by providing a biographical blurb on Charles Tilney as well as asserting that "the authorship of "Locrine," falsely imputed to Shakespeare, is thus decided" (i.93-5, esp. 95 [as quoted by Greg, "Three Manuscript Notes," 313]).[[category:John Payne Collier]]<br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
'''Fleay''' knew of Buc's note, because he quotes Richard Simpson (without citation) as misattributing ''Locrine'' to Charles Tilney, whose name occurs in this matter only in the Buc note(''BECD'', 2.321))<br />
<br><br><br />
'''Chambers''' knew of Collier's comments on Buc's note, indicating Tilney's authorship of ''Locrine''; but, skeptical generally of Collier's claim and persuaded by other evidence, Chambers inclined to date ''Locrine'' in 1591. He did, however, allow that the extant text might be "a very substantial revision" (4.27).<br />
<br><br><br />
'''Greg''', in the context of examining three manuscript notes by Sir George Buc, reviewed the contributions of John Payne Collier to scholarly awareness of Buc's note on the title page of one of five surviving copies of ''Locrine.'' He credited Collier with having been the "earliest informant"of Buc's note, which he also "reproduced, evidently in hand-traced facsimile," without the heading (312). Greg was primarily concerned with whether the Buc note was a Collier forgery, and he decided that it was not. In the course of his examination of the note, Greg claimed to have transcribed it accurately (in a note, he says, "None of the previous attempts are reliable" [314]). He closed with musings on the truth quotient in Buc's note on the ''Locrine'' title page: "Buc was in an excellent position to ascertain the authorship of contemporary drama. ... Was he correct in his conjecture—for it is nothing more—that Charles Tilney's ''Estrild'' was identical with W. S.'s ''Locrine''?" (319-20). Greg decided to let "literary historians ... thresh out" that question (320). However, footnoting his statement about Buc's authority on Tilney's authorship, Greg pointed to the uncertain date of Buc's note. He observed that if it were early, Buc had as yet no "connextion with the Revels Office"; and, if the note were late, Buc "died insane" (319, n.2).;<br />
<br><br><br />
'''Maxwell''', acknowledging that the title page of ''Locrine'' implies strongly that the play had been "reworked or revised," observed that the "original need not have been an old play" (26). He was more interested in the sources and authorship of ''Locrine'' than in the presence of ‘’Estrild’’ in the 1595 text of ''Locrine''.<br />
<br><br><br />
'''Berek''' accepts the Buc note at face value and argues confidently "that by 1586 there existed a play called Estrild on the subject of ''Locrine'', a play which included dumb-shows by Buc which he still had in his possession after 1595, and which for this reason—as well as for others which will emerge—were different from the ones surviving in the printed text of ''Locrine''" (34). Those other reasons include Berek's claim that "both comic scenes and dumb-shows were written by the same person" (35). Without reconciling the ascription of the dumb-shows to Buc, Berek dates the work of that "same person" to "post-1591" (35). Put another way, Berek ascribes to Tilney "Act V, the epilogue, and a few parts of scenes in Acts I-IV" (36). He considers Act V "the part of ''Locrine'' most likely to be by Charles Tilney" (36). "Estrild," he claims, was a revenge tragedy presenting Locrine as a just avenger who destroyed the invading Humber and punished him for the death of Albanact" (37). He attributes the "Senecan trappings" to Tilney (38). Berek also cites T. W. Baldwin, in ''The Literary Genetics of Shakespeare's Plays, 1592-1594,'' as having attributed "Estrild" to the repertory of the Queen's Men (40).<br />
<br><br><br />
'''Griffin,''' asserting the authenticity and reliability of the Buc note, focuses on the biography of Charles Tilney, whom he identifies as a "cousin to Edmund Tilney" (37). Putting that biography together with the politics of the Babington Plot, Griffin argues "that ''Estrild'' was more politically sensitive than we might now guess if we did not know who had written it" (38). He asks, "Was ''Estrild'' composed as a persuasion-piece along the lines of ''Gorboduc'', half-warning and half-threatening on the succession question?" (39). Given his suggested analogue of ''Gorboduc'', Griffin sees irony in the fact that Thomas Sacville sat in judgment on the Babington conspirators and probably witnessed the execution of Tilney, whose last words at the block were that "'all young gentlemen [should] take warning" from his fate (as if he were himself a speaker in ''The Mirror for Magistrates'' [39]).<br />
<br><br><br />
'''Wiggins''' finds Buc "less than certain" about the identity of the 1595 ''Locrine'' as the play he remembers (and worked on) by Charles Tilney (serial number 770). Wiggins is more comfortable considering the lost "Estrild" as a source used by the author of ''Locrine,'' rather than the text revised into the later play.<br />
<br><br> <br />
'''Knutson''' discusses "Estrild" in the context of Ur-plays, that is, supposed early versions of now-extant plays. Generally skeptical of lumping together plays with shared subject matter as versions of one another, she questions how the author of ''Locrine'' might have acquired a copy of "Estrild" and "why he would risk the blowback of folding it into his own, given public awareness of Tilney's treason and the availability of source materials without political baggage" (39).<br />
<br><br><br />
'''Sharpe''' defends the accuracy of Buc's note by defending Buc himself as "a respected scholar and antiquarian" who was furthermore a near-contemporary of Tilney (660). In support of ''Locrine'' as old enough to have been written by Tilney, Sharpe discusses its similarity to "the kind of Senecan Inns of Court tragedies pioneered by Norton and Sackville's ''Gorboduc'' (1562), even imitating its first scene from its progenitor" (660). He would place the absorption of "Estrild" into ''Locrine'' between 1591 and 1594.<br />
<br><br><br />
'''Kirwan''' is not persuaded (as are Berek and Sharpe) that Buc was identifying ''Locrine'' as a lost play by Charles Tilney called "Estrild" (133-4). <br />
<br><br><br />
</blockquote><br />
<br />
==For What It's Worth==<br />
<br />
Richard Dutton, in the Oxford DNB, identifies Charles Tilney as the son of Edmund Tilney's cousin, Phillip. He continues: "Phillip and Edmund Tilney were bitter about the treatment Charles received; in a Star Chamber suit Rafe Bott testified that they ‘thyrsted and longyd to be revengd on him’, believing he had had custody of Charles in the Tower."<br />
<br><br><br />
The poem,"The Complaint of Elstred," was published by Thomas Lodge in 1593. Its composition date is unknown. Baldwin Maxwell argued that Lodge's poem was a source for ''Locrine'' but stopped short of claiming that the author of "Estrild" also knew it. Lodge's interest in the narrative does nevertheless show that the story of Estrild had currency.<br />
<br />
<br><br><br />
<br />
==Works Cited==<br />
<br />
<div style="padding-left: 2em; text-indent: -2em">Berek, Peter. "''Locrine'' Revised, ''Selimus,''and Early Responses to ''Tamburlaine''." ''Research Opportunities in Renaissance Drama'' 23 (1980): 33-54.</div><br />
<div style="padding-left: 2em; text-indent: -2em">Collier, John Payne. ''Catalogue of Early English Literature at Bridgewater House''. London, Thomas Rodd, F. Shoberl, Jun. 1837.</div><br />
<div style="padding-left: 2em; text-indent: -2em">Dutton, Richard. "Edmund Tilney," ''Oxford DNB.''</div><br />
<div style="padding-left: 2em; text-indent: -2em">Geoffrey of Monmouth. ''The History of the Kings of Britain''. ''Internet Sacred Text Archive'' ([http://sacred-texts.com/index.htm ''Sacred Text'' Book II]).</div><br />
<div style="padding-left: 2em; text-indent: -2em">Greg, W. W. "Three Manuscript Notes by Sir George Buc." ''The Library'' 12 (1931): 307-321.</div><br />
<div style="padding-left: 2em; text-indent: -2em"> Griffin, Benjamin. "''Locrine'' and the Babington Plot," ''Notes and Queries'' 44:1 (1997): 37-40. </div><br />
<div style="padding-left: 2em; text-indent: -2em">Haslewood, Joseph, ed. ''Mirror for Magistrates''. 2 vols. London: Lackington, Allen, and Co. and Longmand, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, 1815 ([https://archive.org/details/mirrorformagist01higggoog Vol. I]).</div><br />
<div style="padding-left: 2em; text-indent: -2em">Kirwan, Peter. ''Shakespeare and the Idea of Apocrypha: Negotiating the Boundaries of the Dramatic Canon.'' Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015.</div><br />
<div style="padding-left: 2em; text-indent: -2em">Knutson, Roslyn L. "Ur-Plays and Other Exercises in Making Stuff Up." In ''Lost Plays in Shakespeare's England.'' Ed. David McInnis and Matthew Steggle. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014. 31-54.</div><br />
<div style="padding-left: 2em; text-indent: -2em">Maxwell, Baldwin. ''Studies in the Shakespeare Apocrypha.'' New York: Greenwood Press, 1956.</div><br />
<div style="padding-left: 2em; text-indent: -2em">Sharpe, Will. "Authorship and Attribution," in ''William Shakespeare and Others: Collaborative Plays,'' Ed. Jonathan Bate and Eric Rasmussen with Jan Sewell and Will Sharpe. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. 2013. 641-745.</div><br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
<br />
<br />
Site created and maintained by [[Roslyn L. Knutson]], Professor Emerita, University of Arkansas at Little Rock; updated 11 August 2015.<br />
[[category:Geoffrey of Monmouth]][[category:Roslyn L. Knutson]]<br />
[[category:Thomas Lodge]][[category:Babington Plot]][[category:Mirror for Magistrates]][[category:Ancient Britain]]</div>MeaghanBrownhttps://lostplays.folger.edu/_mw/index.php?title=Play_of_Poore&diff=18566Play of Poore2018-08-27T14:58:13Z<p>MeaghanBrown: </p>
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<div>[[Anon.]] ([[1616]]?)<br />
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==Historical Records==<br />
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===The Part of Poore (Houghton Library, MS Thr 10.1)===<br />
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The actor's part for the role of Poore, the main character of a lost play known to scholars as the "Play of Poore," survives in Houghton Library, MS Thr 10.1. The manuscript contains actors' parts from four different plays, all of which were performed at Christ Church, Oxford, in the first quarter of the seventeenth century. The part of Poore (ff. 21–46v) contains 1580 lines, including Poore's speeches, brief cue lines spoken by other characters, minimal stage directions, and occasional act and scene designations. Also in the manuscript are parts for Antoninus (ff. 8v-19v) from the anonymous ''Antoninus Bassianus Caracalla'' (a play mostly preserved in Bodleian MS Rawlinson C.590); Polypragmaticus (ff. 48-56) from Robert Burton's ''Philosophaster'' (preserved in an autograph manuscript, Houghton Library, MS Thr 10, and a copy, Folger MS V.a.315); and Amurath (ff. 57-71) from Thomas Goffe's ''The Couragious Turke'' (published 1632). <br />
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===Full Digitisation===<br />
<gallery mode="slideshow"><br />
Image:htc_ms_thr_10_1_0045.jpg|Page 1 |alt=Image of manuscript page 1 of Part of Poore<br />
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</gallery><br />
"The 'part' of Poore", Houghton Library, MS Thr 10.1, f. 21r, reproduced by permission. The LPD has sponsored the digitisation of the entire part. <br />
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===Full Transcription===<br />
The part of Poore has been edited by David Carnegie and published by the Malone Society ("Part"); the entire transcription can be read and searched here, courtesy of Professor Carnegie and [http://malonesociety.com/publications/ the Malone Society]:<br />
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:'''[[Part of Poore (transcription)]]'''<br />
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The following is Professor Carnegie's transcription of the first page (f. 21r), which is representative of the nature of the part.<br />
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<blockquote><br />
<table style="width:60%;white-space:nowrap;"><br />
<tr><td> </td><td> </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr><br />
<tr><td> </td><td><big>Actus I<sup>mus</sup> Scӕna I<sup>a</sup>.</big> </td><td>[http://lostplays.org/g/poore.html#1 <nowiki>[</nowiki>FOL.21a<nowiki>]</nowiki>] </td><td> </td></tr><br />
<tr><td> </td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Poore. </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr><br />
<tr><td> </td><td>Welcome thou instrument of liberty &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;offreth to stab himselfe </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr><br />
<tr><td>Sly </td><td><strike>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</strike> Hold hold </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr><br />
<tr><td>Poore: </td><td>It is a most vnthankfull office; </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr><br />
<tr><td> </td><td>To save a man vnwilling is to murder. </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr><br />
<tr><td> </td><td>What hath this world of myne that I should covet </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr><br />
<tr><td> </td><td>Longer to stay w<sup>th</sup> it? nor have you reason </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr><br />
<tr><td> </td><td>Thus to detaine mee, I must greiving say it </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr><br />
<tr><td> </td><td>Through mee you want what might have well sustaind you </td><td> </td><td>10 </td></tr><br />
<tr><td> </td><td>And your last store scarce panteth nourishment </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr><br />
<tr><td> </td><td>Vnto your selfe and sister. </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr><br />
<tr><td>Sly </td><td><strike>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</strike> How truely rich </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr><br />
<tr><td> </td><td>Though having nothing, for contemning all? </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr><br />
<tr><td>Poore. </td><td>True very wise, nay rich, if hee could gett </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr><br />
<tr><td> </td><td>Even w<sup>th</sup> his best indeauour nourishment: </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr><br />
<tr><td> </td><td>But that now wants whose rich hees only wise </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr><br />
<tr><td> </td><td>T'is the receaved opinion, and what arts </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr><br />
<tr><td> </td><td>Are meanly shrouded in a thred bare coate </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr><br />
<tr><td> </td><td>Want theire due forme, thats a privation of it. </td><td> </td><td>20 </td></tr><br />
<tr><td> </td><td>The worst of ills that is in misery </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr><br />
<tr><td> </td><td>Is that it gives a man contemptible </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr><br />
<tr><td> </td><td>Makes him a scoffe to every painted asse </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr><br />
<tr><td> </td><td>W<sup>ch</sup> beares a golden image, every slave </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr><br />
<tr><td> </td><td>W<sup>ch</sup> came into this Cytty w<sup>th</sup> bare feete </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr><br />
<tr><td> </td><td>And since hath heap'd vp by mechanicke basenes </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr><br />
<tr><td> </td><td>Abundant riches will contem the state </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr><br />
<tr><td> </td><td>That nature brought him to and no more pitty it, </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr><br />
<tr><td> </td><td>Then wisedome will a snake pin'd w<sup>th</sup> much cold </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr><br />
<tr><td>Sly: </td><td><strike>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</strike> you much erre </td><td> </td><td>30 </td></tr><br />
<tr><td>Poore. </td><td>No it is sacred truth, there is not one </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr><br />
<tr><td> </td><td>Who hath not circled w<sup>th</sup> a triple brasse </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr><br />
</table></blockquote><br />
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:'''[[Part of Poore (transcription)|Read more...]]'''<br />
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==Theatrical Provenance==<br />
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Performed at Christ Church, Oxford, perhaps around 1616.<br />
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==Probable Genre(s)==<br />
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Comedy (Carnegie). Moral (Harbage).<br />
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==Possible Narrative and Dramatic Sources or Analogues==<br />
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The part of Poore, which provides the entirety of lines spoken by the play's main character, reveals much about the play's narrative, yet our knowledge is obviously limited by the relative paucity of other characters' speeches, which appear exclusively in brief cue lines and occasional false-starts cancelled by the copyist. David Carnegie offered a detailed conjectural plot synopsis, summarizing the evidence with further speculations based on clues within the part ("Play," [http://iiif.lib.harvard.edu/manifests/view/drs:427334889$23i 21–24]). Broadly speaking, the "Play of Poore" was an academic comedy of subterfuge, disguise, and mischief. In the play's first scene, Poore enlists his fellow scholar Sly and the wench Gill to gull unwitting victims out of their money. One of the main plots has Gill, disguised as "Madam Change," presented as a marriage prospect for the foolish Trugull; Poore, disguised as the Yorkshireman "Change," objects that she is already betrothed to him, but agrees to withdraw his claim in exchange for payment; Sly, disguised as the corpulent uncle of "Madam Change," accepts her dowry. A subplot involves the cuckold Snaile, whose wife is coveted by two men, Medle and Quicke, whom Poore sets at odds until a duel leaves each convinced that the other is dead. Complications and confusions ensue, as Poore's mercenary opportunism results in the proliferation of overlapping cons. In the final scene, his machinations exposed, Poore feigns illness, but after making financial restitution to his victims, he reveals that he is well and everyone is reconciled.<br />
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==References to the Play==<br />
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None known.<br />
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==Critical Commentary==<br />
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The vast majority of scholarship on the play of Poore and its manuscript has been written by David Carnegie. The following summary draws heavily on his findings.<br />
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===Date===<br />
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The manuscript seems originally to have been a blank book into which the actors' parts were successively copied; Carnegie therefore proposed that the order of their appearance indicates a rough chronology of performance. Since Burton's ''Philosophaster'' was performed on 17 February 1617/8 and Goffe's ''Couragious Turk'' on 24 February 1618/9, Carnegie conjectured a date range of 1615–17 for the performance of Poore for which the actor's part was prepared ("Play," 6n). <br />
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===Genre and Style===<br />
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As Carnegie observes, the characters' "names alone invite us into a world of comic types: Poore, Trugull, Medle, Quicke, and Dry are self-declared, and the cuckold Snaile scarcely less so" ("Play," 13). The play's plot is based on feats of "deception, gulling, and knavery," but by the conclusion, "no real harm has been done" and the "play ends in high spirits with all the gulls reconciled to their deceivers" (13-14). While Harbage designated it a "Moral" play, Carnegie argued that the play's "aim seems to be more to delight than to instruct" (14).<br />
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According to Carnegie, although the "language of the play is for the most part a functional, undistinguished blank verse" (16), certain salient characteristics—an "enthusiasm for classical writers, the purple rhetoric, an extraordinary overblown set-piece lecture for Strange on the subject of the dawn, a student drinking game"—suggest satirical sendups of the academic audience watching the play (15). Many of the play's stock elements are representative of university satire; however, numerous parallels of plot and language with Jonson's ''The Alchemist'' suggest some degree of influence if not imitation (18-19).<br />
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===Performance===<br />
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Costumes and properties for the performance would have included a dagger, a letter, a ring, gold, blue coats, slops, a rapier, a false beard, a country gentleman's attire with padding, a nightgown, and "physicians' gowns" of fustian (Carnegie, "Play," 10, 16). Besides Poore, there are twelve other speaking roles evident in the part, although the fact that one is identified as the Third Officer (f. 23v) implies that First and Second Officers appeared in the play as well ("Play," 20-21). The part was apparently copied out by the actor playing the role of Poore ("Play," 11). (Stern cites William Prynne who laments "how many houres, evenings, halfe-dayes, dayes, and sometimes ''weekes, are spent by all the Actors'' (especially in solemne academicall Enterludes) ''in coppying, in conning, in practising their parts''" [''Histriomastix'', sig. 2R1a; qtd. Stern 239].) Carnegie's study of Houghton Library, MS Thr 10.1 found that the two later parts were evidently written in the hand of Thomas Goffe ("Identification"). While the hand that transcribed the part of "Poore" differs from Goffe's in 1618-19, Carnegie nevertheless left open the possibility that Goffe may have prepared the two earlier parts, including that of "Poore" ("Play," 6n; "Part," 113). (Carnegie's further suggestion that "Poore" may have been acted by the play's author—as suggested by the uncommon lack of mistakes in the transcription—therefore allows for the possibility that Goffe wrote the "Play of Poore" ["Play," 11].)<br />
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===Comparison with the Orlando Part===<br />
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The only actor's part to survive from the professional Shakespearean stage is that used by Edward Alleyn performing the title role in Robert Greene's ''Orlando Furioso'' (Dulwich College, MSS 1, Article 138; [http://www.henslowe-alleyn.org.uk/images/MSS-1/Article-138/01r.html online]).<br />
Carnegie, comparing this document to the four parts in Houghton Library, MS Thr 10.1 (prepared, as they were, for academic rather than professional performance), observes that the two documents share several basic characteristics, but differ in physical form (Alleyn's part was prepared as a roll, as opposed to the book format used for the university parts) and nature of the cue lines (the university parts not only name the speakers of the cue lines, but provide slightly more text) ("Play," 12). Carnegie, however, notes that, in light of the paucity of surviving evidence, it must remain uncertain "whether the production of the college plays, in entirely different circumstances, in any way signals that professional practices were changing twenty years on," or whether these differences are "simply a by-product of the amateur student actors' simplifying memorization of both lines and action" ("Play," 13). <br />
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Palfrey and Stern, by way of an answer to this question, show that the Restoration-era part for Trico (played by Matthew Medbourne) in Ferdinando Parkhurst's translation of Ruggle's ''Ignoramus'' (Houghton Library, MS Eng 1258/5), performed at the Cockpit and at Whitehall in 1662, typically has short cues lacking characters' names, thereby resembling the Orlando part more than that of Poore (29-31), although the part of Trico was prepared as a book rather than a roll.<br />
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==For What It's Worth==<br />
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Content welcome.<br />
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==Works Cited==<br />
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<div style="padding-left: 2em; text-indent: -2em">Carnegie, David. "Actors' Parts and the 'Play of Poore'." ''Harvard Library Bulletin'' 30 (1982): 5–24. [http://iiif.lib.harvard.edu/manifests/view/drs:427334889$7i Online].</div><br />
<div style="padding-left: 2em; text-indent: -2em">Carnegie, David, ed. "The Part of 'Poore'." Malone Society ''Collections XV''. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1993. 111–169.</div><br />
<div style="padding-left: 2em; text-indent: -2em">Carnegie, David. "The Identification of the Hand of Thomas Goffe, Academic Dramatist and Actor." ''The Library'' 26 (1971): 161–65.</div><br />
<div style="padding-left: 2em; text-indent: -2em">Goffe, Thomas. ''The Couragious Turke, or, Amurath the First''. London, 1632.</div><br />
<div style="padding-left: 2em; text-indent: -2em">Palfrey, Simon, and Tiffany Stern. ''Shakespeare in Parts''. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2007.</div><br />
<div style="padding-left: 2em; text-indent: -2em">Prynne, William. ''Histriomastix''. London, 1633.</div><br />
<div style="padding-left: 2em; text-indent: -2em">Stern, Tiffany. ''Documents of Performance in Early Modern England''. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2009.</div><br />
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Site created and maintained by [[Misha Teramura]], University of Toronto; transcription added 09 May 2016 by [[David McInnis]].<br />
[[category:all]][[category:Misha Teramura]][[category:Academic]][[category:Parts]][[category:Oxford]][[category:Moral]][[category:Satire]][[category:Thomas Goffe]][[category:Houghton]][[category:David McInnis]][[Category:Untitled plays]]</div>MeaghanBrownhttps://lostplays.folger.edu/_mw/index.php?title=Estrild&diff=18565Estrild2018-08-27T14:52:48Z<p>MeaghanBrown: </p>
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<div>[[Charles Tilney]] (''c''. [[1585]])<br />
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==Historical Records==<br />
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===Buc's note===<br />
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An undated note in the hand of Sir George Buc on the title page of one of five surviving copies of ''Locrine'' (printed 1595) reads:<br />
<blockquote>Char. Tilney wrote <a> <br><br />
Tragedy of this mattr <wch> <br><br />
hee named Estrild: <& wch> <br> <br />
J think is this. It was l<lost ?> <br><br />
by his death. & now [?] s<ome ? > <br><br />
fellow hath published <it.> <br><br />
J made the dūbe shewes for it. <br> <br />
wch J yet have. G. B<.>.<br />
</blockquote><br />
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[[Image:Locrine%2C_Fondation_Martin_Bodmer.jpg|250px]]<br />
[[Image:Locrine_Estrild_Buc%27s_note%2C_Fondation_Martin_Bodmer.jpg|250px]]<br />
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''Buc signature on the title page of Locrine; reproduced with permission from the Fondation Martin Bodmer, Cologny, Geneve.''<br />
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==Theatrical Provenance==<br />
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Unknown; information welcome.<br />
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==Probable Genre(s)==<br />
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Tragedy<br />
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==Possible Narrative and Dramatic Sources or Analogues==<br />
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The story would have to be a pseudo-biography of Estrildis, daughter of the King of Germany, in the time of the war between Brute, first king of the Britons, versus Humber, King of the Huns, ''c''. 1115-1075. B.C.E. According to Geoffrey of Monmouth, Estrildis was one of three captives aboard the ship of Humber, which held the spoil of Humber's recent conquests in Germany. Locrine, eldest son of Brute, defeated Humber in battle (Humber fled and drowned in the River Humber). Locrine then pillaged Humber's ships and claimed the girls. It was Estrildis who set him on fire, however: "so fair was she that scarce might any be found to compare with her for beauty, for no polished ivory, nor newly-fallen snow, nor no lilies could surpass the whiteness of her flesh" ([http://sacred-texts.com/neu/eng/gem/gem03.htm Sacred Text]). <br />
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A more recent version of Estrild's story than Geoffrey of Monmouth's is in ''The Mirror of Magistrates,'' as expanded in 1574 by John Higgins, with the title, "How Queene Elstride the Concubine and second wife of King Locrinus was miserably drowned by Queene Guendoline, The year before Christ. 1064" ([https://archive.org/details/mirrorformagist01higggoog Haslewood])<br />
<blockquote><br />
Elstride begins her narrative at home, in Germany, where her beauty has already attracted many suitors. The most potent, Humber, cowed her father into handing her over. Humber then brought her with two other beauties to Britain, where he was soon "drencht, and drounde," to her distress (st. 6). Confronted now with an army of claimants, she appealed to their pity with "teares, … sobbes, … [and] wringing handes" (st. 10). <br />
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The king, Locrinus, claims her as his own and agrees to marry her (rather than keep her as concubine), but on her wedding day Corinæus confronted Locrinus with the pre-contract to marry Guendoline, his daughter. Locrinus acquiesed, and Estride was filled with hate and vexation; she threatened to leave. Locrinus, to reassure her of his love, built vault where she would live secretly. In time, their daughter Sabrine was born. <br />
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When Corinæus died, Locrinus rejected Guendoline, who then declared war on Locrinus. She was successful, and Locrinus was killed in battle by an arrow from one of Guendoline's warriors. Summoning Elstride, Guendoline berated her, calling her "harlot whoare" and "painted picture" (st. 32). She threatened to drown Elstride, bound hand and foot, and Sabrine with her. Sabrine begged to be killed in her mother's place, but Guendoline was pitiless. In a three-stanza-long "Adew," Elstride ended her lament with a description of bobbing in the water as Sabrine tried to join her. At length, she sank to the river bottom and lay "as dead and cold as marble stone" (st.49).</blockquote><br />
<br><br><br />
<br />
==References to the Play==<br />
<br />
The only surviving reference to "Estrild" is Buc's note (See [[#Historical Records|Historical Records]].)<br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
<br />
==Critical Commentary==<br />
<br />
The context for discussion of "Estrild" by scholars is the play, ''Locrine,'' initially in regard to Buc's handwritten note on the title page of one copy of the 1595 printing of ''Locrine'' and subsequently in regard to its having been an early version of ''Locrine'' somehow revised into and absorbed by the author or reviser of the extant play. Through arguments on the authorship of ''Locrine,'' "Estrild" is drawn into discussions of Robert Greene and ''Selimus,'' as well as of W. S., whose initials appear on the title page of ''Locrine''.<br />
<blockquote><br />
'''Collier''', in ''Catalogue of Early English Literature at Bridgewater House'' (1837), described the Buc note on the title page of ''Locrine'' ([https://ia600404.us.archive.org/28/items/cu31924029563750/cu31924029563750.pdf 41]); he added to that description in 1865 in ''Bibliographical Account of Early English Literature'' by providing a biographical blurb on Charles Tilney as well as asserting that "the authorship of "Locrine," falsely imputed to Shakespeare, is thus decided" (i.93-5, esp. 95 [as quoted by Greg, "Three Manuscript Notes," 313]).[[category:John Payne Collier]]<br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
'''Fleay''' knew of Buc's note, because he quotes Richard Simpson (without citation) as misattributing ''Locrine'' to Charles Tilney, whose name occurs in this matter only in the Buc note(''BECD'', 2.321))<br />
<br><br><br />
'''Chambers''' knew of Collier's comments on Buc's note, indicating Tilney's authorship of ''Locrine''; but, skeptical generally of Collier's claim and persuaded by other evidence, Chambers inclined to date ''Locrine'' in 1591. He did, however, allow that the extant text might be "a very substantial revision" (4.27).<br />
<br><br><br />
'''Greg''', in the context of examining three manuscript notes by Sir George Buc, reviewed the contributions of John Payne Collier to scholarly awareness of Buc's note on the title page of one of five surviving copies of ''Locrine.'' He credited Collier with having been the "earliest informant"of Buc's note, which he also "reproduced, evidently in hand-traced facsimile," without the heading (312). Greg was primarily concerned with whether the Buc note was a Collier forgery, and he decided that it was not. In the course of his examination of the note, Greg claimed to have transcribed it accurately (in a note, he says, "None of the previous attempts are reliable" [314]). He closed with musings on the truth quotient in Buc's note on the ''Locrine'' title page: "Buc was in an excellent position to ascertain the authorship of contemporary drama. ... Was he correct in his conjecture—for it is nothing more—that Charles Tilney's ''Estrild'' was identical with W. S.'s ''Locrine''?" (319-20). Greg decided to let "literary historians ... thresh out" that question (320). However, footnoting his statement about Buc's authority on Tilney's authorship, Greg pointed to the uncertain date of Buc's note. He observed that if it were early, Buc had as yet no "connextion with the Revels Office"; and, if the note were late, Buc "died insane" (319, n.2).;<br />
<br><br><br />
'''Maxwell''', acknowledging that the title page of ''Locrine'' implies strongly that the play had been "reworked or revised," observed that the "original need not have been an old play" (26). He was more interested in the sources and authorship of ''Locrine'' than in the presence of ‘’Estrild’’ in the 1595 text of ''Locrine''.<br />
<br><br><br />
'''Berek''' accepts the Buc note at face value and argues confidently "that by 1586 there existed a play called Estrild on the subject of ''Locrine'', a play which included dumb-shows by Buc which he still had in his possession after 1595, and which for this reason—as well as for others which will emerge—were different from the ones surviving in the printed text of ''Locrine''" (34). Those other reasons include Berek's claim that "both comic scenes and dumb-shows were written by the same person" (35). Without reconciling the ascription of the dumb-shows to Buc, Berek dates the work of that "same person" to "post-1591" (35). Put another way, Berek ascribes to Tilney "Act V, the epilogue, and a few parts of scenes in Acts I-IV" (36). He considers Act V "the part of ''Locrine'' most likely to be by Charles Tilney" (36). "Estrild," he claims, was a revenge tragedy presenting Locrine as a just avenger who destroyed the invading Humber and punished him for the death of Albanact" (37). He attributes the "Senecan trappings" to Tilney (38). Berek also cites T. W. Baldwin, in ''The Literary Genetics of Shakespeare's Plays, 1592-1594,'' as having attributed "Estrild" to the repertory of the Queen's Men (40).<br />
<br><br><br />
'''Griffin,''' asserting the authenticity and reliability of the Buc note, focuses on the biography of Charles Tilney, whom he identifies as a "cousin to Edmund Tilney" (37). Putting that biography together with the politics of the Babington Plot, Griffin argues "that ''Estrild'' was more politically sensitive than we might now guess if we did not know who had written it" (38). He asks, "Was ''Estrild'' composed as a persuasion-piece along the lines of ''Gorboduc'', half-warning and half-threatening on the succession question?" (39). Given his suggested analogue of ''Gorboduc'', Griffin sees irony in the fact that Thomas Sacville sat in judgment on the Babington conspirators and probably witnessed the execution of Tilney, whose last words at the block were that "'all young gentlemen [should] take warning" from his fate (as if he were himself a speaker in ''The Mirror for Magistrates'' [39]).<br />
<br><br><br />
'''Wiggins''' finds Buc "less than certain" about the identity of the 1595 ''Locrine'' as the play he remembers (and worked on) by Charles Tilney (serial number 770). Wiggins is more comfortable considering the lost "Estrild" as a source used by the author of ''Locrine,'' rather than the text revised into the later play.<br />
<br><br> <br />
'''Knutson''' discusses "Estrild" in the context of Ur-plays, that is, supposed early versions of now-extant plays. Generally skeptical of lumping together plays with shared subject matter as versions of one another, she questions how the author of ''Locrine'' might have acquired a copy of "Estrild" and "why he would risk the blowback of folding it into his own, given public awareness of Tilney's treason and the availability of source materials without political baggage" (39).<br />
<br><br><br />
'''Sharpe''' defends the accuracy of Buc's note by defending Buc himself as "a respected scholar and antiquarian" who was furthermore a near-contemporary of Tilney (660). In support of ''Locrine'' as old enough to have been written by Tilney, Sharpe discusses its similarity to "the kind of Senecan Inns of Court tragedies pioneered by Norton and Sackville's ''Gorboduc'' (1562), even imitating its first scene from its progenitor" (660). He would place the absorption of "Estrild" into ''Locrine'' between 1591 and 1594.<br />
<br><br><br />
'''Kirwan''' is not persuaded (as are Berek and Sharpe) that Buc was identifying ''Locrine'' as a lost play by Charles Tilney called "Estrild" (133-4). <br />
<br><br><br />
</blockquote><br />
<br />
==For What It's Worth==<br />
<br />
Richard Dutton, in the Oxford DNB, identifies Charles Tilney as the son of Edmund Tilney's cousin, Phillip. He continues: "Phillip and Edmund Tilney were bitter about the treatment Charles received; in a Star Chamber suit Rafe Bott testified that they ‘thyrsted and longyd to be revengd on him’, believing he had had custody of Charles in the Tower."<br />
<br><br><br />
The poem,"The Complaint of Elstred," was published by Thomas Lodge in 1593. Its composition date is unknown. Baldwin Maxwell argued that Lodge's poem was a source for ''Locrine'' but stopped short of claiming that the author of "Estrild" also knew it. Lodge's interest in the narrative does nevertheless show that the story of Estrild had currency.<br />
<br />
<br><br><br />
<br />
==Works Cited==<br />
<br />
<div style="padding-left: 2em; text-indent: -2em">Berek, Peter. "''Locrine'' Revised, ''Selimus,''and Early Responses to ''Tamburlaine''." ''Research Opportunities in Renaissance Drama'' 23 (1980): 33-54.</div><br />
<div style="padding-left: 2em; text-indent: -2em">Collier, John Payne. ''Catalogue of Early English Literature at Bridgewater House''. London, Thomas Rodd, F. Shoberl, Jun. 1837.</div><br />
<div style="padding-left: 2em; text-indent: -2em">Dutton, Richard. "Edmund Tilney," ''Oxford DNB.''</div><br />
<div style="padding-left: 2em; text-indent: -2em">Geoffrey of Monmouth. ''The History of the Kings of Britain''. ''Internet Sacred Text Archive'' ([http://sacred-texts.com/index.htm ''Sacred Text'' Book II]).</div><br />
<div style="padding-left: 2em; text-indent: -2em">Greg, W. W. "Three Manuscript Notes by Sir George Buc." ''The Library'' 12 (1931): 307-321.</div><br />
<div style="padding-left: 2em; text-indent: -2em"> Griffin, Benjamin. "''Locrine'' and the Babington Plot," ''Notes and Queries'' 44:1 (1997): 37-40. </div><br />
<div style="padding-left: 2em; text-indent: -2em">Haslewood, Joseph, ed. ''Mirror for Magistrates''. 2 vols. London: Lackington, Allen, and Co. and Longmand, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, 1815 ([https://archive.org/details/mirrorformagist01higggoog Vol. I]).</div><br />
<div style="padding-left: 2em; text-indent: -2em">Kirwan, Peter. ''Shakespeare and the Idea of Apocrypha: Negotiating the Boundaries of the Dramatic Canon.'' Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015.</div><br />
<div style="padding-left: 2em; text-indent: -2em">Knutson, Roslyn L. "Ur-Plays and Other Exercises in Making Stuff Up." In ''Lost Plays in Shakespeare's England.'' Ed. David McInnis and Matthew Steggle. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014. 31-54.</div><br />
<div style="padding-left: 2em; text-indent: -2em">Maxwell, Baldwin. ''Studies in the Shakespeare Apocrypha.'' New York: Greenwood Press, 1956.</div><br />
<div style="padding-left: 2em; text-indent: -2em">Sharpe, Will. "Authorship and Attribution," in ''William Shakespeare and Others: Collaborative Plays,'' Ed. Jonathan Bate and Eric Rasmussen with Jan Sewell and Will Sharpe. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. 2013. 641-745.</div><br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
<br />
<br />
Site created and maintained by [[Roslyn L. Knutson]], Professor Emerita, University of Arkansas at Little Rock; updated 11 August 2015.<br />
[[category:Geoffrey of Monmouth]][[category:Roslyn L. Knutson]]<br />
[[category:Thomas Lodge]][[category:Babington Plot]][[category:Mirror for Magistrates]][[category:Ancient Britain]]</div>MeaghanBrownhttps://lostplays.folger.edu/_mw/index.php?title=Hill%27s_List_of_Early_Plays_in_Manuscript&diff=18564Hill's List of Early Plays in Manuscript2018-08-27T14:34:50Z<p>MeaghanBrown: </p>
<hr />
<div>Hill's List of Early Plays in Manuscript (British Library Sloane MS 2893).<br />
<br />
==Background==<br />
The following list of early plays in manuscript was recorded by book collector Abraham Hill (1635-1721): "The list seems to have been Hill's record of the stock of some bookseller, set down between 1677 and 1703, but it is notable that nearly all the identifiable plays and playwrights of the list are Jacobean or Caroline" (Bentley V.1283). It is reproduced from pages 73-74 of Adams. (NB. the numbers were provided by Adams for ease of reference; they did not appear in the original document).<br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
==Bibliographical Description==<br />
<br />
Adams 72-3:<br />
The Hill note-books, ten in number and representing miscellaneous material assembled by him at various times (probably between 1660, when after inheriting a fortune he took chambers at Gresham College, and 1703, when he retired from London to his estate in Sutton-at-Hone), consist chiefly of excerpts dealing with ecclesiastical matters, though with occasional notes on science, politics, and book-sales. <br><br><br />
The list of plays in manuscript . . . is to be found in the third note-book, a curious volume made up of 218 leaves and even scraps of paper, of different sizes, tipped in by the binder and here brought together, it would seem, merely for the purpose of preservation. No system is apparent in the arrangement of the materials, though it may be significant that folios 150-92 consist of lists of books and detailed notes on certain London auctions.... <br />
<br><br>The list of plays in manuscript is written on both sides of a fairly large sheet of paper measuring about 28 by 17.6 cm.<br />
<br />
<br />
==Digitisation==<br />
<br><br />
The following images from [http://searcharchives.bl.uk/IAMS_VU2:IAMS040-002115271 British Library Sloane MS 2893, pp.190-92] are reproduced by permission of the British Library.<br />
<br><br />
[[Image:Sloane_ms_2893_p190.jpg|250px|British Library Sloane MS 2893, p.190]]<br />
[[Image:Sloane_ms_2893_p192.jpg|250px|British Library Sloane MS 2893, p.192]]<br />
<br />
<br><br />
A further scrap of paper, given the foliation 191 but inserted after the two pages digitised above, contains further playtitles:<br />
<br />
[[Image:Sloane_ms_2893_p191.jpg|250px|British Library Sloane MS 2893, p.191]] [[category:British Library]]<br />
<br />
==Transcription==<br />
(Titles in blue are linked to LPD entries)<br />
<br><br />
{| {{table}}<br />
| 1||&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;||'''[[Conqueror’s Custom, or The Fair Prisoner|The Conquerors custome or the fair prisoner]]'''||||Tho Middleton<br />
|-<br />
| 2||||The white Moor||||Tho Decker<br />
|-<br />
| 3||||'''[[Christianetta, or Marriage and Hanging Go by Destiny|Christianetta or Marriage & hanging goe by destiny]]'''||||Chapman & Brome<br />
|-<br />
| 4||||The wrongd Widows tragedy||||<br />
|-<br />
| 5||||The Lovers holiday or the Beare||||<br />
|-<br />
| 6||||All is not Gold that glisters||||<br />
|-<br />
| 7||||Look on me & Love me or marriage in the dark||||<br />
|-<br />
| 8||||The Witch of Edmonton||||Will. Sh<br />
|-<br />
| 9||||The painted Lady||||<br />
|-<br />
| 10||||'''[[Spanish Preferment|Spanish preferment]]'''||||<br />
|-<br />
| 11||||disguises or love in disguise, a pettycoat voyage||||Th. Decker<br />
|-<br />
| 12||||mull sack or the looking glass the Bachelor or the Hawk||||<br />
|-<br />
| 13||||the Welch Embassador or a Comedy in disguises||||Tho Dekker<br />
|-<br />
| 14||||Your 5 gallants (is in print)||||<br />
|-<br />
| 15||||The Wandring Jew||||<br />
|-<br />
| 16||||a Citty shew on the L. Mayors day||||Tho Dekker<br />
|-<br />
| 17||||Roxolana or the Ambitious stepdame||||<br />
|-<br />
| 18||||Osman the Turk or the Ottoman custome||||<br />
|-<br />
| 19||||More then 9 days wonder Two constant women||||<br />
|-<br />
| 20||||The fatal banquet||||<br />
|-<br />
| 21||||Valentinian or Rapes Revenge||||<br />
|-<br />
| 22||||a match without money or the Wiues prise||||<br />
|-<br />
| 23||||'''[[Younger Brother, The|The younger Brother or male Curtesan]]'''||||<br />
|-<br />
| 24||||the widdow captain||||<br />
|-<br />
| 25||||'''[[White Witch of Westminster, The|the white witch of Westminster or Love in a Lunacy]]'''||||<br />
|-<br />
| 26||||the Dutch painter & the french brawle||||<br />
|-<br />
| 27||||a Gentleman no Gentleman a metamorphosed Courtier||||<br />
|-<br />
| ||||Actors Eustace, frampole, friswood &c||||<br />
|-<br />
| 28||||Philip of macedon||||<br />
|-<br />
| 29||||the Triumph of Jnnocence||||<br />
|-<br />
| 30||||2 Christmas tale or the Knight & the Cobbler||||Philip Lane<br />
|-<br />
| 31||||a Court Purge||||<br />
|-<br />
| 32||||The Cloudy Queen & singing moor.||(2 Copies)||<br />
|-<br />
| 33||||The City night cap.||||<br />
|-<br />
| 34||||'''[[Tereus with a pastoral]]'''||||M.A<br />
|-<br />
| ||||Actors. Agnostus Eupathus &c||||<br />
|-<br />
| ||||[[Actors Mufti Nassuf &amp;c|Actors Mufti Nassuf &c]]||||<br />
|-<br />
| 35||||the 2 Spanish Gentlemen||||<br />
|-<br />
| 36||||Challenge for beauty (is in print)||||Tho Heywood<br />
|-<br />
| 37||||The unfaithfull wife||||<br />
|-<br />
| 38||||a way to make a knaue honest.||||<br />
|-<br />
| 39||||the ambitious brother||||G. Buc<br />
|-<br />
| 40||||Mustpaha||||<br />
|-<br />
| 41||||'''[[Noble Husbands|the noble husbands]]'''||||Henry Glapthor[ne]<br />
|-<br />
| ||||Actors Cataloche le dirard &c||||<br />
|-<br />
| 42||||the widdows prise or the woman Captain||||<br />
|-<br />
| 43||||Believe it is so & tis so||||Th. Decker<br />
|-<br />
| 44||||[[Lovers' Holiday, The|the Lovers holyday]]||||<br />
|-<br />
| 45||||Loves infancy||||<br />
|-<br />
| 46||||The marriage night||||<br />
|-<br />
| 47||||'''[[Tomerania, The Tragedy of|the tragedy of Tomerania]]'''||||<br />
|-<br />
| 48||||'''[[False Friend|the false friend]]'''||||<br />
|-<br />
| 49||||Tradeways Tragedy||||<br />
|-<br />
| 50||||'''[[Pandorae Pyxis]]'''||} Latin.||<br />
|-<br />
| 51||||'''[[Aleumista]]'''||}||<br />
|}<br />
<br />
<br />
==Works Cited==<br />
<br />
Adams, Joseph Quincy. “Hill’s List of Early Plays in Manuscript.” ''The Library'' 4th Ser., 20.1 (1939): 71-99. <br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
Site created and maintained by [[David McInnis]], University of Melbourne; updated, 10 May 2018.</div>MeaghanBrownhttps://lostplays.folger.edu/_mw/index.php?title=Hill%27s_List_of_Early_Plays_in_Manuscript&diff=18563Hill's List of Early Plays in Manuscript2018-08-27T14:27:13Z<p>MeaghanBrown: </p>
<hr />
<div>Hill's List of Early Plays in Manuscript (British Library Sloane MS 2893).<br />
<br />
==Background==<br />
The following list of early plays in manuscript was recorded by book collector Abraham Hill (1635-1721): "The list seems to have been Hill's record of the stock of some bookseller, set down between 1677 and 1703, but it is notable that nearly all the identifiable plays and playwrights of the list are Jacobean or Caroline" (Bentley V.1283). It is reproduced from pages 73-74 of Adams. (NB. the numbers were provided by Adams for ease of reference; they did not appear in the original document).<br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
==Bibliographical Description==<br />
<br />
Adams 72-3:<br />
The Hill note-books, ten in number and representing miscellaneous material assembled by him at various times (probably between 1660, when after inheriting a fortune he took chambers at Gresham College, and 1703, when he retired from London to his estate in Sutton-at-Hone), consist chiefly of excerpts dealing with ecclesiastical matters, though with occasional notes on science, politics, and book-sales. <br><br><br />
The list of plays in manuscript . . . is to be found in the third note-book, a curious volume made up of 218 leaves and even scraps of paper, of different sizes, tipped in by the binder and here brought together, it would seem, merely for the purpose of preservation. No system is apparent in the arrangement of the materials, though it may be significant that folios 150-92 consist of lists of books and detailed notes on certain London auctions.... <br />
<br><br>The list of plays in manuscript is written on both sides of a fairly large sheet of paper measuring about 28 by 17.6 cm.<br />
<br />
<br />
==Digitisation==<br />
<br><br />
The following images from [http://searcharchives.bl.uk/IAMS_VU2:IAMS040-002115271 British Library Sloane MS 2893, pp.190-92] are reproduced by permission of the British Library.<br />
<br><br />
[[Image:Sloane_ms_2893_p190.jpg|250px | British Library Sloane MS 2893, p.190]]<br />
[[Image:Sloane_ms_2893_p192.jpg|250px |British Library Sloane MS 2893, p.192]]<br />
<br />
<br><br />
A further scrap of paper, given the foliation 191 but inserted after the two pages digitised above, contains further playtitles:<br />
<br />
[[Image:Sloane_ms_2893_p191.jpg|250px|British Library Sloane MS 2893, p.191]] [[category:British Library]]<br />
<br />
==Transcription==<br />
(Titles in blue are linked to LPD entries)<br />
<br><br />
{| {{table}}<br />
| 1||&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;||'''[[Conqueror’s Custom, or The Fair Prisoner|The Conquerors custome or the fair prisoner]]'''||||Tho Middleton<br />
|-<br />
| 2||||The white Moor||||Tho Decker<br />
|-<br />
| 3||||'''[[Christianetta, or Marriage and Hanging Go by Destiny|Christianetta or Marriage & hanging goe by destiny]]'''||||Chapman & Brome<br />
|-<br />
| 4||||The wrongd Widows tragedy||||<br />
|-<br />
| 5||||The Lovers holiday or the Beare||||<br />
|-<br />
| 6||||All is not Gold that glisters||||<br />
|-<br />
| 7||||Look on me & Love me or marriage in the dark||||<br />
|-<br />
| 8||||The Witch of Edmonton||||Will. Sh<br />
|-<br />
| 9||||The painted Lady||||<br />
|-<br />
| 10||||'''[[Spanish Preferment|Spanish preferment]]'''||||<br />
|-<br />
| 11||||disguises or love in disguise, a pettycoat voyage||||Th. Decker<br />
|-<br />
| 12||||mull sack or the looking glass the Bachelor or the Hawk||||<br />
|-<br />
| 13||||the Welch Embassador or a Comedy in disguises||||Tho Dekker<br />
|-<br />
| 14||||Your 5 gallants (is in print)||||<br />
|-<br />
| 15||||The Wandring Jew||||<br />
|-<br />
| 16||||a Citty shew on the L. Mayors day||||Tho Dekker<br />
|-<br />
| 17||||Roxolana or the Ambitious stepdame||||<br />
|-<br />
| 18||||Osman the Turk or the Ottoman custome||||<br />
|-<br />
| 19||||More then 9 days wonder Two constant women||||<br />
|-<br />
| 20||||The fatal banquet||||<br />
|-<br />
| 21||||Valentinian or Rapes Revenge||||<br />
|-<br />
| 22||||a match without money or the Wiues prise||||<br />
|-<br />
| 23||||'''[[Younger Brother, The|The younger Brother or male Curtesan]]'''||||<br />
|-<br />
| 24||||the widdow captain||||<br />
|-<br />
| 25||||'''[[White Witch of Westminster, The|the white witch of Westminster or Love in a Lunacy]]'''||||<br />
|-<br />
| 26||||the Dutch painter & the french brawle||||<br />
|-<br />
| 27||||a Gentleman no Gentleman a metamorphosed Courtier||||<br />
|-<br />
| ||||Actors Eustace, frampole, friswood &c||||<br />
|-<br />
| 28||||Philip of macedon||||<br />
|-<br />
| 29||||the Triumph of Jnnocence||||<br />
|-<br />
| 30||||2 Christmas tale or the Knight & the Cobbler||||Philip Lane<br />
|-<br />
| 31||||a Court Purge||||<br />
|-<br />
| 32||||The Cloudy Queen & singing moor.||(2 Copies)||<br />
|-<br />
| 33||||The City night cap.||||<br />
|-<br />
| 34||||'''[[Tereus with a pastoral]]'''||||M.A<br />
|-<br />
| ||||Actors. Agnostus Eupathus &c||||<br />
|-<br />
| ||||[[Actors Mufti Nassuf &amp;c|Actors Mufti Nassuf &c]]||||<br />
|-<br />
| 35||||the 2 Spanish Gentlemen||||<br />
|-<br />
| 36||||Challenge for beauty (is in print)||||Tho Heywood<br />
|-<br />
| 37||||The unfaithfull wife||||<br />
|-<br />
| 38||||a way to make a knaue honest.||||<br />
|-<br />
| 39||||the ambitious brother||||G. Buc<br />
|-<br />
| 40||||Mustpaha||||<br />
|-<br />
| 41||||'''[[Noble Husbands|the noble husbands]]'''||||Henry Glapthor[ne]<br />
|-<br />
| ||||Actors Cataloche le dirard &c||||<br />
|-<br />
| 42||||the widdows prise or the woman Captain||||<br />
|-<br />
| 43||||Believe it is so & tis so||||Th. Decker<br />
|-<br />
| 44||||[[Lovers' Holiday, The|the Lovers holyday]]||||<br />
|-<br />
| 45||||Loves infancy||||<br />
|-<br />
| 46||||The marriage night||||<br />
|-<br />
| 47||||'''[[Tomerania, The Tragedy of|the tragedy of Tomerania]]'''||||<br />
|-<br />
| 48||||'''[[False Friend|the false friend]]'''||||<br />
|-<br />
| 49||||Tradeways Tragedy||||<br />
|-<br />
| 50||||'''[[Pandorae Pyxis]]'''||} Latin.||<br />
|-<br />
| 51||||'''[[Aleumista]]'''||}||<br />
|}<br />
<br />
<br />
==Works Cited==<br />
<br />
Adams, Joseph Quincy. “Hill’s List of Early Plays in Manuscript.” ''The Library'' 4th Ser., 20.1 (1939): 71-99. <br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
Site created and maintained by [[David McInnis]], University of Melbourne; updated, 10 May 2018.</div>MeaghanBrownhttps://lostplays.folger.edu/_mw/index.php?title=Hill%27s_List_of_Early_Plays_in_Manuscript&diff=18562Hill's List of Early Plays in Manuscript2018-08-27T14:25:40Z<p>MeaghanBrown: </p>
<hr />
<div>Hill's List of Early Plays in Manuscript (British Library Sloane MS 2893).<br />
<br />
==Background==<br />
The following list of early plays in manuscript was recorded by book collector Abraham Hill (1635-1721): "The list seems to have been Hill's record of the stock of some bookseller, set down between 1677 and 1703, but it is notable that nearly all the identifiable plays and playwrights of the list are Jacobean or Caroline" (Bentley V.1283). It is reproduced from pages 73-74 of Adams. (NB. the numbers were provided by Adams for ease of reference; they did not appear in the original document).<br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
==Bibliographical Description==<br />
<br />
Adams 72-3:<br />
The Hill note-books, ten in number and representing miscellaneous material assembled by him at various times (probably between 1660, when after inheriting a fortune he took chambers at Gresham College, and 1703, when he retired from London to his estate in Sutton-at-Hone), consist chiefly of excerpts dealing with ecclesiastical matters, though with occasional notes on science, politics, and book-sales. <br><br><br />
The list of plays in manuscript . . . is to be found in the third note-book, a curious volume made up of 218 leaves and even scraps of paper, of different sizes, tipped in by the binder and here brought together, it would seem, merely for the purpose of preservation. No system is apparent in the arrangement of the materials, though it may be significant that folios 150-92 consist of lists of books and detailed notes on certain London auctions.... <br />
<br><br>The list of plays in manuscript is written on both sides of a fairly large sheet of paper measuring about 28 by 17.6 cm.<br />
<br />
<br />
==Digitisation==<br />
<br><br />
The following images from [http://searcharchives.bl.uk/IAMS_VU2:IAMS040-002115271 British Library Sloane MS 2893, pp.190-92] are reproduced by permission of the British Library.<br />
<br><br />
<gallery mode="compact" widths={250}px ><br />
Image:Sloane_ms_2893_p190.jpg|British Library Sloane MS 2893, p.190<br />
Image:Sloane_ms_2893_p192.jpg|British Library Sloane MS 2893, p.192<br />
</gallery><br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
A further scrap of paper, given the foliation 191 but inserted after the two pages digitised above, contains further playtitles:<br />
<br />
[[Image:Sloane_ms_2893_p191.jpg|British Library Sloane MS 2893, p.191| 250px]] [[category:British Library]]<br />
<br />
==Transcription==<br />
(Titles in blue are linked to LPD entries)<br />
<br><br />
{| {{table}}<br />
| 1||&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;||'''[[Conqueror’s Custom, or The Fair Prisoner|The Conquerors custome or the fair prisoner]]'''||||Tho Middleton<br />
|-<br />
| 2||||The white Moor||||Tho Decker<br />
|-<br />
| 3||||'''[[Christianetta, or Marriage and Hanging Go by Destiny|Christianetta or Marriage & hanging goe by destiny]]'''||||Chapman & Brome<br />
|-<br />
| 4||||The wrongd Widows tragedy||||<br />
|-<br />
| 5||||The Lovers holiday or the Beare||||<br />
|-<br />
| 6||||All is not Gold that glisters||||<br />
|-<br />
| 7||||Look on me & Love me or marriage in the dark||||<br />
|-<br />
| 8||||The Witch of Edmonton||||Will. Sh<br />
|-<br />
| 9||||The painted Lady||||<br />
|-<br />
| 10||||'''[[Spanish Preferment|Spanish preferment]]'''||||<br />
|-<br />
| 11||||disguises or love in disguise, a pettycoat voyage||||Th. Decker<br />
|-<br />
| 12||||mull sack or the looking glass the Bachelor or the Hawk||||<br />
|-<br />
| 13||||the Welch Embassador or a Comedy in disguises||||Tho Dekker<br />
|-<br />
| 14||||Your 5 gallants (is in print)||||<br />
|-<br />
| 15||||The Wandring Jew||||<br />
|-<br />
| 16||||a Citty shew on the L. Mayors day||||Tho Dekker<br />
|-<br />
| 17||||Roxolana or the Ambitious stepdame||||<br />
|-<br />
| 18||||Osman the Turk or the Ottoman custome||||<br />
|-<br />
| 19||||More then 9 days wonder Two constant women||||<br />
|-<br />
| 20||||The fatal banquet||||<br />
|-<br />
| 21||||Valentinian or Rapes Revenge||||<br />
|-<br />
| 22||||a match without money or the Wiues prise||||<br />
|-<br />
| 23||||'''[[Younger Brother, The|The younger Brother or male Curtesan]]'''||||<br />
|-<br />
| 24||||the widdow captain||||<br />
|-<br />
| 25||||'''[[White Witch of Westminster, The|the white witch of Westminster or Love in a Lunacy]]'''||||<br />
|-<br />
| 26||||the Dutch painter & the french brawle||||<br />
|-<br />
| 27||||a Gentleman no Gentleman a metamorphosed Courtier||||<br />
|-<br />
| ||||Actors Eustace, frampole, friswood &c||||<br />
|-<br />
| 28||||Philip of macedon||||<br />
|-<br />
| 29||||the Triumph of Jnnocence||||<br />
|-<br />
| 30||||2 Christmas tale or the Knight & the Cobbler||||Philip Lane<br />
|-<br />
| 31||||a Court Purge||||<br />
|-<br />
| 32||||The Cloudy Queen & singing moor.||(2 Copies)||<br />
|-<br />
| 33||||The City night cap.||||<br />
|-<br />
| 34||||'''[[Tereus with a pastoral]]'''||||M.A<br />
|-<br />
| ||||Actors. Agnostus Eupathus &c||||<br />
|-<br />
| ||||[[Actors Mufti Nassuf &amp;c|Actors Mufti Nassuf &c]]||||<br />
|-<br />
| 35||||the 2 Spanish Gentlemen||||<br />
|-<br />
| 36||||Challenge for beauty (is in print)||||Tho Heywood<br />
|-<br />
| 37||||The unfaithfull wife||||<br />
|-<br />
| 38||||a way to make a knaue honest.||||<br />
|-<br />
| 39||||the ambitious brother||||G. Buc<br />
|-<br />
| 40||||Mustpaha||||<br />
|-<br />
| 41||||'''[[Noble Husbands|the noble husbands]]'''||||Henry Glapthor[ne]<br />
|-<br />
| ||||Actors Cataloche le dirard &c||||<br />
|-<br />
| 42||||the widdows prise or the woman Captain||||<br />
|-<br />
| 43||||Believe it is so & tis so||||Th. Decker<br />
|-<br />
| 44||||[[Lovers' Holiday, The|the Lovers holyday]]||||<br />
|-<br />
| 45||||Loves infancy||||<br />
|-<br />
| 46||||The marriage night||||<br />
|-<br />
| 47||||'''[[Tomerania, The Tragedy of|the tragedy of Tomerania]]'''||||<br />
|-<br />
| 48||||'''[[False Friend|the false friend]]'''||||<br />
|-<br />
| 49||||Tradeways Tragedy||||<br />
|-<br />
| 50||||'''[[Pandorae Pyxis]]'''||} Latin.||<br />
|-<br />
| 51||||'''[[Aleumista]]'''||}||<br />
|}<br />
<br />
<br />
==Works Cited==<br />
<br />
Adams, Joseph Quincy. “Hill’s List of Early Plays in Manuscript.” ''The Library'' 4th Ser., 20.1 (1939): 71-99. <br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
Site created and maintained by [[David McInnis]], University of Melbourne; updated, 10 May 2018.</div>MeaghanBrownhttps://lostplays.folger.edu/_mw/index.php?title=Hill%27s_List_of_Early_Plays_in_Manuscript&diff=18561Hill's List of Early Plays in Manuscript2018-08-27T14:23:58Z<p>MeaghanBrown: gallery fix</p>
<hr />
<div>Hill's List of Early Plays in Manuscript (British Library Sloane MS 2893).<br />
<br />
==Background==<br />
The following list of early plays in manuscript was recorded by book collector Abraham Hill (1635-1721): "The list seems to have been Hill's record of the stock of some bookseller, set down between 1677 and 1703, but it is notable that nearly all the identifiable plays and playwrights of the list are Jacobean or Caroline" (Bentley V.1283). It is reproduced from pages 73-74 of Adams. (NB. the numbers were provided by Adams for ease of reference; they did not appear in the original document).<br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
==Bibliographical Description==<br />
<br />
Adams 72-3:<br />
The Hill note-books, ten in number and representing miscellaneous material assembled by him at various times (probably between 1660, when after inheriting a fortune he took chambers at Gresham College, and 1703, when he retired from London to his estate in Sutton-at-Hone), consist chiefly of excerpts dealing with ecclesiastical matters, though with occasional notes on science, politics, and book-sales. <br><br><br />
The list of plays in manuscript . . . is to be found in the third note-book, a curious volume made up of 218 leaves and even scraps of paper, of different sizes, tipped in by the binder and here brought together, it would seem, merely for the purpose of preservation. No system is apparent in the arrangement of the materials, though it may be significant that folios 150-92 consist of lists of books and detailed notes on certain London auctions.... <br />
<br><br>The list of plays in manuscript is written on both sides of a fairly large sheet of paper measuring about 28 by 17.6 cm.<br />
<br />
<br />
==Digitisation==<br />
<br><br />
The following images from [http://searcharchives.bl.uk/IAMS_VU2:IAMS040-002115271 British Library Sloane MS 2893, pp.190-92] are reproduced by permission of the British Library.<br />
<br><br />
<gallery mode="compact" widths={250}px ><br />
Image:Sloane_ms_2893_p190.jpg|British Library Sloane MS 2893, p.190<br />
Image:Sloane_ms_2893_p192.jpg|British Library Sloane MS 2893, p.192<br />
</gallery><br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
A further scrap of paper, given the foliation 191 but inserted after the two pages digitised above, contains further playtitles:<br />
{| class="wikitable" border="0"<br />
|- <br />
|<!--column1--><!--newThumb-->[[Image:Sloane_ms_2893_p191.jpg|250px]]<!--/newThumb--><br />
|-<br />
|<!--column1--><small>''British Library Sloane MS 2893, p.191''</small>.<br />
|}<!--end wikitable--><br />
<br>[[category:British Library]]<br />
<br />
==Transcription==<br />
(Titles in blue are linked to LPD entries)<br />
<br><br />
{| {{table}}<br />
| 1||&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;||'''[[Conqueror’s Custom, or The Fair Prisoner|The Conquerors custome or the fair prisoner]]'''||||Tho Middleton<br />
|-<br />
| 2||||The white Moor||||Tho Decker<br />
|-<br />
| 3||||'''[[Christianetta, or Marriage and Hanging Go by Destiny|Christianetta or Marriage & hanging goe by destiny]]'''||||Chapman & Brome<br />
|-<br />
| 4||||The wrongd Widows tragedy||||<br />
|-<br />
| 5||||The Lovers holiday or the Beare||||<br />
|-<br />
| 6||||All is not Gold that glisters||||<br />
|-<br />
| 7||||Look on me & Love me or marriage in the dark||||<br />
|-<br />
| 8||||The Witch of Edmonton||||Will. Sh<br />
|-<br />
| 9||||The painted Lady||||<br />
|-<br />
| 10||||'''[[Spanish Preferment|Spanish preferment]]'''||||<br />
|-<br />
| 11||||disguises or love in disguise, a pettycoat voyage||||Th. Decker<br />
|-<br />
| 12||||mull sack or the looking glass the Bachelor or the Hawk||||<br />
|-<br />
| 13||||the Welch Embassador or a Comedy in disguises||||Tho Dekker<br />
|-<br />
| 14||||Your 5 gallants (is in print)||||<br />
|-<br />
| 15||||The Wandring Jew||||<br />
|-<br />
| 16||||a Citty shew on the L. Mayors day||||Tho Dekker<br />
|-<br />
| 17||||Roxolana or the Ambitious stepdame||||<br />
|-<br />
| 18||||Osman the Turk or the Ottoman custome||||<br />
|-<br />
| 19||||More then 9 days wonder Two constant women||||<br />
|-<br />
| 20||||The fatal banquet||||<br />
|-<br />
| 21||||Valentinian or Rapes Revenge||||<br />
|-<br />
| 22||||a match without money or the Wiues prise||||<br />
|-<br />
| 23||||'''[[Younger Brother, The|The younger Brother or male Curtesan]]'''||||<br />
|-<br />
| 24||||the widdow captain||||<br />
|-<br />
| 25||||'''[[White Witch of Westminster, The|the white witch of Westminster or Love in a Lunacy]]'''||||<br />
|-<br />
| 26||||the Dutch painter & the french brawle||||<br />
|-<br />
| 27||||a Gentleman no Gentleman a metamorphosed Courtier||||<br />
|-<br />
| ||||Actors Eustace, frampole, friswood &c||||<br />
|-<br />
| 28||||Philip of macedon||||<br />
|-<br />
| 29||||the Triumph of Jnnocence||||<br />
|-<br />
| 30||||2 Christmas tale or the Knight & the Cobbler||||Philip Lane<br />
|-<br />
| 31||||a Court Purge||||<br />
|-<br />
| 32||||The Cloudy Queen & singing moor.||(2 Copies)||<br />
|-<br />
| 33||||The City night cap.||||<br />
|-<br />
| 34||||'''[[Tereus with a pastoral]]'''||||M.A<br />
|-<br />
| ||||Actors. Agnostus Eupathus &c||||<br />
|-<br />
| ||||[[Actors Mufti Nassuf &amp;c|Actors Mufti Nassuf &c]]||||<br />
|-<br />
| 35||||the 2 Spanish Gentlemen||||<br />
|-<br />
| 36||||Challenge for beauty (is in print)||||Tho Heywood<br />
|-<br />
| 37||||The unfaithfull wife||||<br />
|-<br />
| 38||||a way to make a knaue honest.||||<br />
|-<br />
| 39||||the ambitious brother||||G. Buc<br />
|-<br />
| 40||||Mustpaha||||<br />
|-<br />
| 41||||'''[[Noble Husbands|the noble husbands]]'''||||Henry Glapthor[ne]<br />
|-<br />
| ||||Actors Cataloche le dirard &c||||<br />
|-<br />
| 42||||the widdows prise or the woman Captain||||<br />
|-<br />
| 43||||Believe it is so & tis so||||Th. Decker<br />
|-<br />
| 44||||[[Lovers' Holiday, The|the Lovers holyday]]||||<br />
|-<br />
| 45||||Loves infancy||||<br />
|-<br />
| 46||||The marriage night||||<br />
|-<br />
| 47||||'''[[Tomerania, The Tragedy of|the tragedy of Tomerania]]'''||||<br />
|-<br />
| 48||||'''[[False Friend|the false friend]]'''||||<br />
|-<br />
| 49||||Tradeways Tragedy||||<br />
|-<br />
| 50||||'''[[Pandorae Pyxis]]'''||} Latin.||<br />
|-<br />
| 51||||'''[[Aleumista]]'''||}||<br />
|}<br />
<br />
<br />
==Works Cited==<br />
<br />
Adams, Joseph Quincy. “Hill’s List of Early Plays in Manuscript.” ''The Library'' 4th Ser., 20.1 (1939): 71-99. <br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
Site created and maintained by [[David McInnis]], University of Melbourne; updated, 10 May 2018.</div>MeaghanBrownhttps://lostplays.folger.edu/_mw/index.php?title=Catiline%27s_Conspiracy_(Catiline)&diff=18560Catiline's Conspiracy (Catiline)2018-08-27T14:04:09Z<p>MeaghanBrown: </p>
<hr />
<div>[[Robert Wilson]] and [[Henry Chettle]] ([[1598]])<br />
<br />
<br />
==Historical Records==<br />
===Payments to Playwrights (''Henslowe’s Diary'')===<br />
'''F. 49<sup>v</sup>''' ([http://www.archive.org/stream/henslowesdiary00unkngoog#page/n154/mode/1up Greg I.94])<br />
<br><br />
<blockquote><br />
{| {{table}}<br />
| Lent m<sup>r</sup> willsone the 21 of aguste 1598 in <e>||}||<br />
|-<br />
| earnest of a Boocke called cattelyne some of||}||x<sup>s</sup><br />
|}<br />
</blockquote><br />
<br><br />
<blockquote><br />
{| {{table}}<br />
| Lent vnto harey cheattell the 26 of aguste||}||<br />
|-<br />
| 1598 in earneste of a Boocke called||}||v<sup>s</sup><br />
|-<br />
| cattelanes consperesey the some of||}||<br />
|}<br />
</blockquote><br />
<br><br />
<blockquote><br />
{| {{table}}<br />
| Lent vnto m<sup>r</sup> willsone the 29 of aguste||}||<br />
|-<br />
| 1598 at the Request of hary cheattell in||}||x<sup>s</sup><br />
|-<br />
| earneste of cattelyne the some of||}||<br />
|}<br />
</blockquote><br />
<br><br />
<br />
==Theatrical Provenance==<br />
<br />
There is no evidence of performance (as is the case with "[[Hannibal and Hermes]]" and "[[Conan, Prince of Cornwall]]"), but "it remains overwhemingly likely" that the play was staged by the Lord Admiral's Men at the Rose in 1598 (Wiggins, 1137). However, '''Wiggins''' also adds that "we cannot rule out the possibility that, in a year of heavy surplus in his play purchasing, Henslowe might have had some other purpose in mind for the plays" (ibid.).<br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
<br />
==Probable Genre(s)==<br />
<br />
Classical history (Harbage); tragedy (Wiggins).<br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
<br />
==Possible Narrative and Dramatic Sources or Analogues==<br />
<br />
Lucius Sergius Catiline (108–62 BCE) was a Roman senator. The historical tradition, mostly hostile, presents him as a decayed and ambitious patrician possessed of the qualities and flaws of a gang leader, who had exhibited his ferocity since the beginning of his political career both during Sulla’s proscriptions of 82 BCE and as propraetorian governor of the province of Africa in 68–67 BCE. He presented himself as a candidate for the consular elections in 66 BCE, but the Senate rejected his candidacy following an appeal of a delegation from Africa indicting Catiline for abuses. Some historians contend that Catiline took part in the so-called “First Catilinarian Conspiracy”, a failed plot to murder the consuls in 65 BCE, but the claim is now widely disputed. Catiline ran again for consulship in 64 and 63 BCE but was defeated both times. This is when he decided to resort to violence and organize a conspiracy aimed to seize power by means of an insurrection in Rome backed up on the outside by an army raised in the Italian peninsula. Among Catiline’s accomplices were a few of Sulla’s veterans, discontented and indebted patricians, and adventurers who hoped to profit from a political upheaval. The seditious plan was exposed in a series of orations in the Senate by Cicero, who had won the consular elections against Catiline. Catiline was then forced to leave Rome, and joined the army of his lieutenant Gaius Manlius in Etruria, while pretending to go into exile in Massilia. However, his accomplices were discovered in Rome through the betrayal of the co-conspirator Quintus Curius and the ambassadors of the Gallic tribe of the Allobroges. Against the advice of Julius Caesar, who was inclined to impose some lesser penalty, they were sentenced to death and immediately executed. Catiline was finally defeated and killed in Pistoia in 62 BCE, after fighting courageously against the Roman army led by Petreius.<br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
The main sources for this lost play are likely to have been Sallust's ''De coniuratione Catilinae'' and Cicero's ''In Catilinam''. However, Sallust's text had not been translated into English yet in 1598 (the first English translation by Thomas Heywood was only published in 1608). The only English version available to Wilson and Chettle would have been ''The Conspiracie of Lucius Catiline, translated into Englishe by Thomas Paynell; worthy, profitable, and pleasaunt to be red'' (London, in officina T. Bertheleti, 1541), a translation of Costanzo Felici's ''Historia Coniurations Catilinariae'', published in Latin in 1518. Felici's account was reprinted in ''The conspiracie of Catiline, written by Constancius Felicius Durantinus, translated by T. Paynell, with the historye of Jugurth, writen by the famous Romaine Salust, and translated into Englyshe by A Barcklaye'' (London, John Waley, 1557), thereby essentially replacing Sallust's account of the conspiracy. We know that Ben Jonson drew heavily on (the Latin original of) Felici's work for his 1611 ''Catiline His Conspiracy'' (see Duffy; Bolton, Gardner; Lovascio); consequently, it is legitimate to conceive that Wilson and Chettle may have resorted to Felici's ''Historia'' too. Interestingly, as '''Wiggins''' (1145) notes, the Admiral's Men also produced "[[Jugurtha, King of Numidia]]" only two years later.<br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
<br />
==References to the Play==<br />
<br />
None known; information welcome.<br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
<br />
==Critical Commentary==<br />
<br />
'''Collier''' suggested the play may have been a rewrite of (what may have been) an earlier play on Catiline by Wilson, defined as "Shorte and sweete" ([http://quod.lib.umich.edu/cgi/t/text/pageviewer-idx?cc=eebo;c=eebo;idno=a06172.0001.001;seq=43;vid=6077;page=root;view=text EEBO-TCP, open access]) in an anonymous text (subsequently attributed to Thomas Lodge) defending plays, written in response to Stephen Gosson’s antitheatrical ''School of Abuse'' (1579) (see the entry for "[[Short_and_Sweet#Lodge.27s_response_to_Gosson_.28c.1579.29|'''Short and Sweet''']]" for a fuller discussion): <br />
<blockquote>it has been stated that Robert Wilson, as early as 1580, was author of a dramatic performance on the subject of the life of Catiline. A history, named by Henslowe ''Catalin's Conspiracie'', is entered by him with the date of August, 1598, and it is there attributed to Wilson and Chettle. The probability is, that at this time, Wilson (who must have been senior to his coadjutor) and Chettle had employed themselves in reviving a play, then nearly twenty years old. (Collier, [https://archive.org/stream/historyenglishd05collgoog#page/n102/mode/1up ''HEDP'' 3.93])</blockquote><br />
<br><br />
'''Rutter''' (148) maintains that the piece "was evidently abandoned" and never completed, but there is no conclusive evidence about it.<br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
'''Feldmann''' and '''Tetzeli von Rosador''' (329) point out that this play, together with "[[Caesar and Pompey, Parts 1 and 2]]" and "[[Caesar's Fall]]", would have made up "a Caesarean project of some magnitude, showing Caesar in the round" (see also the entry for "[[Caesar's Fall#Critical_Commentary|Caesar's Fall]]"). <br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
<br />
==For What It's Worth==<br />
The conjecture that in this play Wilson was recycling material and ideas from his earlier dramatic attempt at Catiline's conspiracy (namely, "'''[[Short and Sweet]]'''") is consistent both with the low sum paid by Henslowe to Wilson and Chettle (25s; which may suggest additions/revisions rather than a completely new play), and with the fact that the first payment was made to Wilson alone. However, it is important to stress that there is no explicit evidence that these were indeed alterations to the older play and that there is nothing in Wilson's dramatic history suggesting that he used to rework old plays into new ones.<br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
As far as the possible sources are concerned, if Wilson and Chettle did indeed draw on Felici's account of the conspiracy, one may even wonder whether Jonson was following their example in his ''Catiline'', especially because Jonson and Chettle were collaborating on "[[Hot Anger Soon Cold]]" in the very same period when the latter was working with Wilson on "Catiline's Conspiracy" (August 1598).<br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
<br />
==Works Cited==<br />
<br />
<div style="padding-left: 2em; text-indent: -2em"> ''Protogenes can know Apelles by his line though he se him not, and wise men can consider by the penn the aucthoritie of the writer thoughe they know him not.''. London : Printed by H. Singleton?, 1579. [http://estc.bl.uk/S105765 (STC (2nd ed.), 16663)]; [http://quod.lib.umich.edu/e/eebo/A06172.0001.001?rgn=main;view=fulltext EEBO-TCP, open access)] </div><br />
<div style="padding-left: 2em; text-indent: -2em"> Bolton, Whitney French, and Jane Fisher Gardner. "Jonson’s Classical Sources." ''Catiline'' by Ben Jonson. London: Arnold, 1972. 176-193. </div><br />
<div style="padding-left: 2em; text-indent: -2em">Collier, J. Payne. ''The History of English Dramatic Poetry to the Time of Shakespeare: and Annals of the Stage to the Restoration''. London: John Murray, 1831. [https://archive.org/details/historyenglishd05collgoog Internet Archive]</div><br />
<div style="padding-left: 2em; text-indent: -2em"> Duffy, Ellen M.T. "Ben Jonson’s Debt to Renaissance Scholarship." ''Modern Language Review'' 42 (1947): 24-30. </div><br />
<div style="padding-left: 2em; text-indent: -2em"> Feldmann, Doris, and Kurt Tetzeli von Rosador. "Lost Plays: A Brief Account." ''Thomas Middleton: The Collected Works''. Ed. Gary Taylor and John Lavagnino. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2007. 328-333. </div><br />
<div style="padding-left: 2em; text-indent: -2em"> Lovascio, Domenico. "Jonson’s ''Catiline'': A Few Unrecorded Borrowings from Felici’s ''Historia Coniurationis Catilinariae''." ''Notes and Queries'' 58 (2011): 278-282. </div><br />
<div style="padding-left: 2em; text-indent: -2em"> Rutter, Carol Chillington. ''Documents of the Rose Playhouse''. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1999. </div><br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
Site created and maintained by [[Domenico Lovascio]], University of Genoa; updated 04 July 2015.[[category:conspiracies]]<br />
[[category:all]][[category:Domenico Lovascio]][[category:Admiral's]][[category:Rose]][[category:Henslowe's records]][[category:Classical]][[category:Romans]]</div>MeaghanBrownhttps://lostplays.folger.edu/_mw/index.php?title=Fair_Star_of_Antwerp&diff=18559Fair Star of Antwerp2018-08-27T13:55:52Z<p>MeaghanBrown: </p>
<hr />
<div>[[Anon.]] ([[1624]])<br />
<br />
==Historical Records==<br />
===Dramatic Records of Sir Henry Herbert===<br />
<br />
J. O. Halliwell-Phillips transcribed a number of Sir Henry Herbert's licensing records and compiled them in various scrapbooks now held at the Folger Shakespeare Library. Amongst them is the following transcription of plays from September 1624, which includes:<br><br><br />
<blockquote>For the Palsg: Comp: - A Trag: called the Faire Star of Antwerp 15<sup>th</sup> Sept. 1624 1 <sup>li.</sup></blockquote><br />
<br><br />
<!--newThumb-->[[Image:HP_Herbert_Sept_1624.jpg|250px]]<!--/newThumb--><br />
<br><br />
:(Folger Shakespeare Library, MS W.b.156 ("Fortune"), p149. Reproduce by permission of the Folger Shakespeare Library; see also Bawcutt, entry 121, p.156)<br />
<br />
<br><br />
<br>[[category:Folger]][[category:Halliwell-Phillips]]<br />
<br />
==Theatrical Provenance==<br />
<br />
Palsgrave's Company at the Fortune<br />
<br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
==Probable Genre(s)==<br />
<br />
Tragedy; devil play?<br />
<br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
==Possible Narrative and Dramatic Sources or Analogues==<br />
<br />
See "For what it's worth"<br />
<br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
==References to the Play==<br />
<br />
None known<br />
<br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
==Critical Commentary==<br />
This is one of a group of at least fifteen new plays licensed by Herbert between July 1623 and November 1624 for the Palsgrave’s Company, formerly the Admiral's Men. In 1621, their theatre, the Fortune, had burnt down, and three years later they were still attempting to recover from the destruction not merely of their venue but also, it is thought, of their stock of playbooks. This concentration of new writing for one company, fifteen plays in little over a year, is unparalleled in Herbert's records. Fourteen of the fifteen are lost, the survivor being Thomas Drew's ''The Duchess of Suffolk''. As far as one can tell, the post-fire licensings represented an attempt to rebuild a working repertory. (See Gurr, ''Shakespeare's Opposites'', 47; Bentley, 1.149; Bentley, 5.1327-8)<br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
Another member of the group, ''Jugurtha'', seems to have been a reworking of an old Admiral's Men play from around 1600: see the LPD entry on '''''[[Jugurtha, King of Numidia]]'''''.<br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
In its own right, the lost ''The Fair Star of Antwerp'' has been very little discussed. Paulina Kewes mentions the play, noting that it was licensed two months after news of the the Amboyna massacre reached England. Its title, suggests Kewes, implies engagement with the Dutch wars: it may have "reverted to the old model of representing Spanish-Dutch (and English-Dutch) relations", in contrast to the anti-Dutch feeling consequent upon the massacre (288).<br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
<br />
==For What It's Worth==<br />
<br />
EEBO-TCP searches currently shed no obvious light on the phrase "fair star of Antwerp".<br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
Work by other scholars on other LPD plays gives a clue that might yield new progress on this one with a connection not, I believe, hitherto suggested. That suggestion is: The title indicates that the play may have dramatized the story of the Proud Woman of Antwerp, who blasphemes while trying to get her ruff arranged correctly, and is visited and ultimately murdered by the devil in the disguise of a handsome young man.<br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
For the story, related at length by Philip Stubbes, see the LPD entry on '''''[[Friar Rush and the Proud Woman of Antwerp]]''''', a lost play acted by the Admiral's Men in 1602. Basically, the Proud Woman story is a tragic one; about a beautiful woman; set in Antwerp. It thus fits with the title and known genre of ''The Fair Star of Antwerp''. Additionally, ''Friar Rush and the Proud Woman of Antwerp'' shows that the Proud Woman story is one which had already been found suitable for dramatization on the English professional stage, and which enjoyed some success, given the later references to it already known and collected in the LPD entry for ''Friar Rush''. <br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
If the suggestion made above is tenable, then we can say a little more about the genre of ''The Fair Star of Antwerp'', which would, for instance, necessarily have featured a devil to corrupt and murder the heroine. It would have been a devil play. Additionally, the Proud Woman connection would make ''The Fair Star of Antwerp'', like its Palsgrave's Men contemporary ''Jugurtha'', a reworking of a story which had featured in a late-Elizabethan Admiral's Men play. In reconstructing a repertory after the fire, the Palsgrave's Men were, arguably, going back to their roots.<br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
'''Update, July 2016''': In some ways, the 1608 German record (discussed under '''''[[Friar Rush and the Proud Woman of Antwerp]]''''') is even more interesting for this play than it is for the 1602 play. "Frommen" (pious), like "Fair Star", is definitely, on the face of it, a term of praise.<br />
<br />
<br><br />
<br />
==Works Cited==<br />
<br />
<div style="padding-left: 2em; text-indent: -2em">Gurr, Andrew. ''Shakespeare's Opposites: The Admiral's Company 1594-1625''. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2009.</div><br />
<div style="padding-left: 2em; text-indent: -2em">Kewes, Paulina. "Contemporary Europe in Elizabethan and Early Stuart Drama", in Andrew Hadfield and Paul Hammond, eds., ''Shakespeare and Renaissance Europe'' (London: Arden, 2005), 150-192.</div><br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
Site created and maintained by [[Matthew Steggle]], Sheffield Hallam University, 25 July 2011; updated 22 March 2016.<br />
[[category:all]] [[category: Admiral's]] [[category: Fortune]] [[category: Herbert's records]] [[category: Devils]]<br />
[[category:Matthew Steggle]]</div>MeaghanBrownhttps://lostplays.folger.edu/_mw/index.php?title=Angel_King&diff=18558Angel King2018-08-27T13:51:55Z<p>MeaghanBrown: </p>
<hr />
<div>[[Anon.]] ([[1624]])<br />
<br />
<br />
==Historical Records==<br />
<br />
===Dramatic Records of of Sir Henry Herbert===<br />
<br />
J. O. Halliwell-Phillips transcribed a number of Sir Henry Herbert's licensing records and compiled them in various scrapbooks now held at the Folger Shakespeare Library. Amongst them is the following transcription of plays from 1624, which includes:<br><br><br />
<blockquote>For the Palsg: comp: -- A new P. call: The Angell King 15 Oct. 1624 - 1 <sup>li</sup>.</blockquote><br />
<br />
<!--newThumb-->[[Image:HP_Herbert_Sept_1624.jpg|250px]]<!--/newThumb--><br />
<br><br />
:(Folger Shakespeare Library, MS W.b.156 ("Fortune"), p149. Reproduced by permission of the Folger Shakespeare Library)<br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
In 1996, N. W. Bawcutt published new records deriving from hitherto overlooked transcriptions and cuttings from the Ord manuscript, made by its previous owner (i.e. previous to Halliwell-Phillipps) the nineteenth-century scholar Jacob Henry Burn ([http://brbl-dl.library.yale.edu/vufind/Record/3592145?image_id=1467725 Beinecke Library, Osborn d1]):<br><br><br />
<blockquote>The <u>Angill King</u>, a New Play, allowed 15 Oct 1624 &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;1<u>l</u>.<br><br />
For the Palsgraves Company.</blockquote><br />
[[image:Burn transcript 1467725 Angel King - sml.jpg|link=http://brbl-zoom.library.yale.edu/viewer/1467725]]<br><br />
:(Jacob Henry Burn, "Collection towards forming a history of the now obsolete office of the Master of the Revells", [1874]. James Marshall and Marie-Louise Osborn Collection, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University. Reproduced with permission).<br />
<br>[[category:Folger]][[category:Halliwell-Phillips]][[category:Beinecke]][[category:Burn transcript]]<br />
<br />
==Theatrical Provenance==<br />
<br />
Palsgrave's Company at the Fortune <br><br />
<br />
==Probable Genre(s)==<br />
<br />
Unknown (Harbage); doppelganger comedy (Fleay and Steggle)<br />
<br />
==Possible Narrative and Dramatic Sources or Analogues==<br />
<br />
"The story of Robert, King of Sicily, I suppose" (F. G. Fleay, ''BCED'', 2.327). <br />
<br />
Fleay is alluding to a tale which survives in many versions, typified by the very popular medieval English poem [http://www.lib.rochester.edu/camelot/teams/cisylefr.htm ''Robert of Cisyle'']. In this tale, a proud king goes to church and during the service unwisely declares that he is so powerful that nothing can remove him from his throne. He promptly falls asleep, and awakes to find the church deserted, with his own appearance transformed into that of a beggar. Robert rushes out of the church and is treated, by all of his courtiers, as a madman. No-one will believe his protestations that he is the true ruler of everyone he meets, since, as becomes apparent, a stranger has taken on Robert’s own form and supplanted him as king without anyone noticing the difference. Robert attempts to gain entrance to his throne room; scuffles with his own porter; and comes face to face with his double, who is in fact an angel in disguise.<br><br><br />
<br />
Robert is taken from the court in disgrace, still unrecognized. He is forced to wear the garb of a fool, imprisoned, and given an ape for a counsellor, who is dressed in the same clothing as him. Still he refuses to relinquish his claim that he is the real king. After many humiliations, Robert finds that he is indeed tolerated only as a fool at the court of the new king. For three years the stranger rules Sicily with great success. Finally, Robert of Sicily has a religious conversion; realizes that he is indeed a mere fool measured against God; and accepts his new role as a fool. When he tells the impostor this, the impostor reveals that he is really an angel. He at once returns to Heaven, and Robert finds that he is once again recognized by those around him as the King of Sicily.<br><br><br />
<br />
Later English-language versions of the tale include a prose narrative by Leigh Hunt, published in ''A Jar of Honey from Mount Hybla'' (1848); and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's poem [http://www.hwlongfellow.org/poems_poem.php?pid=2019|"The Sicilian’s Tale"], a narrative poem within the hugely successful collection ''Tales from a Wayside Inn'' (1863). "The Sicilian's Tale", in turn, prompted a large number of further versions and the poem was well known at the time that Fleay was writing.<br />
<br />
One obvious potential problem with Fleay's argument is that the eponymous character in the medieval poem is not the angel, but the man he usurps. Indeed, the medieval English poem never uses the exact phrase "the angel king".<br />
<br />
==References to the Play==<br />
<br />
None known.<br />
<br />
==Critical Commentary==<br />
<br />
This is one of a group of at least fifteen new plays licensed by Herbert between July 1623 and November 1624 for the Palsgrave’s Company, formerly the Admiral's Men. In 1621, their theatre, the Fortune, had burnt down, and three years later they were still attempting to recover from the destruction not merely of their venue but also, it is thought, of their stock of playbooks. This concentration of new writing for one company, fifteen plays in little over a year, is unparalleled in Herbert's records. Fourteen of the fifteen are lost, the survivor being Thomas Drew's ''The Duchess of Suffolk''. As far as one can tell, the post-fire licensings represented an attempt to rebuild a working repertory. See Gurr, ''Shakespeare's Opposites'', 47; Bentley, 1.149; Bentley, 5.1327-8.<br />
<br />
This particular play attracted almost no attention prior to the ''Lost Plays Database'' apart from Fleay's uncharacteristically diffident suggestion as to its possible source in the Robert of Sicily story. Sibley (8) and Bentley (5.1290-1) both quote Fleay's sentence without evaluative comment or addition.<br />
<br />
In work arising from the ''LPD'', Steggle argues in support of Fleay's case by adducing other instances where versions of the Robert of Sicily story are entitled "The Angel King". In particular, he cites two separate dramatizations of the Robert of Sicily story, each based on Longfellow's version and recorded in the later nineteenth century, each entitled "The Angel King".<br />
<br />
There are, furthermore, numerous early modern continental versions of the Robert of Sicily story, many of which refer to the angel using variants of the relevant phrase. In particular, two seventeenth-century Spanish plays - ''El Rey Angel'', and [http://digilib.ub.uni-freiburg.de/document/289624681/pdf/289624681.pdf ''El Demonio en la Muger, y Rey Angel de Sicilia''] - actually use the phrase in their titles. Steggle argues that the texts he adduces show<br />
:…firstly, that the story remains current in seventeenth-century Europe, and secondly that the angel is often referred to at this date in variants of the phrase "the Angel King". Additionally, ''El Rey Angel'', and ''El Demonio en la Muger, y Rey Angel de Sicilia''… show that the title ''The Angel King'' has not just nineteenth-century but also seventeenth-century warrant as an appropriate one for a dramatization of the story of Robert of Sicily. (142)<br />
If this identification is accepted, then ''The Angel King'' becomes "one of the large number of Renaissance plays inheriting and remaking the materials of medieval romance" (143). It also becomes a play about doppelgangers, joining a small group including ''Twelfth Night'' and ''The Comedy of Errors''. Steggle also notes the existing suggestion, made by Donna B. Hamilton among others, that the story of Robert of Sicily lurks in the imaginative hinterland of ''King Lear''.<br />
<br />
==For What It's Worth==<br />
<br />
Robert confronts the Angel. From Longfellow, ''Robert of Sicily'', illus. Jane Willis Grey (London, n.d.). <br/><br />
<!--newThumb-->[[Image:Fig6.jpg|250px]]<!--/newThumb--><br />
<br />
==Works Cited==<br />
<br />
<div style="padding-left: 2em; text-indent: -2em">Fleay, F. G. ''A Biographical Chronicle of the English Drama, 1559-1642''. London: Reeves and Turner, 1891. Print. [http://www.archive.org/details/biographicalchro01flea Internet Archive]</div><br />
Longfellow, [Henry Wadsworth]. ''Robert of Sicily'', illus. Jane Willis Grey (London, Raphael Tuck and sons, n.d.). <br />
<div style="padding-left: 2em; text-indent: -2em"> ''Robert of Cisyle'' in Edward E. Foster, ed., ''Amis and Amiloun, Robert of Cisyle, and Sir Amadace'', 2nd edn (1997; Kalamazoo: Medieval Institute Publications, 2007); cited from the online version at [http://www.lib.rochester.edu/camelot/teams/cisylefr.htm http://www.lib.rochester.edu/camelot/teams/cisylefr.htm] </div><br />
<div style="padding-left: 2em; text-indent: -2em;">Sibley, Gertrude. ''The Lost Plays and Masques, 1500-1642''. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1933.</div><br />
<div style="padding-left: 2em; text-indent: -2em"> Steggle, Matthew. ''Digital Humanities and the Lost Drama of Early Modern England: Ten Case Studies''. Farnham: Ashgate, 2015.</div><br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
Page created by [[David McInnis]], University of Melbourne, and [[Matthew Steggle]], Sheffield Hallam University; updated 16 December 2016.<br />
[[category:all]][[category:David McInnis]][[category:Palsgrave's]][[category:Matthew Steggle]][[category:Angels]][[category:Romance]][[category:LPD-derived publications]]</div>MeaghanBrownhttps://lostplays.folger.edu/_mw/index.php?title=Angel_King&diff=18557Angel King2018-08-27T13:51:29Z<p>MeaghanBrown: </p>
<hr />
<div>[[Anon.]] ([[1624]])<br />
<br />
<br />
==Historical Records==<br />
<br />
===Dramatic Records of of Sir Henry Herbert===<br />
<br />
J. O. Halliwell-Phillips transcribed a number of Sir Henry Herbert's licensing records and compiled them in various scrapbooks now held at the Folger Shakespeare Library. Amongst them is the following transcription of plays from 1624, which includes:<br><br><br />
<blockquote>For the Palsg: comp: -- A new P. call: The Angell King 15 Oct. 1624 - 1 <sup>li</sup>.</blockquote><br />
<br />
<!--newThumb-->[[Image:HP_Herbert_Sept_1624.jpg|250px]]<!--/newThumb--><br />
<br><br />
:(Folger Shakespeare Library, MS W.b.156 ("Fortune"), p149. Reproduced by permission of the Folger Shakespeare Library)<br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
In 1996, N. W. Bawcutt published new records deriving from hitherto overlooked transcriptions and cuttings from the Ord manuscript, made by its previous owner (i.e. previous to Halliwell-Phillipps) the nineteenth-century scholar Jacob Henry Burn ([http://brbl-dl.library.yale.edu/vufind/Record/3592145?image_id=1467725 Beinecke Library, Osborn d1]):<br><br><br />
<blockquote>The <u>Angill King</u>, a New Play, allowed 15 Oct 1624 &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;1<u>l</u>.<br><br />
For the Palsgraves Company.</blockquote><br />
[[image:Burn transcript 1467725 Angel King - sml.jpg|link=http://brbl-zoom.library.yale.edu/viewer/1467725]]<br><br />
:(Jacob Henry Burn, "Collection towards forming a history of the now obsolete office of the Master of the Revells", [1874]. James Marshall and Marie-Louise Osborn Collection, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University. Reproduced with permission).<br />
<br>[[category:Folger]][[category:Halliwell-Phillips]][[category:Beinecke]][[category:Burn transcript]]<br />
<br />
==Theatrical Provenance==<br />
<br />
Palsgrave's Company at the Fortune <br><br />
<br />
==Probable Genre(s)==<br />
<br />
Unknown (Harbage); doppelganger comedy (Fleay and Steggle)<br />
<br />
==Possible Narrative and Dramatic Sources or Analogues==<br />
<br />
"The story of Robert, King of Sicily, I suppose" (F. G. Fleay, ''BCED'', 2.327). <br />
<br />
Fleay is alluding to a tale which survives in many versions, typified by the very popular medieval English poem [http://www.lib.rochester.edu/camelot/teams/cisylefr.htm ''Robert of Cisyle'']. In this tale, a proud king goes to church and during the service unwisely declares that he is so powerful that nothing can remove him from his throne. He promptly falls asleep, and awakes to find the church deserted, with his own appearance transformed into that of a beggar. Robert rushes out of the church and is treated, by all of his courtiers, as a madman. No-one will believe his protestations that he is the true ruler of everyone he meets, since, as becomes apparent, a stranger has taken on Robert’s own form and supplanted him as king without anyone noticing the difference. Robert attempts to gain entrance to his throne room; scuffles with his own porter; and comes face to face with his double, who is in fact an angel in disguise.<br><br><br />
<br />
Robert is taken from the court in disgrace, still unrecognized. He is forced to wear the garb of a fool, imprisoned, and given an ape for a counsellor, who is dressed in the same clothing as him. Still he refuses to relinquish his claim that he is the real king. After many humiliations, Robert finds that he is indeed tolerated only as a fool at the court of the new king. For three years the stranger rules Sicily with great success. Finally, Robert of Sicily has a religious conversion; realizes that he is indeed a mere fool measured against God; and accepts his new role as a fool. When he tells the impostor this, the impostor reveals that he is really an angel. He at once returns to Heaven, and Robert finds that he is once again recognized by those around him as the King of Sicily.<br><br><br />
<br />
Later English-language versions of the tale include a prose narrative by Leigh Hunt, published in ''A Jar of Honey from Mount Hybla'' (1848); and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's poem [http://www.hwlongfellow.org/poems_poem.php?pid=2019|"The Sicilian’s Tale"], a narrative poem within the hugely successful collection ''Tales from a Wayside Inn'' (1863). "The Sicilian's Tale", in turn, prompted a large number of further versions and the poem was well known at the time that Fleay was writing.<br />
<br />
One obvious potential problem with Fleay's argument is that the eponymous character in the medieval poem is not the angel, but the man he usurps. Indeed, the medieval English poem never uses the exact phrase "the angel king".<br />
<br />
==References to the Play==<br />
<br />
None known.<br />
<br />
==Critical Commentary==<br />
<br />
This is one of a group of at least fifteen new plays licensed by Herbert between July 1623 and November 1624 for the Palsgrave’s Company, formerly the Admiral's Men. In 1621, their theatre, the Fortune, had burnt down, and three years later they were still attempting to recover from the destruction not merely of their venue but also, it is thought, of their stock of playbooks. This concentration of new writing for one company, fifteen plays in little over a year, is unparalleled in Herbert's records. Fourteen of the fifteen are lost, the survivor being Thomas Drew's ''The Duchess of Suffolk''. As far as one can tell, the post-fire licensings represented an attempt to rebuild a working repertory. See Gurr, ''Shakespeare's Opposites'', 47; Bentley, 1.149; Bentley, 5.1327-8.<br />
<br />
This particular play attracted almost no attention prior to the ''Lost Plays Database'' apart from Fleay's uncharacteristically diffident suggestion as to its possible source in the Robert of Sicily story. Sibley (8) and Bentley (5.1290-1) both quote Fleay's sentence without evaluative comment or addition.<br />
<br />
In work arising from the ''LPD'', Steggle argues in support of Fleay's case by adducing other instances where versions of the Robert of Sicily story are entitled "The Angel King". In particular, he cites two separate dramatizations of the Robert of Sicily story, each based on Longfellow's version and recorded in the later nineteenth century, each entitled "The Angel King".<br />
<br />
There are, furthermore, numerous early modern continental versions of the Robert of Sicily story, many of which refer to the angel using variants of the relevant phrase. In particular, two seventeenth-century Spanish plays - ''El Rey Angel'', and [http://digilib.ub.uni-freiburg.de/document/289624681/pdf/289624681.pdf ''El Demonio en la Muger, y Rey Angel de Sicilia''] - actually use the phrase in their titles. Steggle argues that the texts he adduces show<br />
:…firstly, that the story remains current in seventeenth-century Europe, and secondly that the angel is often referred to at this date in variants of the phrase "the Angel King". Additionally, ''El Rey Angel'', and ''El Demonio en la Muger, y Rey Angel de Sicilia''… show that the title ''The Angel King'' has not just nineteenth-century but also seventeenth-century warrant as an appropriate one for a dramatization of the story of Robert of Sicily. (142)<br />
If this identification is accepted, then ''The Angel King'' becomes "one of the large number of Renaissance plays inheriting and remaking the materials of medieval romance" (143). It also becomes a play about doppelgangers, joining a small group including ''Twelfth Night'' and ''The Comedy of Errors''. Steggle also notes the existing suggestion, made by Donna B. Hamilton among others, that the story of Robert of Sicily lurks in the imaginative hinterland of ''King Lear''.<br />
<br />
==For What It's Worth==<br />
<br />
Robert confronts the Angel. From Longfellow, ''Robert of Sicily'', illus. Jane Willis Grey (London, n.d.). <br />
<!--newThumb-->[[Image:Fig6.jpg|250px]]<!--/newThumb--><br />
<br />
==Works Cited==<br />
<br />
<div style="padding-left: 2em; text-indent: -2em">Fleay, F. G. ''A Biographical Chronicle of the English Drama, 1559-1642''. London: Reeves and Turner, 1891. Print. [http://www.archive.org/details/biographicalchro01flea Internet Archive]</div><br />
Longfellow, [Henry Wadsworth]. ''Robert of Sicily'', illus. Jane Willis Grey (London, Raphael Tuck and sons, n.d.). <br />
<div style="padding-left: 2em; text-indent: -2em"> ''Robert of Cisyle'' in Edward E. Foster, ed., ''Amis and Amiloun, Robert of Cisyle, and Sir Amadace'', 2nd edn (1997; Kalamazoo: Medieval Institute Publications, 2007); cited from the online version at [http://www.lib.rochester.edu/camelot/teams/cisylefr.htm http://www.lib.rochester.edu/camelot/teams/cisylefr.htm] </div><br />
<div style="padding-left: 2em; text-indent: -2em;">Sibley, Gertrude. ''The Lost Plays and Masques, 1500-1642''. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1933.</div><br />
<div style="padding-left: 2em; text-indent: -2em"> Steggle, Matthew. ''Digital Humanities and the Lost Drama of Early Modern England: Ten Case Studies''. Farnham: Ashgate, 2015.</div><br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
Page created by [[David McInnis]], University of Melbourne, and [[Matthew Steggle]], Sheffield Hallam University; updated 16 December 2016.<br />
[[category:all]][[category:David McInnis]][[category:Palsgrave's]][[category:Matthew Steggle]][[category:Angels]][[category:Romance]][[category:LPD-derived publications]]</div>MeaghanBrownhttps://lostplays.folger.edu/_mw/index.php?title=Angel_King&diff=18556Angel King2018-08-27T13:50:23Z<p>MeaghanBrown: </p>
<hr />
<div>[[Anon.]] ([[1624]])<br />
<br />
<br />
==Historical Records==<br />
<br />
===Dramatic Records of of Sir Henry Herbert===<br />
<br />
J. O. Halliwell-Phillips transcribed a number of Sir Henry Herbert's licensing records and compiled them in various scrapbooks now held at the Folger Shakespeare Library. Amongst them is the following transcription of plays from 1624, which includes:<br><br><br />
<blockquote>For the Palsg: comp: -- A new P. call: The Angell King 15 Oct. 1624 - 1 <sup>li</sup>.</blockquote><br />
<br />
<!--newThumb-->[[Image:HP_Herbert_Sept_1624.jpg|250px]]<!--/newThumb--><br />
<br><br />
:(Folger Shakespeare Library, MS W.b.156 ("Fortune"), p149. Reproduced by permission of the Folger Shakespeare Library)<br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
In 1996, N. W. Bawcutt published new records deriving from hitherto overlooked transcriptions and cuttings from the Ord manuscript, made by its previous owner (i.e. previous to Halliwell-Phillipps) the nineteenth-century scholar Jacob Henry Burn ([http://brbl-dl.library.yale.edu/vufind/Record/3592145?image_id=1467725 Beinecke Library, Osborn d1]):<br><br><br />
<blockquote>The <u>Angill King</u>, a New Play, allowed 15 Oct 1624 &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;1<u>l</u>.<br><br />
For the Palsgraves Company.</blockquote><br />
[[image:Burn transcript 1467725 Angel King - sml.jpg|link=http://brbl-zoom.library.yale.edu/viewer/1467725]]<br><br />
:(Jacob Henry Burn, "Collection towards forming a history of the now obsolete office of the Master of the Revells", [1874]. James Marshall and Marie-Louise Osborn Collection, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University. Reproduced with permission).<br />
<br>[[category:Folger]][[category:Halliwell-Phillips]][[category:Beinecke]][[category:Burn transcript]]<br />
<br />
==Theatrical Provenance==<br />
<br />
Palsgrave's Company at the Fortune <br><br />
<br />
==Probable Genre(s)==<br />
<br />
Unknown (Harbage); doppelganger comedy (Fleay and Steggle)<br />
<br />
==Possible Narrative and Dramatic Sources or Analogues==<br />
<br />
"The story of Robert, King of Sicily, I suppose" (F. G. Fleay, ''BCED'', 2.327). <br />
<br />
Fleay is alluding to a tale which survives in many versions, typified by the very popular medieval English poem [http://www.lib.rochester.edu/camelot/teams/cisylefr.htm ''Robert of Cisyle'']. In this tale, a proud king goes to church and during the service unwisely declares that he is so powerful that nothing can remove him from his throne. He promptly falls asleep, and awakes to find the church deserted, with his own appearance transformed into that of a beggar. Robert rushes out of the church and is treated, by all of his courtiers, as a madman. No-one will believe his protestations that he is the true ruler of everyone he meets, since, as becomes apparent, a stranger has taken on Robert’s own form and supplanted him as king without anyone noticing the difference. Robert attempts to gain entrance to his throne room; scuffles with his own porter; and comes face to face with his double, who is in fact an angel in disguise.<br><br><br />
<br />
Robert is taken from the court in disgrace, still unrecognized. He is forced to wear the garb of a fool, imprisoned, and given an ape for a counsellor, who is dressed in the same clothing as him. Still he refuses to relinquish his claim that he is the real king. After many humiliations, Robert finds that he is indeed tolerated only as a fool at the court of the new king. For three years the stranger rules Sicily with great success. Finally, Robert of Sicily has a religious conversion; realizes that he is indeed a mere fool measured against God; and accepts his new role as a fool. When he tells the impostor this, the impostor reveals that he is really an angel. He at once returns to Heaven, and Robert finds that he is once again recognized by those around him as the King of Sicily.<br><br><br />
<br />
Later English-language versions of the tale include a prose narrative by Leigh Hunt, published in ''A Jar of Honey from Mount Hybla'' (1848); and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's poem [http://www.hwlongfellow.org/poems_poem.php?pid=2019|"The Sicilian’s Tale"], a narrative poem within the hugely successful collection ''Tales from a Wayside Inn'' (1863). "The Sicilian's Tale", in turn, prompted a large number of further versions and the poem was well known at the time that Fleay was writing.<br />
<br />
One obvious potential problem with Fleay's argument is that the eponymous character in the medieval poem is not the angel, but the man he usurps. Indeed, the medieval English poem never uses the exact phrase "the angel king".<br />
<br />
==References to the Play==<br />
<br />
None known.<br />
<br />
==Critical Commentary==<br />
<br />
This is one of a group of at least fifteen new plays licensed by Herbert between July 1623 and November 1624 for the Palsgrave’s Company, formerly the Admiral's Men. In 1621, their theatre, the Fortune, had burnt down, and three years later they were still attempting to recover from the destruction not merely of their venue but also, it is thought, of their stock of playbooks. This concentration of new writing for one company, fifteen plays in little over a year, is unparalleled in Herbert's records. Fourteen of the fifteen are lost, the survivor being Thomas Drew's ''The Duchess of Suffolk''. As far as one can tell, the post-fire licensings represented an attempt to rebuild a working repertory. See Gurr, ''Shakespeare's Opposites'', 47; Bentley, 1.149; Bentley, 5.1327-8.<br />
<br />
This particular play attracted almost no attention prior to the ''Lost Plays Database'' apart from Fleay's uncharacteristically diffident suggestion as to its possible source in the Robert of Sicily story. Sibley (8) and Bentley (5.1290-1) both quote Fleay's sentence without evaluative comment or addition.<br />
<br />
In work arising from the ''LPD'', Steggle argues in support of Fleay's case by adducing other instances where versions of the Robert of Sicily story are entitled "The Angel King". In particular, he cites two separate dramatizations of the Robert of Sicily story, each based on Longfellow's version and recorded in the later nineteenth century, each entitled "The Angel King".<br />
<br />
There are, furthermore, numerous early modern continental versions of the Robert of Sicily story, many of which refer to the angel using variants of the relevant phrase. In particular, two seventeenth-century Spanish plays - ''El Rey Angel'', and [http://digilib.ub.uni-freiburg.de/document/289624681/pdf/289624681.pdf ''El Demonio en la Muger, y Rey Angel de Sicilia''] - actually use the phrase in their titles. Steggle argues that the texts he adduces show<br />
:…firstly, that the story remains current in seventeenth-century Europe, and secondly that the angel is often referred to at this date in variants of the phrase "the Angel King". Additionally, ''El Rey Angel'', and ''El Demonio en la Muger, y Rey Angel de Sicilia''… show that the title ''The Angel King'' has not just nineteenth-century but also seventeenth-century warrant as an appropriate one for a dramatization of the story of Robert of Sicily. (142)<br />
If this identification is accepted, then ''The Angel King'' becomes "one of the large number of Renaissance plays inheriting and remaking the materials of medieval romance" (143). It also becomes a play about doppelgangers, joining a small group including ''Twelfth Night'' and ''The Comedy of Errors''. Steggle also notes the existing suggestion, made by Donna B. Hamilton among others, that the story of Robert of Sicily lurks in the imaginative hinterland of ''King Lear''.<br />
<br />
==For What It's Worth==<br />
<br />
Robert confronts the Angel. From Longfellow, ''Robert of Sicily'', illus. Jane Willis Grey (London, n.d.). [[Image:Fig6.jpg:250px]]<br />
<br />
==Works Cited==<br />
<br />
<div style="padding-left: 2em; text-indent: -2em">Fleay, F. G. ''A Biographical Chronicle of the English Drama, 1559-1642''. London: Reeves and Turner, 1891. Print. [http://www.archive.org/details/biographicalchro01flea Internet Archive]</div><br />
Longfellow, [Henry Wadsworth]. ''Robert of Sicily'', illus. Jane Willis Grey (London, Raphael Tuck and sons, n.d.). <br />
<div style="padding-left: 2em; text-indent: -2em"> ''Robert of Cisyle'' in Edward E. Foster, ed., ''Amis and Amiloun, Robert of Cisyle, and Sir Amadace'', 2nd edn (1997; Kalamazoo: Medieval Institute Publications, 2007); cited from the online version at [http://www.lib.rochester.edu/camelot/teams/cisylefr.htm http://www.lib.rochester.edu/camelot/teams/cisylefr.htm] </div><br />
<div style="padding-left: 2em; text-indent: -2em;">Sibley, Gertrude. ''The Lost Plays and Masques, 1500-1642''. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1933.</div><br />
<div style="padding-left: 2em; text-indent: -2em"> Steggle, Matthew. ''Digital Humanities and the Lost Drama of Early Modern England: Ten Case Studies''. Farnham: Ashgate, 2015.</div><br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
Page created by [[David McInnis]], University of Melbourne, and [[Matthew Steggle]], Sheffield Hallam University; updated 16 December 2016.<br />
[[category:all]][[category:David McInnis]][[category:Palsgrave's]][[category:Matthew Steggle]][[category:Angels]][[category:Romance]][[category:LPD-derived publications]]</div>MeaghanBrownhttps://lostplays.folger.edu/_mw/index.php?title=Play_of_Poore&diff=18555Play of Poore2018-08-27T13:20:33Z<p>MeaghanBrown: </p>
<hr />
<div>[[Anon.]] ([[1616]]?)<br />
<br />
<br />
==Historical Records==<br />
<br />
===The Part of Poore (Houghton Library, MS Thr 10.1)===<br />
<br />
The actor's part for the role of Poore, the main character of a lost play known to scholars as the "Play of Poore," survives in Houghton Library, MS Thr 10.1. The manuscript contains actors' parts from four different plays, all of which were performed at Christ Church, Oxford, in the first quarter of the seventeenth century. The part of Poore (ff. 21–46v) contains 1580 lines, including Poore's speeches, brief cue lines spoken by other characters, minimal stage directions, and occasional act and scene designations. Also in the manuscript are parts for Antoninus (ff. 8v-19v) from the anonymous ''Antoninus Bassianus Caracalla'' (a play mostly preserved in Bodleian MS Rawlinson C.590); Polypragmaticus (ff. 48-56) from Robert Burton's ''Philosophaster'' (preserved in an autograph manuscript, Houghton Library, MS Thr 10, and a copy, Folger MS V.a.315); and Amurath (ff. 57-71) from Thomas Goffe's ''The Couragious Turke'' (published 1632). <br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
===Full Digitisation===<br />
<gallery mode="slideshow"><br />
File:htc_ms_thr_10_1_0045.jpg|Page 1 |alt=Image of manuscript page 1 of Part of Poore<br />
File:htc_ms_thr_10_1_0046.jpg|Page 2 |alt=Image of manuscript page 2 of Part of Poore<br />
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File:htc_ms_thr_10_1_0055.jpg|Page 8 |alt=Image of manuscript page 8 of Part of Poore<br />
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File:htc_ms_thr_10_1_0073.jpg|Page 26|alt=Image of manuscript page 26 of Part of Poore<br />
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File:htc_ms_thr_10_1_0079.jpg|Page 32|alt=Image of manuscript page 32 of Part of Poore<br />
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File:htc_ms_thr_10_1_0095.jpg|Page 48|alt=Image of manuscript page 48 of Part of Poore<br />
File:htc_ms_thr_10_1_0096.jpg|Page 49|alt=Image of manuscript page 49 of Part of Poore<br />
</gallery><br />
"The 'part' of Poore", Houghton Library, MS Thr 10.1, f. 21r, reproduced by permission. The LPD has sponsored the digitisation of the entire part. <br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
===Full Transcription===<br />
The part of Poore has been edited by David Carnegie and published by the Malone Society ("Part"); the entire transcription can be read and searched here, courtesy of Professor Carnegie and [http://malonesociety.com/publications/ the Malone Society]:<br />
<br><br><br />
:'''[[Part of Poore (transcription)]]'''<br />
<br><br />
The following is Professor Carnegie's transcription of the first page (f. 21r), which is representative of the nature of the part.<br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
<blockquote><br />
<table style="width:60%;white-space:nowrap;"><br />
<tr><td> </td><td> </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr><br />
<tr><td> </td><td><big>Actus I<sup>mus</sup> Scӕna I<sup>a</sup>.</big> </td><td>[http://lostplays.org/g/poore.html#1 <nowiki>[</nowiki>FOL.21a<nowiki>]</nowiki>] </td><td> </td></tr><br />
<tr><td> </td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Poore. </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr><br />
<tr><td> </td><td>Welcome thou instrument of liberty &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;offreth to stab himselfe </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr><br />
<tr><td>Sly </td><td><strike>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</strike> Hold hold </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr><br />
<tr><td>Poore: </td><td>It is a most vnthankfull office; </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr><br />
<tr><td> </td><td>To save a man vnwilling is to murder. </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr><br />
<tr><td> </td><td>What hath this world of myne that I should covet </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr><br />
<tr><td> </td><td>Longer to stay w<sup>th</sup> it? nor have you reason </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr><br />
<tr><td> </td><td>Thus to detaine mee, I must greiving say it </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr><br />
<tr><td> </td><td>Through mee you want what might have well sustaind you </td><td> </td><td>10 </td></tr><br />
<tr><td> </td><td>And your last store scarce panteth nourishment </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr><br />
<tr><td> </td><td>Vnto your selfe and sister. </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr><br />
<tr><td>Sly </td><td><strike>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</strike> How truely rich </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr><br />
<tr><td> </td><td>Though having nothing, for contemning all? </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr><br />
<tr><td>Poore. </td><td>True very wise, nay rich, if hee could gett </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr><br />
<tr><td> </td><td>Even w<sup>th</sup> his best indeauour nourishment: </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr><br />
<tr><td> </td><td>But that now wants whose rich hees only wise </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr><br />
<tr><td> </td><td>T'is the receaved opinion, and what arts </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr><br />
<tr><td> </td><td>Are meanly shrouded in a thred bare coate </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr><br />
<tr><td> </td><td>Want theire due forme, thats a privation of it. </td><td> </td><td>20 </td></tr><br />
<tr><td> </td><td>The worst of ills that is in misery </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr><br />
<tr><td> </td><td>Is that it gives a man contemptible </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr><br />
<tr><td> </td><td>Makes him a scoffe to every painted asse </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr><br />
<tr><td> </td><td>W<sup>ch</sup> beares a golden image, every slave </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr><br />
<tr><td> </td><td>W<sup>ch</sup> came into this Cytty w<sup>th</sup> bare feete </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr><br />
<tr><td> </td><td>And since hath heap'd vp by mechanicke basenes </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr><br />
<tr><td> </td><td>Abundant riches will contem the state </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr><br />
<tr><td> </td><td>That nature brought him to and no more pitty it, </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr><br />
<tr><td> </td><td>Then wisedome will a snake pin'd w<sup>th</sup> much cold </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr><br />
<tr><td>Sly: </td><td><strike>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</strike> you much erre </td><td> </td><td>30 </td></tr><br />
<tr><td>Poore. </td><td>No it is sacred truth, there is not one </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr><br />
<tr><td> </td><td>Who hath not circled w<sup>th</sup> a triple brasse </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr><br />
</table></blockquote><br />
<br><br />
:'''[[Part of Poore (transcription)|Read more...]]'''<br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
==Theatrical Provenance==<br />
<br />
Performed at Christ Church, Oxford, perhaps around 1616.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
==Probable Genre(s)==<br />
<br />
Comedy (Carnegie). Moral (Harbage).<br />
<br />
<br />
==Possible Narrative and Dramatic Sources or Analogues==<br />
<br />
The part of Poore, which provides the entirety of lines spoken by the play's main character, reveals much about the play's narrative, yet our knowledge is obviously limited by the relative paucity of other characters' speeches, which appear exclusively in brief cue lines and occasional false-starts cancelled by the copyist. David Carnegie offered a detailed conjectural plot synopsis, summarizing the evidence with further speculations based on clues within the part ("Play," [http://iiif.lib.harvard.edu/manifests/view/drs:427334889$23i 21–24]). Broadly speaking, the "Play of Poore" was an academic comedy of subterfuge, disguise, and mischief. In the play's first scene, Poore enlists his fellow scholar Sly and the wench Gill to gull unwitting victims out of their money. One of the main plots has Gill, disguised as "Madam Change," presented as a marriage prospect for the foolish Trugull; Poore, disguised as the Yorkshireman "Change," objects that she is already betrothed to him, but agrees to withdraw his claim in exchange for payment; Sly, disguised as the corpulent uncle of "Madam Change," accepts her dowry. A subplot involves the cuckold Snaile, whose wife is coveted by two men, Medle and Quicke, whom Poore sets at odds until a duel leaves each convinced that the other is dead. Complications and confusions ensue, as Poore's mercenary opportunism results in the proliferation of overlapping cons. In the final scene, his machinations exposed, Poore feigns illness, but after making financial restitution to his victims, he reveals that he is well and everyone is reconciled.<br />
<br />
<br />
==References to the Play==<br />
<br />
None known.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
==Critical Commentary==<br />
<br />
The vast majority of scholarship on the play of Poore and its manuscript has been written by David Carnegie. The following summary draws heavily on his findings.<br />
<br />
<br />
===Date===<br />
<br />
The manuscript seems originally to have been a blank book into which the actors' parts were successively copied; Carnegie therefore proposed that the order of their appearance indicates a rough chronology of performance. Since Burton's ''Philosophaster'' was performed on 17 February 1617/8 and Goffe's ''Couragious Turk'' on 24 February 1618/9, Carnegie conjectured a date range of 1615–17 for the performance of Poore for which the actor's part was prepared ("Play," 6n). <br />
<br />
<br />
===Genre and Style===<br />
<br />
As Carnegie observes, the characters' "names alone invite us into a world of comic types: Poore, Trugull, Medle, Quicke, and Dry are self-declared, and the cuckold Snaile scarcely less so" ("Play," 13). The play's plot is based on feats of "deception, gulling, and knavery," but by the conclusion, "no real harm has been done" and the "play ends in high spirits with all the gulls reconciled to their deceivers" (13-14). While Harbage designated it a "Moral" play, Carnegie argued that the play's "aim seems to be more to delight than to instruct" (14).<br />
<br />
According to Carnegie, although the "language of the play is for the most part a functional, undistinguished blank verse" (16), certain salient characteristics—an "enthusiasm for classical writers, the purple rhetoric, an extraordinary overblown set-piece lecture for Strange on the subject of the dawn, a student drinking game"—suggest satirical sendups of the academic audience watching the play (15). Many of the play's stock elements are representative of university satire; however, numerous parallels of plot and language with Jonson's ''The Alchemist'' suggest some degree of influence if not imitation (18-19).<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
===Performance===<br />
<br />
Costumes and properties for the performance would have included a dagger, a letter, a ring, gold, blue coats, slops, a rapier, a false beard, a country gentleman's attire with padding, a nightgown, and "physicians' gowns" of fustian (Carnegie, "Play," 10, 16). Besides Poore, there are twelve other speaking roles evident in the part, although the fact that one is identified as the Third Officer (f. 23v) implies that First and Second Officers appeared in the play as well ("Play," 20-21). The part was apparently copied out by the actor playing the role of Poore ("Play," 11). (Stern cites William Prynne who laments "how many houres, evenings, halfe-dayes, dayes, and sometimes ''weekes, are spent by all the Actors'' (especially in solemne academicall Enterludes) ''in coppying, in conning, in practising their parts''" [''Histriomastix'', sig. 2R1a; qtd. Stern 239].) Carnegie's study of Houghton Library, MS Thr 10.1 found that the two later parts were evidently written in the hand of Thomas Goffe ("Identification"). While the hand that transcribed the part of "Poore" differs from Goffe's in 1618-19, Carnegie nevertheless left open the possibility that Goffe may have prepared the two earlier parts, including that of "Poore" ("Play," 6n; "Part," 113). (Carnegie's further suggestion that "Poore" may have been acted by the play's author—as suggested by the uncommon lack of mistakes in the transcription—therefore allows for the possibility that Goffe wrote the "Play of Poore" ["Play," 11].)<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
===Comparison with the Orlando Part===<br />
<br />
The only actor's part to survive from the professional Shakespearean stage is that used by Edward Alleyn performing the title role in Robert Greene's ''Orlando Furioso'' (Dulwich College, MSS 1, Article 138; [http://www.henslowe-alleyn.org.uk/images/MSS-1/Article-138/01r.html online]).<br />
Carnegie, comparing this document to the four parts in Houghton Library, MS Thr 10.1 (prepared, as they were, for academic rather than professional performance), observes that the two documents share several basic characteristics, but differ in physical form (Alleyn's part was prepared as a roll, as opposed to the book format used for the university parts) and nature of the cue lines (the university parts not only name the speakers of the cue lines, but provide slightly more text) ("Play," 12). Carnegie, however, notes that, in light of the paucity of surviving evidence, it must remain uncertain "whether the production of the college plays, in entirely different circumstances, in any way signals that professional practices were changing twenty years on," or whether these differences are "simply a by-product of the amateur student actors' simplifying memorization of both lines and action" ("Play," 13). <br />
<br />
Palfrey and Stern, by way of an answer to this question, show that the Restoration-era part for Trico (played by Matthew Medbourne) in Ferdinando Parkhurst's translation of Ruggle's ''Ignoramus'' (Houghton Library, MS Eng 1258/5), performed at the Cockpit and at Whitehall in 1662, typically has short cues lacking characters' names, thereby resembling the Orlando part more than that of Poore (29-31), although the part of Trico was prepared as a book rather than a roll.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
==For What It's Worth==<br />
<br />
Content welcome.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
==Works Cited==<br />
<br />
<div style="padding-left: 2em; text-indent: -2em">Carnegie, David. "Actors' Parts and the 'Play of Poore'." ''Harvard Library Bulletin'' 30 (1982): 5–24. [http://iiif.lib.harvard.edu/manifests/view/drs:427334889$7i Online].</div><br />
<div style="padding-left: 2em; text-indent: -2em">Carnegie, David, ed. "The Part of 'Poore'." Malone Society ''Collections XV''. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1993. 111–169.</div><br />
<div style="padding-left: 2em; text-indent: -2em">Carnegie, David. "The Identification of the Hand of Thomas Goffe, Academic Dramatist and Actor." ''The Library'' 26 (1971): 161–65.</div><br />
<div style="padding-left: 2em; text-indent: -2em">Goffe, Thomas. ''The Couragious Turke, or, Amurath the First''. London, 1632.</div><br />
<div style="padding-left: 2em; text-indent: -2em">Palfrey, Simon, and Tiffany Stern. ''Shakespeare in Parts''. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2007.</div><br />
<div style="padding-left: 2em; text-indent: -2em">Prynne, William. ''Histriomastix''. London, 1633.</div><br />
<div style="padding-left: 2em; text-indent: -2em">Stern, Tiffany. ''Documents of Performance in Early Modern England''. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2009.</div><br />
<br />
<br />
Site created and maintained by [[Misha Teramura]], University of Toronto; transcription added 09 May 2016 by [[David McInnis]].<br />
[[category:all]][[category:Misha Teramura]][[category:Academic]][[category:Parts]][[category:Oxford]][[category:Moral]][[category:Satire]][[category:Thomas Goffe]][[category:Houghton]][[category:David McInnis]][[Category:Untitled plays]]</div>MeaghanBrownhttps://lostplays.folger.edu/_mw/index.php?title=File:Htc_ms_thr_10_1_0045.jpg&diff=18554File:Htc ms thr 10 1 0045.jpg2018-08-27T13:18:49Z<p>MeaghanBrown: MeaghanBrown uploaded a new version of File:Htc ms thr 10 1 0045.jpg</p>
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<div></div>MeaghanBrownhttps://lostplays.folger.edu/_mw/index.php?title=Play_of_Poore&diff=18553Play of Poore2018-08-27T13:15:56Z<p>MeaghanBrown: </p>
<hr />
<div>[[Anon.]] ([[1616]]?)<br />
<br />
<br />
==Historical Records==<br />
<br />
===The Part of Poore (Houghton Library, MS Thr 10.1)===<br />
<br />
The actor's part for the role of Poore, the main character of a lost play known to scholars as the "Play of Poore," survives in Houghton Library, MS Thr 10.1. The manuscript contains actors' parts from four different plays, all of which were performed at Christ Church, Oxford, in the first quarter of the seventeenth century. The part of Poore (ff. 21–46v) contains 1580 lines, including Poore's speeches, brief cue lines spoken by other characters, minimal stage directions, and occasional act and scene designations. Also in the manuscript are parts for Antoninus (ff. 8v-19v) from the anonymous ''Antoninus Bassianus Caracalla'' (a play mostly preserved in Bodleian MS Rawlinson C.590); Polypragmaticus (ff. 48-56) from Robert Burton's ''Philosophaster'' (preserved in an autograph manuscript, Houghton Library, MS Thr 10, and a copy, Folger MS V.a.315); and Amurath (ff. 57-71) from Thomas Goffe's ''The Couragious Turke'' (published 1632). <br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
===Full Digitisation===<br />
'''The LPD has sponsored the digitisation of the entire part'''<br />
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<gallery mode="slideshow"><br />
File:htc_ms_thr_10_1_0045.jpg|Page 1 |alt=Image of manuscript page 1 of Part of Poore<br />
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</gallery><br />
"The 'part' of Poore", Houghton Library, MS Thr 10.1, f. 21r, reproduced by permission.<br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
===Full Transcription===<br />
The part of Poore has been edited by David Carnegie and published by the Malone Society ("Part"); the entire transcription can be read and searched here, courtesy of Professor Carnegie and [http://malonesociety.com/publications/ the Malone Society]:<br />
<br><br><br />
:'''[[Part of Poore (transcription)]]'''<br />
<br><br />
The following is Professor Carnegie's transcription of the first page (f. 21r), which is representative of the nature of the part.<br />
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<br><br />
<blockquote><br />
<table style="width:60%;white-space:nowrap;"><br />
<tr><td> </td><td> </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr><br />
<tr><td> </td><td><big>Actus I<sup>mus</sup> Scӕna I<sup>a</sup>.</big> </td><td>[http://lostplays.org/g/poore.html#1 <nowiki>[</nowiki>FOL.21a<nowiki>]</nowiki>] </td><td> </td></tr><br />
<tr><td> </td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Poore. </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr><br />
<tr><td> </td><td>Welcome thou instrument of liberty &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;offreth to stab himselfe </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr><br />
<tr><td>Sly </td><td><strike>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</strike> Hold hold </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr><br />
<tr><td>Poore: </td><td>It is a most vnthankfull office; </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr><br />
<tr><td> </td><td>To save a man vnwilling is to murder. </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr><br />
<tr><td> </td><td>What hath this world of myne that I should covet </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr><br />
<tr><td> </td><td>Longer to stay w<sup>th</sup> it? nor have you reason </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr><br />
<tr><td> </td><td>Thus to detaine mee, I must greiving say it </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr><br />
<tr><td> </td><td>Through mee you want what might have well sustaind you </td><td> </td><td>10 </td></tr><br />
<tr><td> </td><td>And your last store scarce panteth nourishment </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr><br />
<tr><td> </td><td>Vnto your selfe and sister. </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr><br />
<tr><td>Sly </td><td><strike>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</strike> How truely rich </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr><br />
<tr><td> </td><td>Though having nothing, for contemning all? </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr><br />
<tr><td>Poore. </td><td>True very wise, nay rich, if hee could gett </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr><br />
<tr><td> </td><td>Even w<sup>th</sup> his best indeauour nourishment: </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr><br />
<tr><td> </td><td>But that now wants whose rich hees only wise </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr><br />
<tr><td> </td><td>T'is the receaved opinion, and what arts </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr><br />
<tr><td> </td><td>Are meanly shrouded in a thred bare coate </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr><br />
<tr><td> </td><td>Want theire due forme, thats a privation of it. </td><td> </td><td>20 </td></tr><br />
<tr><td> </td><td>The worst of ills that is in misery </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr><br />
<tr><td> </td><td>Is that it gives a man contemptible </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr><br />
<tr><td> </td><td>Makes him a scoffe to every painted asse </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr><br />
<tr><td> </td><td>W<sup>ch</sup> beares a golden image, every slave </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr><br />
<tr><td> </td><td>W<sup>ch</sup> came into this Cytty w<sup>th</sup> bare feete </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr><br />
<tr><td> </td><td>And since hath heap'd vp by mechanicke basenes </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr><br />
<tr><td> </td><td>Abundant riches will contem the state </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr><br />
<tr><td> </td><td>That nature brought him to and no more pitty it, </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr><br />
<tr><td> </td><td>Then wisedome will a snake pin'd w<sup>th</sup> much cold </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr><br />
<tr><td>Sly: </td><td><strike>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</strike> you much erre </td><td> </td><td>30 </td></tr><br />
<tr><td>Poore. </td><td>No it is sacred truth, there is not one </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr><br />
<tr><td> </td><td>Who hath not circled w<sup>th</sup> a triple brasse </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr><br />
</table></blockquote><br />
<br><br />
:'''[[Part of Poore (transcription)|Read more...]]'''<br />
<br><br />
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<br><br />
==Theatrical Provenance==<br />
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Performed at Christ Church, Oxford, perhaps around 1616.<br />
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==Probable Genre(s)==<br />
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Comedy (Carnegie). Moral (Harbage).<br />
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==Possible Narrative and Dramatic Sources or Analogues==<br />
<br />
The part of Poore, which provides the entirety of lines spoken by the play's main character, reveals much about the play's narrative, yet our knowledge is obviously limited by the relative paucity of other characters' speeches, which appear exclusively in brief cue lines and occasional false-starts cancelled by the copyist. David Carnegie offered a detailed conjectural plot synopsis, summarizing the evidence with further speculations based on clues within the part ("Play," [http://iiif.lib.harvard.edu/manifests/view/drs:427334889$23i 21–24]). Broadly speaking, the "Play of Poore" was an academic comedy of subterfuge, disguise, and mischief. In the play's first scene, Poore enlists his fellow scholar Sly and the wench Gill to gull unwitting victims out of their money. One of the main plots has Gill, disguised as "Madam Change," presented as a marriage prospect for the foolish Trugull; Poore, disguised as the Yorkshireman "Change," objects that she is already betrothed to him, but agrees to withdraw his claim in exchange for payment; Sly, disguised as the corpulent uncle of "Madam Change," accepts her dowry. A subplot involves the cuckold Snaile, whose wife is coveted by two men, Medle and Quicke, whom Poore sets at odds until a duel leaves each convinced that the other is dead. Complications and confusions ensue, as Poore's mercenary opportunism results in the proliferation of overlapping cons. In the final scene, his machinations exposed, Poore feigns illness, but after making financial restitution to his victims, he reveals that he is well and everyone is reconciled.<br />
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==References to the Play==<br />
<br />
None known.<br />
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==Critical Commentary==<br />
<br />
The vast majority of scholarship on the play of Poore and its manuscript has been written by David Carnegie. The following summary draws heavily on his findings.<br />
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===Date===<br />
<br />
The manuscript seems originally to have been a blank book into which the actors' parts were successively copied; Carnegie therefore proposed that the order of their appearance indicates a rough chronology of performance. Since Burton's ''Philosophaster'' was performed on 17 February 1617/8 and Goffe's ''Couragious Turk'' on 24 February 1618/9, Carnegie conjectured a date range of 1615–17 for the performance of Poore for which the actor's part was prepared ("Play," 6n). <br />
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===Genre and Style===<br />
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As Carnegie observes, the characters' "names alone invite us into a world of comic types: Poore, Trugull, Medle, Quicke, and Dry are self-declared, and the cuckold Snaile scarcely less so" ("Play," 13). The play's plot is based on feats of "deception, gulling, and knavery," but by the conclusion, "no real harm has been done" and the "play ends in high spirits with all the gulls reconciled to their deceivers" (13-14). While Harbage designated it a "Moral" play, Carnegie argued that the play's "aim seems to be more to delight than to instruct" (14).<br />
<br />
According to Carnegie, although the "language of the play is for the most part a functional, undistinguished blank verse" (16), certain salient characteristics—an "enthusiasm for classical writers, the purple rhetoric, an extraordinary overblown set-piece lecture for Strange on the subject of the dawn, a student drinking game"—suggest satirical sendups of the academic audience watching the play (15). Many of the play's stock elements are representative of university satire; however, numerous parallels of plot and language with Jonson's ''The Alchemist'' suggest some degree of influence if not imitation (18-19).<br />
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===Performance===<br />
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Costumes and properties for the performance would have included a dagger, a letter, a ring, gold, blue coats, slops, a rapier, a false beard, a country gentleman's attire with padding, a nightgown, and "physicians' gowns" of fustian (Carnegie, "Play," 10, 16). Besides Poore, there are twelve other speaking roles evident in the part, although the fact that one is identified as the Third Officer (f. 23v) implies that First and Second Officers appeared in the play as well ("Play," 20-21). The part was apparently copied out by the actor playing the role of Poore ("Play," 11). (Stern cites William Prynne who laments "how many houres, evenings, halfe-dayes, dayes, and sometimes ''weekes, are spent by all the Actors'' (especially in solemne academicall Enterludes) ''in coppying, in conning, in practising their parts''" [''Histriomastix'', sig. 2R1a; qtd. Stern 239].) Carnegie's study of Houghton Library, MS Thr 10.1 found that the two later parts were evidently written in the hand of Thomas Goffe ("Identification"). While the hand that transcribed the part of "Poore" differs from Goffe's in 1618-19, Carnegie nevertheless left open the possibility that Goffe may have prepared the two earlier parts, including that of "Poore" ("Play," 6n; "Part," 113). (Carnegie's further suggestion that "Poore" may have been acted by the play's author—as suggested by the uncommon lack of mistakes in the transcription—therefore allows for the possibility that Goffe wrote the "Play of Poore" ["Play," 11].)<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
===Comparison with the Orlando Part===<br />
<br />
The only actor's part to survive from the professional Shakespearean stage is that used by Edward Alleyn performing the title role in Robert Greene's ''Orlando Furioso'' (Dulwich College, MSS 1, Article 138; [http://www.henslowe-alleyn.org.uk/images/MSS-1/Article-138/01r.html online]).<br />
Carnegie, comparing this document to the four parts in Houghton Library, MS Thr 10.1 (prepared, as they were, for academic rather than professional performance), observes that the two documents share several basic characteristics, but differ in physical form (Alleyn's part was prepared as a roll, as opposed to the book format used for the university parts) and nature of the cue lines (the university parts not only name the speakers of the cue lines, but provide slightly more text) ("Play," 12). Carnegie, however, notes that, in light of the paucity of surviving evidence, it must remain uncertain "whether the production of the college plays, in entirely different circumstances, in any way signals that professional practices were changing twenty years on," or whether these differences are "simply a by-product of the amateur student actors' simplifying memorization of both lines and action" ("Play," 13). <br />
<br />
Palfrey and Stern, by way of an answer to this question, show that the Restoration-era part for Trico (played by Matthew Medbourne) in Ferdinando Parkhurst's translation of Ruggle's ''Ignoramus'' (Houghton Library, MS Eng 1258/5), performed at the Cockpit and at Whitehall in 1662, typically has short cues lacking characters' names, thereby resembling the Orlando part more than that of Poore (29-31), although the part of Trico was prepared as a book rather than a roll.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
==For What It's Worth==<br />
<br />
Content welcome.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
==Works Cited==<br />
<br />
<div style="padding-left: 2em; text-indent: -2em">Carnegie, David. "Actors' Parts and the 'Play of Poore'." ''Harvard Library Bulletin'' 30 (1982): 5–24. [http://iiif.lib.harvard.edu/manifests/view/drs:427334889$7i Online].</div><br />
<div style="padding-left: 2em; text-indent: -2em">Carnegie, David, ed. "The Part of 'Poore'." Malone Society ''Collections XV''. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1993. 111–169.</div><br />
<div style="padding-left: 2em; text-indent: -2em">Carnegie, David. "The Identification of the Hand of Thomas Goffe, Academic Dramatist and Actor." ''The Library'' 26 (1971): 161–65.</div><br />
<div style="padding-left: 2em; text-indent: -2em">Goffe, Thomas. ''The Couragious Turke, or, Amurath the First''. London, 1632.</div><br />
<div style="padding-left: 2em; text-indent: -2em">Palfrey, Simon, and Tiffany Stern. ''Shakespeare in Parts''. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2007.</div><br />
<div style="padding-left: 2em; text-indent: -2em">Prynne, William. ''Histriomastix''. London, 1633.</div><br />
<div style="padding-left: 2em; text-indent: -2em">Stern, Tiffany. ''Documents of Performance in Early Modern England''. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2009.</div><br />
<br />
<br />
Site created and maintained by [[Misha Teramura]], University of Toronto; transcription added 09 May 2016 by [[David McInnis]].<br />
[[category:all]][[category:Misha Teramura]][[category:Academic]][[category:Parts]][[category:Oxford]][[category:Moral]][[category:Satire]][[category:Thomas Goffe]][[category:Houghton]][[category:David McInnis]][[Category:Untitled plays]]</div>MeaghanBrownhttps://lostplays.folger.edu/_mw/index.php?title=Play_of_Poore&diff=18552Play of Poore2018-08-27T13:14:50Z<p>MeaghanBrown: </p>
<hr />
<div>[[Anon.]] ([[1616]]?)<br />
<br />
<br />
==Historical Records==<br />
<br />
===The Part of Poore (Houghton Library, MS Thr 10.1)===<br />
<br />
The actor's part for the role of Poore, the main character of a lost play known to scholars as the "Play of Poore," survives in Houghton Library, MS Thr 10.1. The manuscript contains actors' parts from four different plays, all of which were performed at Christ Church, Oxford, in the first quarter of the seventeenth century. The part of Poore (ff. 21–46v) contains 1580 lines, including Poore's speeches, brief cue lines spoken by other characters, minimal stage directions, and occasional act and scene designations. Also in the manuscript are parts for Antoninus (ff. 8v-19v) from the anonymous ''Antoninus Bassianus Caracalla'' (a play mostly preserved in Bodleian MS Rawlinson C.590); Polypragmaticus (ff. 48-56) from Robert Burton's ''Philosophaster'' (preserved in an autograph manuscript, Houghton Library, MS Thr 10, and a copy, Folger MS V.a.315); and Amurath (ff. 57-71) from Thomas Goffe's ''The Couragious Turke'' (published 1632). <br />
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===Full Digitisation===<br />
'''The LPD has sponsored the digitisation of the entire part; click image to view the manuscript:'''<br />
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[[Image:Htc ms thr 10 1 0045 thumb.jpg|link=http://lostplays.org/g/poore.html]]<br><br />
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"The 'part' of Poore", Houghton Library, MS Thr 10.1, f. 21r, reproduced by permission.<br />
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===Full Transcription===<br />
The part of Poore has been edited by David Carnegie and published by the Malone Society ("Part"); the entire transcription can be read and searched here, courtesy of Professor Carnegie and [http://malonesociety.com/publications/ the Malone Society]:<br />
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:'''[[Part of Poore (transcription)]]'''<br />
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The following is Professor Carnegie's transcription of the first page (f. 21r), which is representative of the nature of the part.<br />
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<blockquote><br />
<table style="width:60%;white-space:nowrap;"><br />
<tr><td> </td><td> </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr><br />
<tr><td> </td><td><big>Actus I<sup>mus</sup> Scӕna I<sup>a</sup>.</big> </td><td>[http://lostplays.org/g/poore.html#1 <nowiki>[</nowiki>FOL.21a<nowiki>]</nowiki>] </td><td> </td></tr><br />
<tr><td> </td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Poore. </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr><br />
<tr><td> </td><td>Welcome thou instrument of liberty &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;offreth to stab himselfe </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr><br />
<tr><td>Sly </td><td><strike>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</strike> Hold hold </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr><br />
<tr><td>Poore: </td><td>It is a most vnthankfull office; </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr><br />
<tr><td> </td><td>To save a man vnwilling is to murder. </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr><br />
<tr><td> </td><td>What hath this world of myne that I should covet </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr><br />
<tr><td> </td><td>Longer to stay w<sup>th</sup> it? nor have you reason </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr><br />
<tr><td> </td><td>Thus to detaine mee, I must greiving say it </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr><br />
<tr><td> </td><td>Through mee you want what might have well sustaind you </td><td> </td><td>10 </td></tr><br />
<tr><td> </td><td>And your last store scarce panteth nourishment </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr><br />
<tr><td> </td><td>Vnto your selfe and sister. </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr><br />
<tr><td>Sly </td><td><strike>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</strike> How truely rich </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr><br />
<tr><td> </td><td>Though having nothing, for contemning all? </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr><br />
<tr><td>Poore. </td><td>True very wise, nay rich, if hee could gett </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr><br />
<tr><td> </td><td>Even w<sup>th</sup> his best indeauour nourishment: </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr><br />
<tr><td> </td><td>But that now wants whose rich hees only wise </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr><br />
<tr><td> </td><td>T'is the receaved opinion, and what arts </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr><br />
<tr><td> </td><td>Are meanly shrouded in a thred bare coate </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr><br />
<tr><td> </td><td>Want theire due forme, thats a privation of it. </td><td> </td><td>20 </td></tr><br />
<tr><td> </td><td>The worst of ills that is in misery </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr><br />
<tr><td> </td><td>Is that it gives a man contemptible </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr><br />
<tr><td> </td><td>Makes him a scoffe to every painted asse </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr><br />
<tr><td> </td><td>W<sup>ch</sup> beares a golden image, every slave </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr><br />
<tr><td> </td><td>W<sup>ch</sup> came into this Cytty w<sup>th</sup> bare feete </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr><br />
<tr><td> </td><td>And since hath heap'd vp by mechanicke basenes </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr><br />
<tr><td> </td><td>Abundant riches will contem the state </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr><br />
<tr><td> </td><td>That nature brought him to and no more pitty it, </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr><br />
<tr><td> </td><td>Then wisedome will a snake pin'd w<sup>th</sup> much cold </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr><br />
<tr><td>Sly: </td><td><strike>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</strike> you much erre </td><td> </td><td>30 </td></tr><br />
<tr><td>Poore. </td><td>No it is sacred truth, there is not one </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr><br />
<tr><td> </td><td>Who hath not circled w<sup>th</sup> a triple brasse </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr><br />
</table></blockquote><br />
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:'''[[Part of Poore (transcription)|Read more...]]'''<br />
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==Theatrical Provenance==<br />
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Performed at Christ Church, Oxford, perhaps around 1616.<br />
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==Probable Genre(s)==<br />
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Comedy (Carnegie). Moral (Harbage).<br />
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==Possible Narrative and Dramatic Sources or Analogues==<br />
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The part of Poore, which provides the entirety of lines spoken by the play's main character, reveals much about the play's narrative, yet our knowledge is obviously limited by the relative paucity of other characters' speeches, which appear exclusively in brief cue lines and occasional false-starts cancelled by the copyist. David Carnegie offered a detailed conjectural plot synopsis, summarizing the evidence with further speculations based on clues within the part ("Play," [http://iiif.lib.harvard.edu/manifests/view/drs:427334889$23i 21–24]). Broadly speaking, the "Play of Poore" was an academic comedy of subterfuge, disguise, and mischief. In the play's first scene, Poore enlists his fellow scholar Sly and the wench Gill to gull unwitting victims out of their money. One of the main plots has Gill, disguised as "Madam Change," presented as a marriage prospect for the foolish Trugull; Poore, disguised as the Yorkshireman "Change," objects that she is already betrothed to him, but agrees to withdraw his claim in exchange for payment; Sly, disguised as the corpulent uncle of "Madam Change," accepts her dowry. A subplot involves the cuckold Snaile, whose wife is coveted by two men, Medle and Quicke, whom Poore sets at odds until a duel leaves each convinced that the other is dead. Complications and confusions ensue, as Poore's mercenary opportunism results in the proliferation of overlapping cons. In the final scene, his machinations exposed, Poore feigns illness, but after making financial restitution to his victims, he reveals that he is well and everyone is reconciled.<br />
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==References to the Play==<br />
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None known.<br />
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==Critical Commentary==<br />
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The vast majority of scholarship on the play of Poore and its manuscript has been written by David Carnegie. The following summary draws heavily on his findings.<br />
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===Date===<br />
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The manuscript seems originally to have been a blank book into which the actors' parts were successively copied; Carnegie therefore proposed that the order of their appearance indicates a rough chronology of performance. Since Burton's ''Philosophaster'' was performed on 17 February 1617/8 and Goffe's ''Couragious Turk'' on 24 February 1618/9, Carnegie conjectured a date range of 1615–17 for the performance of Poore for which the actor's part was prepared ("Play," 6n). <br />
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===Genre and Style===<br />
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As Carnegie observes, the characters' "names alone invite us into a world of comic types: Poore, Trugull, Medle, Quicke, and Dry are self-declared, and the cuckold Snaile scarcely less so" ("Play," 13). The play's plot is based on feats of "deception, gulling, and knavery," but by the conclusion, "no real harm has been done" and the "play ends in high spirits with all the gulls reconciled to their deceivers" (13-14). While Harbage designated it a "Moral" play, Carnegie argued that the play's "aim seems to be more to delight than to instruct" (14).<br />
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According to Carnegie, although the "language of the play is for the most part a functional, undistinguished blank verse" (16), certain salient characteristics—an "enthusiasm for classical writers, the purple rhetoric, an extraordinary overblown set-piece lecture for Strange on the subject of the dawn, a student drinking game"—suggest satirical sendups of the academic audience watching the play (15). Many of the play's stock elements are representative of university satire; however, numerous parallels of plot and language with Jonson's ''The Alchemist'' suggest some degree of influence if not imitation (18-19).<br />
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===Performance===<br />
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Costumes and properties for the performance would have included a dagger, a letter, a ring, gold, blue coats, slops, a rapier, a false beard, a country gentleman's attire with padding, a nightgown, and "physicians' gowns" of fustian (Carnegie, "Play," 10, 16). Besides Poore, there are twelve other speaking roles evident in the part, although the fact that one is identified as the Third Officer (f. 23v) implies that First and Second Officers appeared in the play as well ("Play," 20-21). The part was apparently copied out by the actor playing the role of Poore ("Play," 11). (Stern cites William Prynne who laments "how many houres, evenings, halfe-dayes, dayes, and sometimes ''weekes, are spent by all the Actors'' (especially in solemne academicall Enterludes) ''in coppying, in conning, in practising their parts''" [''Histriomastix'', sig. 2R1a; qtd. Stern 239].) Carnegie's study of Houghton Library, MS Thr 10.1 found that the two later parts were evidently written in the hand of Thomas Goffe ("Identification"). While the hand that transcribed the part of "Poore" differs from Goffe's in 1618-19, Carnegie nevertheless left open the possibility that Goffe may have prepared the two earlier parts, including that of "Poore" ("Play," 6n; "Part," 113). (Carnegie's further suggestion that "Poore" may have been acted by the play's author—as suggested by the uncommon lack of mistakes in the transcription—therefore allows for the possibility that Goffe wrote the "Play of Poore" ["Play," 11].)<br />
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===Comparison with the Orlando Part===<br />
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The only actor's part to survive from the professional Shakespearean stage is that used by Edward Alleyn performing the title role in Robert Greene's ''Orlando Furioso'' (Dulwich College, MSS 1, Article 138; [http://www.henslowe-alleyn.org.uk/images/MSS-1/Article-138/01r.html online]).<br />
Carnegie, comparing this document to the four parts in Houghton Library, MS Thr 10.1 (prepared, as they were, for academic rather than professional performance), observes that the two documents share several basic characteristics, but differ in physical form (Alleyn's part was prepared as a roll, as opposed to the book format used for the university parts) and nature of the cue lines (the university parts not only name the speakers of the cue lines, but provide slightly more text) ("Play," 12). Carnegie, however, notes that, in light of the paucity of surviving evidence, it must remain uncertain "whether the production of the college plays, in entirely different circumstances, in any way signals that professional practices were changing twenty years on," or whether these differences are "simply a by-product of the amateur student actors' simplifying memorization of both lines and action" ("Play," 13). <br />
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Palfrey and Stern, by way of an answer to this question, show that the Restoration-era part for Trico (played by Matthew Medbourne) in Ferdinando Parkhurst's translation of Ruggle's ''Ignoramus'' (Houghton Library, MS Eng 1258/5), performed at the Cockpit and at Whitehall in 1662, typically has short cues lacking characters' names, thereby resembling the Orlando part more than that of Poore (29-31), although the part of Trico was prepared as a book rather than a roll.<br />
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==For What It's Worth==<br />
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Content welcome.<br />
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==Works Cited==<br />
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<div style="padding-left: 2em; text-indent: -2em">Carnegie, David. "Actors' Parts and the 'Play of Poore'." ''Harvard Library Bulletin'' 30 (1982): 5–24. [http://iiif.lib.harvard.edu/manifests/view/drs:427334889$7i Online].</div><br />
<div style="padding-left: 2em; text-indent: -2em">Carnegie, David, ed. "The Part of 'Poore'." Malone Society ''Collections XV''. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1993. 111–169.</div><br />
<div style="padding-left: 2em; text-indent: -2em">Carnegie, David. "The Identification of the Hand of Thomas Goffe, Academic Dramatist and Actor." ''The Library'' 26 (1971): 161–65.</div><br />
<div style="padding-left: 2em; text-indent: -2em">Goffe, Thomas. ''The Couragious Turke, or, Amurath the First''. London, 1632.</div><br />
<div style="padding-left: 2em; text-indent: -2em">Palfrey, Simon, and Tiffany Stern. ''Shakespeare in Parts''. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2007.</div><br />
<div style="padding-left: 2em; text-indent: -2em">Prynne, William. ''Histriomastix''. London, 1633.</div><br />
<div style="padding-left: 2em; text-indent: -2em">Stern, Tiffany. ''Documents of Performance in Early Modern England''. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2009.</div><br />
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Site created and maintained by [[Misha Teramura]], University of Toronto; transcription added 09 May 2016 by [[David McInnis]].<br />
[[category:all]][[category:Misha Teramura]][[category:Academic]][[category:Parts]][[category:Oxford]][[category:Moral]][[category:Satire]][[category:Thomas Goffe]][[category:Houghton]][[category:David McInnis]][[Category:Untitled plays]]</div>MeaghanBrownhttps://lostplays.folger.edu/_mw/index.php?title=Play_of_Poore&diff=18543Play of Poore2018-08-20T13:22:41Z<p>MeaghanBrown: </p>
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<div>[[Anon.]] ([[1616]]?)<br />
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==Historical Records==<br />
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===The Part of Poore (Houghton Library, MS Thr 10.1)===<br />
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The actor's part for the role of Poore, the main character of a lost play known to scholars as the "Play of Poore," survives in Houghton Library, MS Thr 10.1. The manuscript contains actors' parts from four different plays, all of which were performed at Christ Church, Oxford, in the first quarter of the seventeenth century. The part of Poore (ff. 21–46v) contains 1580 lines, including Poore's speeches, brief cue lines spoken by other characters, minimal stage directions, and occasional act and scene designations. Also in the manuscript are parts for Antoninus (ff. 8v-19v) from the anonymous ''Antoninus Bassianus Caracalla'' (a play mostly preserved in Bodleian MS Rawlinson C.590); Polypragmaticus (ff. 48-56) from Robert Burton's ''Philosophaster'' (preserved in an autograph manuscript, Houghton Library, MS Thr 10, and a copy, Folger MS V.a.315); and Amurath (ff. 57-71) from Thomas Goffe's ''The Couragious Turke'' (published 1632). <br />
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===Full Digitisation===<br />
'''The LPD has sponsored the digitisation of the entire part; click image to view the manuscript:'''<br />
<br />
[[Image:Htc ms thr 10 1 0045 thumb.jpg|link=http://lostplays.org/g/poore.html]]<br><br />
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<gallery mode="packed"><br />
File:htc_ms_thr_10_1_0045.jpg|Page 1 |alt=Image of manuscript page 1 of Part of Poore<br />
File:htc_ms_thr_10_1_0046.jpg|Page 2 |alt=Image of manuscript page 2 of Part of Poore<br />
File:htc_ms_thr_10_1_0047.jpg|Page 3 |alt=Image of manuscript page 3 of Part of Poore<br />
File:htc_ms_thr_10_1_0049.jpg|Page 4 |alt=Image of manuscript page 4 of Part of Poore<br />
File:htc_ms_thr_10_1_0051.jpg|Page 5 |alt=Image of manuscript page 5 of Part of Poore<br />
File:htc_ms_thr_10_1_0052.jpg|Page 6 |alt=Image of manuscript page 6 of Part of Poore<br />
File:htc_ms_thr_10_1_0053.jpg|Page 7 |alt=Image of manuscript page 7 of Part of Poore<br />
File:htc_ms_thr_10_1_0055.jpg|Page 8 |alt=Image of manuscript page 8 of Part of Poore<br />
File:htc_ms_thr_10_1_0056.jpg|Page 9 |alt=Image of manuscript page 9 of Part of Poore<br />
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File:htc_ms_thr_10_1_0062.jpg|Page 15|alt=Image of manuscript page 15 of Part of Poore<br />
File:htc_ms_thr_10_1_0063.jpg|Page 16|alt=Image of manuscript page 16 of Part of Poore<br />
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</gallery><br />
"The 'part' of Poore", Houghton Library, MS Thr 10.1, f. 21r, reproduced by permission.<br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
===Full Transcription===<br />
The part of Poore has been edited by David Carnegie and published by the Malone Society ("Part"); the entire transcription can be read and searched here, courtesy of Professor Carnegie and [http://malonesociety.com/publications/ the Malone Society]:<br />
<br><br><br />
:'''[[Part of Poore (transcription)]]'''<br />
<br><br />
The following is Professor Carnegie's transcription of the first page (f. 21r), which is representative of the nature of the part.<br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
<blockquote><br />
<table style="width:60%;white-space:nowrap;"><br />
<tr><td> </td><td> </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr><br />
<tr><td> </td><td><big>Actus I<sup>mus</sup> Scӕna I<sup>a</sup>.</big> </td><td>[http://lostplays.org/g/poore.html#1 <nowiki>[</nowiki>FOL.21a<nowiki>]</nowiki>] </td><td> </td></tr><br />
<tr><td> </td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Poore. </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr><br />
<tr><td> </td><td>Welcome thou instrument of liberty &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;offreth to stab himselfe </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr><br />
<tr><td>Sly </td><td><strike>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</strike> Hold hold </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr><br />
<tr><td>Poore: </td><td>It is a most vnthankfull office; </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr><br />
<tr><td> </td><td>To save a man vnwilling is to murder. </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr><br />
<tr><td> </td><td>What hath this world of myne that I should covet </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr><br />
<tr><td> </td><td>Longer to stay w<sup>th</sup> it? nor have you reason </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr><br />
<tr><td> </td><td>Thus to detaine mee, I must greiving say it </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr><br />
<tr><td> </td><td>Through mee you want what might have well sustaind you </td><td> </td><td>10 </td></tr><br />
<tr><td> </td><td>And your last store scarce panteth nourishment </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr><br />
<tr><td> </td><td>Vnto your selfe and sister. </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr><br />
<tr><td>Sly </td><td><strike>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</strike> How truely rich </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr><br />
<tr><td> </td><td>Though having nothing, for contemning all? </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr><br />
<tr><td>Poore. </td><td>True very wise, nay rich, if hee could gett </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr><br />
<tr><td> </td><td>Even w<sup>th</sup> his best indeauour nourishment: </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr><br />
<tr><td> </td><td>But that now wants whose rich hees only wise </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr><br />
<tr><td> </td><td>T'is the receaved opinion, and what arts </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr><br />
<tr><td> </td><td>Are meanly shrouded in a thred bare coate </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr><br />
<tr><td> </td><td>Want theire due forme, thats a privation of it. </td><td> </td><td>20 </td></tr><br />
<tr><td> </td><td>The worst of ills that is in misery </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr><br />
<tr><td> </td><td>Is that it gives a man contemptible </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr><br />
<tr><td> </td><td>Makes him a scoffe to every painted asse </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr><br />
<tr><td> </td><td>W<sup>ch</sup> beares a golden image, every slave </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr><br />
<tr><td> </td><td>W<sup>ch</sup> came into this Cytty w<sup>th</sup> bare feete </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr><br />
<tr><td> </td><td>And since hath heap'd vp by mechanicke basenes </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr><br />
<tr><td> </td><td>Abundant riches will contem the state </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr><br />
<tr><td> </td><td>That nature brought him to and no more pitty it, </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr><br />
<tr><td> </td><td>Then wisedome will a snake pin'd w<sup>th</sup> much cold </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr><br />
<tr><td>Sly: </td><td><strike>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</strike> you much erre </td><td> </td><td>30 </td></tr><br />
<tr><td>Poore. </td><td>No it is sacred truth, there is not one </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr><br />
<tr><td> </td><td>Who hath not circled w<sup>th</sup> a triple brasse </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr><br />
</table></blockquote><br />
<br><br />
:'''[[Part of Poore (transcription)|Read more...]]'''<br />
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<br><br />
<br><br />
==Theatrical Provenance==<br />
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Performed at Christ Church, Oxford, perhaps around 1616.<br />
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==Probable Genre(s)==<br />
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Comedy (Carnegie). Moral (Harbage).<br />
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==Possible Narrative and Dramatic Sources or Analogues==<br />
<br />
The part of Poore, which provides the entirety of lines spoken by the play's main character, reveals much about the play's narrative, yet our knowledge is obviously limited by the relative paucity of other characters' speeches, which appear exclusively in brief cue lines and occasional false-starts cancelled by the copyist. David Carnegie offered a detailed conjectural plot synopsis, summarizing the evidence with further speculations based on clues within the part ("Play," [http://iiif.lib.harvard.edu/manifests/view/drs:427334889$23i 21–24]). Broadly speaking, the "Play of Poore" was an academic comedy of subterfuge, disguise, and mischief. In the play's first scene, Poore enlists his fellow scholar Sly and the wench Gill to gull unwitting victims out of their money. One of the main plots has Gill, disguised as "Madam Change," presented as a marriage prospect for the foolish Trugull; Poore, disguised as the Yorkshireman "Change," objects that she is already betrothed to him, but agrees to withdraw his claim in exchange for payment; Sly, disguised as the corpulent uncle of "Madam Change," accepts her dowry. A subplot involves the cuckold Snaile, whose wife is coveted by two men, Medle and Quicke, whom Poore sets at odds until a duel leaves each convinced that the other is dead. Complications and confusions ensue, as Poore's mercenary opportunism results in the proliferation of overlapping cons. In the final scene, his machinations exposed, Poore feigns illness, but after making financial restitution to his victims, he reveals that he is well and everyone is reconciled.<br />
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==References to the Play==<br />
<br />
None known.<br />
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==Critical Commentary==<br />
<br />
The vast majority of scholarship on the play of Poore and its manuscript has been written by David Carnegie. The following summary draws heavily on his findings.<br />
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===Date===<br />
<br />
The manuscript seems originally to have been a blank book into which the actors' parts were successively copied; Carnegie therefore proposed that the order of their appearance indicates a rough chronology of performance. Since Burton's ''Philosophaster'' was performed on 17 February 1617/8 and Goffe's ''Couragious Turk'' on 24 February 1618/9, Carnegie conjectured a date range of 1615–17 for the performance of Poore for which the actor's part was prepared ("Play," 6n). <br />
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===Genre and Style===<br />
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As Carnegie observes, the characters' "names alone invite us into a world of comic types: Poore, Trugull, Medle, Quicke, and Dry are self-declared, and the cuckold Snaile scarcely less so" ("Play," 13). The play's plot is based on feats of "deception, gulling, and knavery," but by the conclusion, "no real harm has been done" and the "play ends in high spirits with all the gulls reconciled to their deceivers" (13-14). While Harbage designated it a "Moral" play, Carnegie argued that the play's "aim seems to be more to delight than to instruct" (14).<br />
<br />
According to Carnegie, although the "language of the play is for the most part a functional, undistinguished blank verse" (16), certain salient characteristics—an "enthusiasm for classical writers, the purple rhetoric, an extraordinary overblown set-piece lecture for Strange on the subject of the dawn, a student drinking game"—suggest satirical sendups of the academic audience watching the play (15). Many of the play's stock elements are representative of university satire; however, numerous parallels of plot and language with Jonson's ''The Alchemist'' suggest some degree of influence if not imitation (18-19).<br />
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===Performance===<br />
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Costumes and properties for the performance would have included a dagger, a letter, a ring, gold, blue coats, slops, a rapier, a false beard, a country gentleman's attire with padding, a nightgown, and "physicians' gowns" of fustian (Carnegie, "Play," 10, 16). Besides Poore, there are twelve other speaking roles evident in the part, although the fact that one is identified as the Third Officer (f. 23v) implies that First and Second Officers appeared in the play as well ("Play," 20-21). The part was apparently copied out by the actor playing the role of Poore ("Play," 11). (Stern cites William Prynne who laments "how many houres, evenings, halfe-dayes, dayes, and sometimes ''weekes, are spent by all the Actors'' (especially in solemne academicall Enterludes) ''in coppying, in conning, in practising their parts''" [''Histriomastix'', sig. 2R1a; qtd. Stern 239].) Carnegie's study of Houghton Library, MS Thr 10.1 found that the two later parts were evidently written in the hand of Thomas Goffe ("Identification"). While the hand that transcribed the part of "Poore" differs from Goffe's in 1618-19, Carnegie nevertheless left open the possibility that Goffe may have prepared the two earlier parts, including that of "Poore" ("Play," 6n; "Part," 113). (Carnegie's further suggestion that "Poore" may have been acted by the play's author—as suggested by the uncommon lack of mistakes in the transcription—therefore allows for the possibility that Goffe wrote the "Play of Poore" ["Play," 11].)<br />
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===Comparison with the Orlando Part===<br />
<br />
The only actor's part to survive from the professional Shakespearean stage is that used by Edward Alleyn performing the title role in Robert Greene's ''Orlando Furioso'' (Dulwich College, MSS 1, Article 138; [http://www.henslowe-alleyn.org.uk/images/MSS-1/Article-138/01r.html online]).<br />
Carnegie, comparing this document to the four parts in Houghton Library, MS Thr 10.1 (prepared, as they were, for academic rather than professional performance), observes that the two documents share several basic characteristics, but differ in physical form (Alleyn's part was prepared as a roll, as opposed to the book format used for the university parts) and nature of the cue lines (the university parts not only name the speakers of the cue lines, but provide slightly more text) ("Play," 12). Carnegie, however, notes that, in light of the paucity of surviving evidence, it must remain uncertain "whether the production of the college plays, in entirely different circumstances, in any way signals that professional practices were changing twenty years on," or whether these differences are "simply a by-product of the amateur student actors' simplifying memorization of both lines and action" ("Play," 13). <br />
<br />
Palfrey and Stern, by way of an answer to this question, show that the Restoration-era part for Trico (played by Matthew Medbourne) in Ferdinando Parkhurst's translation of Ruggle's ''Ignoramus'' (Houghton Library, MS Eng 1258/5), performed at the Cockpit and at Whitehall in 1662, typically has short cues lacking characters' names, thereby resembling the Orlando part more than that of Poore (29-31), although the part of Trico was prepared as a book rather than a roll.<br />
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==For What It's Worth==<br />
<br />
Content welcome.<br />
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==Works Cited==<br />
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<div style="padding-left: 2em; text-indent: -2em">Carnegie, David. "Actors' Parts and the 'Play of Poore'." ''Harvard Library Bulletin'' 30 (1982): 5–24. [http://iiif.lib.harvard.edu/manifests/view/drs:427334889$7i Online].</div><br />
<div style="padding-left: 2em; text-indent: -2em">Carnegie, David, ed. "The Part of 'Poore'." Malone Society ''Collections XV''. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1993. 111–169.</div><br />
<div style="padding-left: 2em; text-indent: -2em">Carnegie, David. "The Identification of the Hand of Thomas Goffe, Academic Dramatist and Actor." ''The Library'' 26 (1971): 161–65.</div><br />
<div style="padding-left: 2em; text-indent: -2em">Goffe, Thomas. ''The Couragious Turke, or, Amurath the First''. London, 1632.</div><br />
<div style="padding-left: 2em; text-indent: -2em">Palfrey, Simon, and Tiffany Stern. ''Shakespeare in Parts''. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2007.</div><br />
<div style="padding-left: 2em; text-indent: -2em">Prynne, William. ''Histriomastix''. London, 1633.</div><br />
<div style="padding-left: 2em; text-indent: -2em">Stern, Tiffany. ''Documents of Performance in Early Modern England''. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2009.</div><br />
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Site created and maintained by [[Misha Teramura]], University of Toronto; transcription added 09 May 2016 by [[David McInnis]].<br />
[[category:all]][[category:Misha Teramura]][[category:Academic]][[category:Parts]][[category:Oxford]][[category:Moral]][[category:Satire]][[category:Thomas Goffe]][[category:Houghton]][[category:David McInnis]][[Category:Untitled plays]]</div>MeaghanBrownhttps://lostplays.folger.edu/_mw/index.php?title=Play_of_Poore&diff=18542Play of Poore2018-08-20T13:22:21Z<p>MeaghanBrown: </p>
<hr />
<div>[[Anon.]] ([[1616]]?)<br />
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==Historical Records==<br />
<br />
===The Part of Poore (Houghton Library, MS Thr 10.1)===<br />
<br />
The actor's part for the role of Poore, the main character of a lost play known to scholars as the "Play of Poore," survives in Houghton Library, MS Thr 10.1. The manuscript contains actors' parts from four different plays, all of which were performed at Christ Church, Oxford, in the first quarter of the seventeenth century. The part of Poore (ff. 21–46v) contains 1580 lines, including Poore's speeches, brief cue lines spoken by other characters, minimal stage directions, and occasional act and scene designations. Also in the manuscript are parts for Antoninus (ff. 8v-19v) from the anonymous ''Antoninus Bassianus Caracalla'' (a play mostly preserved in Bodleian MS Rawlinson C.590); Polypragmaticus (ff. 48-56) from Robert Burton's ''Philosophaster'' (preserved in an autograph manuscript, Houghton Library, MS Thr 10, and a copy, Folger MS V.a.315); and Amurath (ff. 57-71) from Thomas Goffe's ''The Couragious Turke'' (published 1632). <br />
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===Full Digitisation===<br />
'''The LPD has sponsored the digitisation of the entire part; click image to view the manuscript:'''<br />
<br />
[[Image:Htc ms thr 10 1 0045 thumb.jpg|link=http://lostplays.org/g/poore.html]]<br><br />
<br />
<gallery mode="slideshow"><br />
File:htc_ms_thr_10_1_0045.jpg|Page 1 |alt=Image of manuscript page 1 of Part of Poore<br />
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</gallery><br />
"The 'part' of Poore", Houghton Library, MS Thr 10.1, f. 21r, reproduced by permission.<br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
===Full Transcription===<br />
The part of Poore has been edited by David Carnegie and published by the Malone Society ("Part"); the entire transcription can be read and searched here, courtesy of Professor Carnegie and [http://malonesociety.com/publications/ the Malone Society]:<br />
<br><br><br />
:'''[[Part of Poore (transcription)]]'''<br />
<br><br />
The following is Professor Carnegie's transcription of the first page (f. 21r), which is representative of the nature of the part.<br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
<blockquote><br />
<table style="width:60%;white-space:nowrap;"><br />
<tr><td> </td><td> </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr><br />
<tr><td> </td><td><big>Actus I<sup>mus</sup> Scӕna I<sup>a</sup>.</big> </td><td>[http://lostplays.org/g/poore.html#1 <nowiki>[</nowiki>FOL.21a<nowiki>]</nowiki>] </td><td> </td></tr><br />
<tr><td> </td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Poore. </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr><br />
<tr><td> </td><td>Welcome thou instrument of liberty &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;offreth to stab himselfe </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr><br />
<tr><td>Sly </td><td><strike>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</strike> Hold hold </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr><br />
<tr><td>Poore: </td><td>It is a most vnthankfull office; </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr><br />
<tr><td> </td><td>To save a man vnwilling is to murder. </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr><br />
<tr><td> </td><td>What hath this world of myne that I should covet </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr><br />
<tr><td> </td><td>Longer to stay w<sup>th</sup> it? nor have you reason </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr><br />
<tr><td> </td><td>Thus to detaine mee, I must greiving say it </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr><br />
<tr><td> </td><td>Through mee you want what might have well sustaind you </td><td> </td><td>10 </td></tr><br />
<tr><td> </td><td>And your last store scarce panteth nourishment </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr><br />
<tr><td> </td><td>Vnto your selfe and sister. </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr><br />
<tr><td>Sly </td><td><strike>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</strike> How truely rich </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr><br />
<tr><td> </td><td>Though having nothing, for contemning all? </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr><br />
<tr><td>Poore. </td><td>True very wise, nay rich, if hee could gett </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr><br />
<tr><td> </td><td>Even w<sup>th</sup> his best indeauour nourishment: </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr><br />
<tr><td> </td><td>But that now wants whose rich hees only wise </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr><br />
<tr><td> </td><td>T'is the receaved opinion, and what arts </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr><br />
<tr><td> </td><td>Are meanly shrouded in a thred bare coate </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr><br />
<tr><td> </td><td>Want theire due forme, thats a privation of it. </td><td> </td><td>20 </td></tr><br />
<tr><td> </td><td>The worst of ills that is in misery </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr><br />
<tr><td> </td><td>Is that it gives a man contemptible </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr><br />
<tr><td> </td><td>Makes him a scoffe to every painted asse </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr><br />
<tr><td> </td><td>W<sup>ch</sup> beares a golden image, every slave </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr><br />
<tr><td> </td><td>W<sup>ch</sup> came into this Cytty w<sup>th</sup> bare feete </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr><br />
<tr><td> </td><td>And since hath heap'd vp by mechanicke basenes </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr><br />
<tr><td> </td><td>Abundant riches will contem the state </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr><br />
<tr><td> </td><td>That nature brought him to and no more pitty it, </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr><br />
<tr><td> </td><td>Then wisedome will a snake pin'd w<sup>th</sup> much cold </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr><br />
<tr><td>Sly: </td><td><strike>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</strike> you much erre </td><td> </td><td>30 </td></tr><br />
<tr><td>Poore. </td><td>No it is sacred truth, there is not one </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr><br />
<tr><td> </td><td>Who hath not circled w<sup>th</sup> a triple brasse </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr><br />
</table></blockquote><br />
<br><br />
:'''[[Part of Poore (transcription)|Read more...]]'''<br />
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==Theatrical Provenance==<br />
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Performed at Christ Church, Oxford, perhaps around 1616.<br />
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==Probable Genre(s)==<br />
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Comedy (Carnegie). Moral (Harbage).<br />
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==Possible Narrative and Dramatic Sources or Analogues==<br />
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The part of Poore, which provides the entirety of lines spoken by the play's main character, reveals much about the play's narrative, yet our knowledge is obviously limited by the relative paucity of other characters' speeches, which appear exclusively in brief cue lines and occasional false-starts cancelled by the copyist. David Carnegie offered a detailed conjectural plot synopsis, summarizing the evidence with further speculations based on clues within the part ("Play," [http://iiif.lib.harvard.edu/manifests/view/drs:427334889$23i 21–24]). Broadly speaking, the "Play of Poore" was an academic comedy of subterfuge, disguise, and mischief. In the play's first scene, Poore enlists his fellow scholar Sly and the wench Gill to gull unwitting victims out of their money. One of the main plots has Gill, disguised as "Madam Change," presented as a marriage prospect for the foolish Trugull; Poore, disguised as the Yorkshireman "Change," objects that she is already betrothed to him, but agrees to withdraw his claim in exchange for payment; Sly, disguised as the corpulent uncle of "Madam Change," accepts her dowry. A subplot involves the cuckold Snaile, whose wife is coveted by two men, Medle and Quicke, whom Poore sets at odds until a duel leaves each convinced that the other is dead. Complications and confusions ensue, as Poore's mercenary opportunism results in the proliferation of overlapping cons. In the final scene, his machinations exposed, Poore feigns illness, but after making financial restitution to his victims, he reveals that he is well and everyone is reconciled.<br />
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==References to the Play==<br />
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None known.<br />
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==Critical Commentary==<br />
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The vast majority of scholarship on the play of Poore and its manuscript has been written by David Carnegie. The following summary draws heavily on his findings.<br />
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===Date===<br />
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The manuscript seems originally to have been a blank book into which the actors' parts were successively copied; Carnegie therefore proposed that the order of their appearance indicates a rough chronology of performance. Since Burton's ''Philosophaster'' was performed on 17 February 1617/8 and Goffe's ''Couragious Turk'' on 24 February 1618/9, Carnegie conjectured a date range of 1615–17 for the performance of Poore for which the actor's part was prepared ("Play," 6n). <br />
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===Genre and Style===<br />
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As Carnegie observes, the characters' "names alone invite us into a world of comic types: Poore, Trugull, Medle, Quicke, and Dry are self-declared, and the cuckold Snaile scarcely less so" ("Play," 13). The play's plot is based on feats of "deception, gulling, and knavery," but by the conclusion, "no real harm has been done" and the "play ends in high spirits with all the gulls reconciled to their deceivers" (13-14). While Harbage designated it a "Moral" play, Carnegie argued that the play's "aim seems to be more to delight than to instruct" (14).<br />
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According to Carnegie, although the "language of the play is for the most part a functional, undistinguished blank verse" (16), certain salient characteristics—an "enthusiasm for classical writers, the purple rhetoric, an extraordinary overblown set-piece lecture for Strange on the subject of the dawn, a student drinking game"—suggest satirical sendups of the academic audience watching the play (15). Many of the play's stock elements are representative of university satire; however, numerous parallels of plot and language with Jonson's ''The Alchemist'' suggest some degree of influence if not imitation (18-19).<br />
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===Performance===<br />
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Costumes and properties for the performance would have included a dagger, a letter, a ring, gold, blue coats, slops, a rapier, a false beard, a country gentleman's attire with padding, a nightgown, and "physicians' gowns" of fustian (Carnegie, "Play," 10, 16). Besides Poore, there are twelve other speaking roles evident in the part, although the fact that one is identified as the Third Officer (f. 23v) implies that First and Second Officers appeared in the play as well ("Play," 20-21). The part was apparently copied out by the actor playing the role of Poore ("Play," 11). (Stern cites William Prynne who laments "how many houres, evenings, halfe-dayes, dayes, and sometimes ''weekes, are spent by all the Actors'' (especially in solemne academicall Enterludes) ''in coppying, in conning, in practising their parts''" [''Histriomastix'', sig. 2R1a; qtd. Stern 239].) Carnegie's study of Houghton Library, MS Thr 10.1 found that the two later parts were evidently written in the hand of Thomas Goffe ("Identification"). While the hand that transcribed the part of "Poore" differs from Goffe's in 1618-19, Carnegie nevertheless left open the possibility that Goffe may have prepared the two earlier parts, including that of "Poore" ("Play," 6n; "Part," 113). (Carnegie's further suggestion that "Poore" may have been acted by the play's author—as suggested by the uncommon lack of mistakes in the transcription—therefore allows for the possibility that Goffe wrote the "Play of Poore" ["Play," 11].)<br />
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===Comparison with the Orlando Part===<br />
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The only actor's part to survive from the professional Shakespearean stage is that used by Edward Alleyn performing the title role in Robert Greene's ''Orlando Furioso'' (Dulwich College, MSS 1, Article 138; [http://www.henslowe-alleyn.org.uk/images/MSS-1/Article-138/01r.html online]).<br />
Carnegie, comparing this document to the four parts in Houghton Library, MS Thr 10.1 (prepared, as they were, for academic rather than professional performance), observes that the two documents share several basic characteristics, but differ in physical form (Alleyn's part was prepared as a roll, as opposed to the book format used for the university parts) and nature of the cue lines (the university parts not only name the speakers of the cue lines, but provide slightly more text) ("Play," 12). Carnegie, however, notes that, in light of the paucity of surviving evidence, it must remain uncertain "whether the production of the college plays, in entirely different circumstances, in any way signals that professional practices were changing twenty years on," or whether these differences are "simply a by-product of the amateur student actors' simplifying memorization of both lines and action" ("Play," 13). <br />
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Palfrey and Stern, by way of an answer to this question, show that the Restoration-era part for Trico (played by Matthew Medbourne) in Ferdinando Parkhurst's translation of Ruggle's ''Ignoramus'' (Houghton Library, MS Eng 1258/5), performed at the Cockpit and at Whitehall in 1662, typically has short cues lacking characters' names, thereby resembling the Orlando part more than that of Poore (29-31), although the part of Trico was prepared as a book rather than a roll.<br />
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==For What It's Worth==<br />
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Content welcome.<br />
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==Works Cited==<br />
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<div style="padding-left: 2em; text-indent: -2em">Carnegie, David. "Actors' Parts and the 'Play of Poore'." ''Harvard Library Bulletin'' 30 (1982): 5–24. [http://iiif.lib.harvard.edu/manifests/view/drs:427334889$7i Online].</div><br />
<div style="padding-left: 2em; text-indent: -2em">Carnegie, David, ed. "The Part of 'Poore'." Malone Society ''Collections XV''. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1993. 111–169.</div><br />
<div style="padding-left: 2em; text-indent: -2em">Carnegie, David. "The Identification of the Hand of Thomas Goffe, Academic Dramatist and Actor." ''The Library'' 26 (1971): 161–65.</div><br />
<div style="padding-left: 2em; text-indent: -2em">Goffe, Thomas. ''The Couragious Turke, or, Amurath the First''. London, 1632.</div><br />
<div style="padding-left: 2em; text-indent: -2em">Palfrey, Simon, and Tiffany Stern. ''Shakespeare in Parts''. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2007.</div><br />
<div style="padding-left: 2em; text-indent: -2em">Prynne, William. ''Histriomastix''. London, 1633.</div><br />
<div style="padding-left: 2em; text-indent: -2em">Stern, Tiffany. ''Documents of Performance in Early Modern England''. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2009.</div><br />
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Site created and maintained by [[Misha Teramura]], University of Toronto; transcription added 09 May 2016 by [[David McInnis]].<br />
[[category:all]][[category:Misha Teramura]][[category:Academic]][[category:Parts]][[category:Oxford]][[category:Moral]][[category:Satire]][[category:Thomas Goffe]][[category:Houghton]][[category:David McInnis]][[Category:Untitled plays]]</div>MeaghanBrownhttps://lostplays.folger.edu/_mw/index.php?title=Play_of_Poore&diff=18375Play of Poore2018-07-06T13:44:01Z<p>MeaghanBrown: </p>
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<div>[[Anon.]] ([[1616]]?)<br />
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==Historical Records==<br />
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===The Part of Poore (Houghton Library, MS Thr 10.1)===<br />
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The actor's part for the role of Poore, the main character of a lost play known to scholars as the "Play of Poore," survives in Houghton Library, MS Thr 10.1. The manuscript contains actors' parts from four different plays, all of which were performed at Christ Church, Oxford, in the first quarter of the seventeenth century. The part of Poore (ff. 21–46v) contains 1580 lines, including Poore's speeches, brief cue lines spoken by other characters, minimal stage directions, and occasional act and scene designations. Also in the manuscript are parts for Antoninus (ff. 8v-19v) from the anonymous ''Antoninus Bassianus Caracalla'' (a play mostly preserved in Bodleian MS Rawlinson C.590); Polypragmaticus (ff. 48-56) from Robert Burton's ''Philosophaster'' (preserved in an autograph manuscript, Houghton Library, MS Thr 10, and a copy, Folger MS V.a.315); and Amurath (ff. 57-71) from Thomas Goffe's ''The Couragious Turke'' (published 1632). <br />
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===Full Digitisation===<br />
'''The LPD has sponsored the digitisation of the entire part; click image to view the manuscript:'''<br />
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[[Image:Htc ms thr 10 1 0045 thumb.jpg|link=http://lostplays.org/g/poore.html]]<br><br />
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<gallery mode="packed"><br />
File:htc_ms_thr_10_1_0045.jpg|Page 1 |alt=Image of manuscript page 1 of Part of Poore<br />
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</gallery><br />
"The 'part' of Poore", Houghton Library, MS Thr 10.1, f. 21r, reproduced by permission.<br />
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===Full Transcription===<br />
The part of Poore has been edited by David Carnegie and published by the Malone Society ("Part"); the entire transcription can be read and searched here, courtesy of Professor Carnegie and [http://malonesociety.com/publications/ the Malone Society]:<br />
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:'''[[Part of Poore (transcription)]]'''<br />
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The following is Professor Carnegie's transcription of the first page (f. 21r), which is representative of the nature of the part.<br />
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<blockquote><br />
<table style="width:60%;white-space:nowrap;"><br />
<tr><td> </td><td> </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr><br />
<tr><td> </td><td><big>Actus I<sup>mus</sup> Scӕna I<sup>a</sup>.</big> </td><td>[http://lostplays.org/g/poore.html#1 <nowiki>[</nowiki>FOL.21a<nowiki>]</nowiki>] </td><td> </td></tr><br />
<tr><td> </td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Poore. </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr><br />
<tr><td> </td><td>Welcome thou instrument of liberty &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;offreth to stab himselfe </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr><br />
<tr><td>Sly </td><td><strike>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</strike> Hold hold </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr><br />
<tr><td>Poore: </td><td>It is a most vnthankfull office; </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr><br />
<tr><td> </td><td>To save a man vnwilling is to murder. </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr><br />
<tr><td> </td><td>What hath this world of myne that I should covet </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr><br />
<tr><td> </td><td>Longer to stay w<sup>th</sup> it? nor have you reason </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr><br />
<tr><td> </td><td>Thus to detaine mee, I must greiving say it </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr><br />
<tr><td> </td><td>Through mee you want what might have well sustaind you </td><td> </td><td>10 </td></tr><br />
<tr><td> </td><td>And your last store scarce panteth nourishment </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr><br />
<tr><td> </td><td>Vnto your selfe and sister. </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr><br />
<tr><td>Sly </td><td><strike>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</strike> How truely rich </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr><br />
<tr><td> </td><td>Though having nothing, for contemning all? </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr><br />
<tr><td>Poore. </td><td>True very wise, nay rich, if hee could gett </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr><br />
<tr><td> </td><td>Even w<sup>th</sup> his best indeauour nourishment: </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr><br />
<tr><td> </td><td>But that now wants whose rich hees only wise </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr><br />
<tr><td> </td><td>T'is the receaved opinion, and what arts </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr><br />
<tr><td> </td><td>Are meanly shrouded in a thred bare coate </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr><br />
<tr><td> </td><td>Want theire due forme, thats a privation of it. </td><td> </td><td>20 </td></tr><br />
<tr><td> </td><td>The worst of ills that is in misery </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr><br />
<tr><td> </td><td>Is that it gives a man contemptible </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr><br />
<tr><td> </td><td>Makes him a scoffe to every painted asse </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr><br />
<tr><td> </td><td>W<sup>ch</sup> beares a golden image, every slave </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr><br />
<tr><td> </td><td>W<sup>ch</sup> came into this Cytty w<sup>th</sup> bare feete </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr><br />
<tr><td> </td><td>And since hath heap'd vp by mechanicke basenes </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr><br />
<tr><td> </td><td>Abundant riches will contem the state </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr><br />
<tr><td> </td><td>That nature brought him to and no more pitty it, </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr><br />
<tr><td> </td><td>Then wisedome will a snake pin'd w<sup>th</sup> much cold </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr><br />
<tr><td>Sly: </td><td><strike>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</strike> you much erre </td><td> </td><td>30 </td></tr><br />
<tr><td>Poore. </td><td>No it is sacred truth, there is not one </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr><br />
<tr><td> </td><td>Who hath not circled w<sup>th</sup> a triple brasse </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr><br />
</table></blockquote><br />
<br><br />
:'''[[Part of Poore (transcription)|Read more...]]'''<br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
==Theatrical Provenance==<br />
<br />
Performed at Christ Church, Oxford, perhaps around 1616.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
==Probable Genre(s)==<br />
<br />
Comedy (Carnegie). Moral (Harbage).<br />
<br />
<br />
==Possible Narrative and Dramatic Sources or Analogues==<br />
<br />
The part of Poore, which provides the entirety of lines spoken by the play's main character, reveals much about the play's narrative, yet our knowledge is obviously limited by the relative paucity of other characters' speeches, which appear exclusively in brief cue lines and occasional false-starts cancelled by the copyist. David Carnegie offered a detailed conjectural plot synopsis, summarizing the evidence with further speculations based on clues within the part ("Play," [http://iiif.lib.harvard.edu/manifests/view/drs:427334889$23i 21–24]). Broadly speaking, the "Play of Poore" was an academic comedy of subterfuge, disguise, and mischief. In the play's first scene, Poore enlists his fellow scholar Sly and the wench Gill to gull unwitting victims out of their money. One of the main plots has Gill, disguised as "Madam Change," presented as a marriage prospect for the foolish Trugull; Poore, disguised as the Yorkshireman "Change," objects that she is already betrothed to him, but agrees to withdraw his claim in exchange for payment; Sly, disguised as the corpulent uncle of "Madam Change," accepts her dowry. A subplot involves the cuckold Snaile, whose wife is coveted by two men, Medle and Quicke, whom Poore sets at odds until a duel leaves each convinced that the other is dead. Complications and confusions ensue, as Poore's mercenary opportunism results in the proliferation of overlapping cons. In the final scene, his machinations exposed, Poore feigns illness, but after making financial restitution to his victims, he reveals that he is well and everyone is reconciled.<br />
<br />
<br />
==References to the Play==<br />
<br />
None known.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
==Critical Commentary==<br />
<br />
The vast majority of scholarship on the play of Poore and its manuscript has been written by David Carnegie. The following summary draws heavily on his findings.<br />
<br />
<br />
===Date===<br />
<br />
The manuscript seems originally to have been a blank book into which the actors' parts were successively copied; Carnegie therefore proposed that the order of their appearance indicates a rough chronology of performance. Since Burton's ''Philosophaster'' was performed on 17 February 1617/8 and Goffe's ''Couragious Turk'' on 24 February 1618/9, Carnegie conjectured a date range of 1615–17 for the performance of Poore for which the actor's part was prepared ("Play," 6n). <br />
<br />
<br />
===Genre and Style===<br />
<br />
As Carnegie observes, the characters' "names alone invite us into a world of comic types: Poore, Trugull, Medle, Quicke, and Dry are self-declared, and the cuckold Snaile scarcely less so" ("Play," 13). The play's plot is based on feats of "deception, gulling, and knavery," but by the conclusion, "no real harm has been done" and the "play ends in high spirits with all the gulls reconciled to their deceivers" (13-14). While Harbage designated it a "Moral" play, Carnegie argued that the play's "aim seems to be more to delight than to instruct" (14).<br />
<br />
According to Carnegie, although the "language of the play is for the most part a functional, undistinguished blank verse" (16), certain salient characteristics—an "enthusiasm for classical writers, the purple rhetoric, an extraordinary overblown set-piece lecture for Strange on the subject of the dawn, a student drinking game"—suggest satirical sendups of the academic audience watching the play (15). Many of the play's stock elements are representative of university satire; however, numerous parallels of plot and language with Jonson's ''The Alchemist'' suggest some degree of influence if not imitation (18-19).<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
===Performance===<br />
<br />
Costumes and properties for the performance would have included a dagger, a letter, a ring, gold, blue coats, slops, a rapier, a false beard, a country gentleman's attire with padding, a nightgown, and "physicians' gowns" of fustian (Carnegie, "Play," 10, 16). Besides Poore, there are twelve other speaking roles evident in the part, although the fact that one is identified as the Third Officer (f. 23v) implies that First and Second Officers appeared in the play as well ("Play," 20-21). The part was apparently copied out by the actor playing the role of Poore ("Play," 11). (Stern cites William Prynne who laments "how many houres, evenings, halfe-dayes, dayes, and sometimes ''weekes, are spent by all the Actors'' (especially in solemne academicall Enterludes) ''in coppying, in conning, in practising their parts''" [''Histriomastix'', sig. 2R1a; qtd. Stern 239].) Carnegie's study of Houghton Library, MS Thr 10.1 found that the two later parts were evidently written in the hand of Thomas Goffe ("Identification"). While the hand that transcribed the part of "Poore" differs from Goffe's in 1618-19, Carnegie nevertheless left open the possibility that Goffe may have prepared the two earlier parts, including that of "Poore" ("Play," 6n; "Part," 113). (Carnegie's further suggestion that "Poore" may have been acted by the play's author—as suggested by the uncommon lack of mistakes in the transcription—therefore allows for the possibility that Goffe wrote the "Play of Poore" ["Play," 11].)<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
===Comparison with the Orlando Part===<br />
<br />
The only actor's part to survive from the professional Shakespearean stage is that used by Edward Alleyn performing the title role in Robert Greene's ''Orlando Furioso'' (Dulwich College, MSS 1, Article 138; [http://www.henslowe-alleyn.org.uk/images/MSS-1/Article-138/01r.html online]).<br />
Carnegie, comparing this document to the four parts in Houghton Library, MS Thr 10.1 (prepared, as they were, for academic rather than professional performance), observes that the two documents share several basic characteristics, but differ in physical form (Alleyn's part was prepared as a roll, as opposed to the book format used for the university parts) and nature of the cue lines (the university parts not only name the speakers of the cue lines, but provide slightly more text) ("Play," 12). Carnegie, however, notes that, in light of the paucity of surviving evidence, it must remain uncertain "whether the production of the college plays, in entirely different circumstances, in any way signals that professional practices were changing twenty years on," or whether these differences are "simply a by-product of the amateur student actors' simplifying memorization of both lines and action" ("Play," 13). <br />
<br />
Palfrey and Stern, by way of an answer to this question, show that the Restoration-era part for Trico (played by Matthew Medbourne) in Ferdinando Parkhurst's translation of Ruggle's ''Ignoramus'' (Houghton Library, MS Eng 1258/5), performed at the Cockpit and at Whitehall in 1662, typically has short cues lacking characters' names, thereby resembling the Orlando part more than that of Poore (29-31), although the part of Trico was prepared as a book rather than a roll.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
==For What It's Worth==<br />
<br />
Content welcome.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
==Works Cited==<br />
<br />
<div style="padding-left: 2em; text-indent: -2em">Carnegie, David. "Actors' Parts and the 'Play of Poore'." ''Harvard Library Bulletin'' 30 (1982): 5–24. [http://iiif.lib.harvard.edu/manifests/view/drs:427334889$7i Online].</div><br />
<div style="padding-left: 2em; text-indent: -2em">Carnegie, David, ed. "The Part of 'Poore'." Malone Society ''Collections XV''. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1993. 111–169.</div><br />
<div style="padding-left: 2em; text-indent: -2em">Carnegie, David. "The Identification of the Hand of Thomas Goffe, Academic Dramatist and Actor." ''The Library'' 26 (1971): 161–65.</div><br />
<div style="padding-left: 2em; text-indent: -2em">Goffe, Thomas. ''The Couragious Turke, or, Amurath the First''. London, 1632.</div><br />
<div style="padding-left: 2em; text-indent: -2em">Palfrey, Simon, and Tiffany Stern. ''Shakespeare in Parts''. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2007.</div><br />
<div style="padding-left: 2em; text-indent: -2em">Prynne, William. ''Histriomastix''. London, 1633.</div><br />
<div style="padding-left: 2em; text-indent: -2em">Stern, Tiffany. ''Documents of Performance in Early Modern England''. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2009.</div><br />
<br />
<br />
Site created and maintained by [[Misha Teramura]], University of Toronto; transcription added 09 May 2016 by [[David McInnis]].<br />
[[category:all]][[category:Misha Teramura]][[category:Academic]][[category:Parts]][[category:Oxford]][[category:Moral]][[category:Satire]][[category:Thomas Goffe]][[category:Houghton]][[category:David McInnis]][[Category:Untitled plays]]</div>MeaghanBrownhttps://lostplays.folger.edu/_mw/index.php?title=Play_of_Poore&diff=18374Play of Poore2018-07-06T13:28:59Z<p>MeaghanBrown: </p>
<hr />
<div>[[Anon.]] ([[1616]]?)<br />
<br />
<br />
==Historical Records==<br />
<br />
===The Part of Poore (Houghton Library, MS Thr 10.1)===<br />
<br />
The actor's part for the role of Poore, the main character of a lost play known to scholars as the "Play of Poore," survives in Houghton Library, MS Thr 10.1. The manuscript contains actors' parts from four different plays, all of which were performed at Christ Church, Oxford, in the first quarter of the seventeenth century. The part of Poore (ff. 21–46v) contains 1580 lines, including Poore's speeches, brief cue lines spoken by other characters, minimal stage directions, and occasional act and scene designations. Also in the manuscript are parts for Antoninus (ff. 8v-19v) from the anonymous ''Antoninus Bassianus Caracalla'' (a play mostly preserved in Bodleian MS Rawlinson C.590); Polypragmaticus (ff. 48-56) from Robert Burton's ''Philosophaster'' (preserved in an autograph manuscript, Houghton Library, MS Thr 10, and a copy, Folger MS V.a.315); and Amurath (ff. 57-71) from Thomas Goffe's ''The Couragious Turke'' (published 1632). <br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
===Full Digitisation===<br />
'''The LPD has sponsored the digitisation of the entire part; click image to view the manuscript:'''<br />
<br />
[[Image:Htc ms thr 10 1 0045 thumb.jpg|link=http://lostplays.org/g/poore.html]]<br><br />
<br />
<gallery mode="packed-overlay"><br />
File:htc_ms_thr_10_1_0045.jpg|Page 1 |alt=Image of manuscript page 1 of Part of Poore<br />
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</gallery><br />
"The 'part' of Poore", Houghton Library, MS Thr 10.1, f. 21r, reproduced by permission.<br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
===Full Transcription===<br />
The part of Poore has been edited by David Carnegie and published by the Malone Society ("Part"); the entire transcription can be read and searched here, courtesy of Professor Carnegie and [http://malonesociety.com/publications/ the Malone Society]:<br />
<br><br><br />
:'''[[Part of Poore (transcription)]]'''<br />
<br><br />
The following is Professor Carnegie's transcription of the first page (f. 21r), which is representative of the nature of the part.<br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
<blockquote><br />
<table style="width:60%;white-space:nowrap;"><br />
<tr><td> </td><td> </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr><br />
<tr><td> </td><td><big>Actus I<sup>mus</sup> Scӕna I<sup>a</sup>.</big> </td><td>[http://lostplays.org/g/poore.html#1 <nowiki>[</nowiki>FOL.21a<nowiki>]</nowiki>] </td><td> </td></tr><br />
<tr><td> </td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Poore. </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr><br />
<tr><td> </td><td>Welcome thou instrument of liberty &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;offreth to stab himselfe </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr><br />
<tr><td>Sly </td><td><strike>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</strike> Hold hold </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr><br />
<tr><td>Poore: </td><td>It is a most vnthankfull office; </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr><br />
<tr><td> </td><td>To save a man vnwilling is to murder. </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr><br />
<tr><td> </td><td>What hath this world of myne that I should covet </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr><br />
<tr><td> </td><td>Longer to stay w<sup>th</sup> it? nor have you reason </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr><br />
<tr><td> </td><td>Thus to detaine mee, I must greiving say it </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr><br />
<tr><td> </td><td>Through mee you want what might have well sustaind you </td><td> </td><td>10 </td></tr><br />
<tr><td> </td><td>And your last store scarce panteth nourishment </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr><br />
<tr><td> </td><td>Vnto your selfe and sister. </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr><br />
<tr><td>Sly </td><td><strike>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</strike> How truely rich </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr><br />
<tr><td> </td><td>Though having nothing, for contemning all? </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr><br />
<tr><td>Poore. </td><td>True very wise, nay rich, if hee could gett </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr><br />
<tr><td> </td><td>Even w<sup>th</sup> his best indeauour nourishment: </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr><br />
<tr><td> </td><td>But that now wants whose rich hees only wise </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr><br />
<tr><td> </td><td>T'is the receaved opinion, and what arts </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr><br />
<tr><td> </td><td>Are meanly shrouded in a thred bare coate </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr><br />
<tr><td> </td><td>Want theire due forme, thats a privation of it. </td><td> </td><td>20 </td></tr><br />
<tr><td> </td><td>The worst of ills that is in misery </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr><br />
<tr><td> </td><td>Is that it gives a man contemptible </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr><br />
<tr><td> </td><td>Makes him a scoffe to every painted asse </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr><br />
<tr><td> </td><td>W<sup>ch</sup> beares a golden image, every slave </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr><br />
<tr><td> </td><td>W<sup>ch</sup> came into this Cytty w<sup>th</sup> bare feete </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr><br />
<tr><td> </td><td>And since hath heap'd vp by mechanicke basenes </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr><br />
<tr><td> </td><td>Abundant riches will contem the state </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr><br />
<tr><td> </td><td>That nature brought him to and no more pitty it, </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr><br />
<tr><td> </td><td>Then wisedome will a snake pin'd w<sup>th</sup> much cold </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr><br />
<tr><td>Sly: </td><td><strike>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</strike> you much erre </td><td> </td><td>30 </td></tr><br />
<tr><td>Poore. </td><td>No it is sacred truth, there is not one </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr><br />
<tr><td> </td><td>Who hath not circled w<sup>th</sup> a triple brasse </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr><br />
</table></blockquote><br />
<br><br />
:'''[[Part of Poore (transcription)|Read more...]]'''<br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
==Theatrical Provenance==<br />
<br />
Performed at Christ Church, Oxford, perhaps around 1616.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
==Probable Genre(s)==<br />
<br />
Comedy (Carnegie). Moral (Harbage).<br />
<br />
<br />
==Possible Narrative and Dramatic Sources or Analogues==<br />
<br />
The part of Poore, which provides the entirety of lines spoken by the play's main character, reveals much about the play's narrative, yet our knowledge is obviously limited by the relative paucity of other characters' speeches, which appear exclusively in brief cue lines and occasional false-starts cancelled by the copyist. David Carnegie offered a detailed conjectural plot synopsis, summarizing the evidence with further speculations based on clues within the part ("Play," [http://iiif.lib.harvard.edu/manifests/view/drs:427334889$23i 21–24]). Broadly speaking, the "Play of Poore" was an academic comedy of subterfuge, disguise, and mischief. In the play's first scene, Poore enlists his fellow scholar Sly and the wench Gill to gull unwitting victims out of their money. One of the main plots has Gill, disguised as "Madam Change," presented as a marriage prospect for the foolish Trugull; Poore, disguised as the Yorkshireman "Change," objects that she is already betrothed to him, but agrees to withdraw his claim in exchange for payment; Sly, disguised as the corpulent uncle of "Madam Change," accepts her dowry. A subplot involves the cuckold Snaile, whose wife is coveted by two men, Medle and Quicke, whom Poore sets at odds until a duel leaves each convinced that the other is dead. Complications and confusions ensue, as Poore's mercenary opportunism results in the proliferation of overlapping cons. In the final scene, his machinations exposed, Poore feigns illness, but after making financial restitution to his victims, he reveals that he is well and everyone is reconciled.<br />
<br />
<br />
==References to the Play==<br />
<br />
None known.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
==Critical Commentary==<br />
<br />
The vast majority of scholarship on the play of Poore and its manuscript has been written by David Carnegie. The following summary draws heavily on his findings.<br />
<br />
<br />
===Date===<br />
<br />
The manuscript seems originally to have been a blank book into which the actors' parts were successively copied; Carnegie therefore proposed that the order of their appearance indicates a rough chronology of performance. Since Burton's ''Philosophaster'' was performed on 17 February 1617/8 and Goffe's ''Couragious Turk'' on 24 February 1618/9, Carnegie conjectured a date range of 1615–17 for the performance of Poore for which the actor's part was prepared ("Play," 6n). <br />
<br />
<br />
===Genre and Style===<br />
<br />
As Carnegie observes, the characters' "names alone invite us into a world of comic types: Poore, Trugull, Medle, Quicke, and Dry are self-declared, and the cuckold Snaile scarcely less so" ("Play," 13). The play's plot is based on feats of "deception, gulling, and knavery," but by the conclusion, "no real harm has been done" and the "play ends in high spirits with all the gulls reconciled to their deceivers" (13-14). While Harbage designated it a "Moral" play, Carnegie argued that the play's "aim seems to be more to delight than to instruct" (14).<br />
<br />
According to Carnegie, although the "language of the play is for the most part a functional, undistinguished blank verse" (16), certain salient characteristics—an "enthusiasm for classical writers, the purple rhetoric, an extraordinary overblown set-piece lecture for Strange on the subject of the dawn, a student drinking game"—suggest satirical sendups of the academic audience watching the play (15). Many of the play's stock elements are representative of university satire; however, numerous parallels of plot and language with Jonson's ''The Alchemist'' suggest some degree of influence if not imitation (18-19).<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
===Performance===<br />
<br />
Costumes and properties for the performance would have included a dagger, a letter, a ring, gold, blue coats, slops, a rapier, a false beard, a country gentleman's attire with padding, a nightgown, and "physicians' gowns" of fustian (Carnegie, "Play," 10, 16). Besides Poore, there are twelve other speaking roles evident in the part, although the fact that one is identified as the Third Officer (f. 23v) implies that First and Second Officers appeared in the play as well ("Play," 20-21). The part was apparently copied out by the actor playing the role of Poore ("Play," 11). (Stern cites William Prynne who laments "how many houres, evenings, halfe-dayes, dayes, and sometimes ''weekes, are spent by all the Actors'' (especially in solemne academicall Enterludes) ''in coppying, in conning, in practising their parts''" [''Histriomastix'', sig. 2R1a; qtd. Stern 239].) Carnegie's study of Houghton Library, MS Thr 10.1 found that the two later parts were evidently written in the hand of Thomas Goffe ("Identification"). While the hand that transcribed the part of "Poore" differs from Goffe's in 1618-19, Carnegie nevertheless left open the possibility that Goffe may have prepared the two earlier parts, including that of "Poore" ("Play," 6n; "Part," 113). (Carnegie's further suggestion that "Poore" may have been acted by the play's author—as suggested by the uncommon lack of mistakes in the transcription—therefore allows for the possibility that Goffe wrote the "Play of Poore" ["Play," 11].)<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
===Comparison with the Orlando Part===<br />
<br />
The only actor's part to survive from the professional Shakespearean stage is that used by Edward Alleyn performing the title role in Robert Greene's ''Orlando Furioso'' (Dulwich College, MSS 1, Article 138; [http://www.henslowe-alleyn.org.uk/images/MSS-1/Article-138/01r.html online]).<br />
Carnegie, comparing this document to the four parts in Houghton Library, MS Thr 10.1 (prepared, as they were, for academic rather than professional performance), observes that the two documents share several basic characteristics, but differ in physical form (Alleyn's part was prepared as a roll, as opposed to the book format used for the university parts) and nature of the cue lines (the university parts not only name the speakers of the cue lines, but provide slightly more text) ("Play," 12). Carnegie, however, notes that, in light of the paucity of surviving evidence, it must remain uncertain "whether the production of the college plays, in entirely different circumstances, in any way signals that professional practices were changing twenty years on," or whether these differences are "simply a by-product of the amateur student actors' simplifying memorization of both lines and action" ("Play," 13). <br />
<br />
Palfrey and Stern, by way of an answer to this question, show that the Restoration-era part for Trico (played by Matthew Medbourne) in Ferdinando Parkhurst's translation of Ruggle's ''Ignoramus'' (Houghton Library, MS Eng 1258/5), performed at the Cockpit and at Whitehall in 1662, typically has short cues lacking characters' names, thereby resembling the Orlando part more than that of Poore (29-31), although the part of Trico was prepared as a book rather than a roll.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
==For What It's Worth==<br />
<br />
Content welcome.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
==Works Cited==<br />
<br />
<div style="padding-left: 2em; text-indent: -2em">Carnegie, David. "Actors' Parts and the 'Play of Poore'." ''Harvard Library Bulletin'' 30 (1982): 5–24. [http://iiif.lib.harvard.edu/manifests/view/drs:427334889$7i Online].</div><br />
<div style="padding-left: 2em; text-indent: -2em">Carnegie, David, ed. "The Part of 'Poore'." Malone Society ''Collections XV''. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1993. 111–169.</div><br />
<div style="padding-left: 2em; text-indent: -2em">Carnegie, David. "The Identification of the Hand of Thomas Goffe, Academic Dramatist and Actor." ''The Library'' 26 (1971): 161–65.</div><br />
<div style="padding-left: 2em; text-indent: -2em">Goffe, Thomas. ''The Couragious Turke, or, Amurath the First''. London, 1632.</div><br />
<div style="padding-left: 2em; text-indent: -2em">Palfrey, Simon, and Tiffany Stern. ''Shakespeare in Parts''. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2007.</div><br />
<div style="padding-left: 2em; text-indent: -2em">Prynne, William. ''Histriomastix''. London, 1633.</div><br />
<div style="padding-left: 2em; text-indent: -2em">Stern, Tiffany. ''Documents of Performance in Early Modern England''. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2009.</div><br />
<br />
<br />
Site created and maintained by [[Misha Teramura]], University of Toronto; transcription added 09 May 2016 by [[David McInnis]].<br />
[[category:all]][[category:Misha Teramura]][[category:Academic]][[category:Parts]][[category:Oxford]][[category:Moral]][[category:Satire]][[category:Thomas Goffe]][[category:Houghton]][[category:David McInnis]][[Category:Untitled plays]]</div>MeaghanBrownhttps://lostplays.folger.edu/_mw/index.php?title=Play_of_Poore&diff=18373Play of Poore2018-07-06T13:27:20Z<p>MeaghanBrown: </p>
<hr />
<div>[[Anon.]] ([[1616]]?)<br />
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<br />
==Historical Records==<br />
<br />
===The Part of Poore (Houghton Library, MS Thr 10.1)===<br />
<br />
The actor's part for the role of Poore, the main character of a lost play known to scholars as the "Play of Poore," survives in Houghton Library, MS Thr 10.1. The manuscript contains actors' parts from four different plays, all of which were performed at Christ Church, Oxford, in the first quarter of the seventeenth century. The part of Poore (ff. 21–46v) contains 1580 lines, including Poore's speeches, brief cue lines spoken by other characters, minimal stage directions, and occasional act and scene designations. Also in the manuscript are parts for Antoninus (ff. 8v-19v) from the anonymous ''Antoninus Bassianus Caracalla'' (a play mostly preserved in Bodleian MS Rawlinson C.590); Polypragmaticus (ff. 48-56) from Robert Burton's ''Philosophaster'' (preserved in an autograph manuscript, Houghton Library, MS Thr 10, and a copy, Folger MS V.a.315); and Amurath (ff. 57-71) from Thomas Goffe's ''The Couragious Turke'' (published 1632). <br />
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===Full Digitisation===<br />
'''The LPD has sponsored the digitisation of the entire part; click image to view the manuscript:'''<br />
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[[Image:Htc ms thr 10 1 0045 thumb.jpg|link=http://lostplays.org/g/poore.html]]<br><br />
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</gallery><br />
"The 'part' of Poore", Houghton Library, MS Thr 10.1, f. 21r, reproduced by permission.<br />
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===Full Transcription===<br />
The part of Poore has been edited by David Carnegie and published by the Malone Society ("Part"); the entire transcription can be read and searched here, courtesy of Professor Carnegie and [http://malonesociety.com/publications/ the Malone Society]:<br />
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:'''[[Part of Poore (transcription)]]'''<br />
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The following is Professor Carnegie's transcription of the first page (f. 21r), which is representative of the nature of the part.<br />
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<br><br />
<blockquote><br />
<table style="width:60%;white-space:nowrap;"><br />
<tr><td> </td><td> </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr><br />
<tr><td> </td><td><big>Actus I<sup>mus</sup> Scӕna I<sup>a</sup>.</big> </td><td>[http://lostplays.org/g/poore.html#1 <nowiki>[</nowiki>FOL.21a<nowiki>]</nowiki>] </td><td> </td></tr><br />
<tr><td> </td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Poore. </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr><br />
<tr><td> </td><td>Welcome thou instrument of liberty &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;offreth to stab himselfe </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr><br />
<tr><td>Sly </td><td><strike>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</strike> Hold hold </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr><br />
<tr><td>Poore: </td><td>It is a most vnthankfull office; </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr><br />
<tr><td> </td><td>To save a man vnwilling is to murder. </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr><br />
<tr><td> </td><td>What hath this world of myne that I should covet </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr><br />
<tr><td> </td><td>Longer to stay w<sup>th</sup> it? nor have you reason </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr><br />
<tr><td> </td><td>Thus to detaine mee, I must greiving say it </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr><br />
<tr><td> </td><td>Through mee you want what might have well sustaind you </td><td> </td><td>10 </td></tr><br />
<tr><td> </td><td>And your last store scarce panteth nourishment </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr><br />
<tr><td> </td><td>Vnto your selfe and sister. </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr><br />
<tr><td>Sly </td><td><strike>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</strike> How truely rich </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr><br />
<tr><td> </td><td>Though having nothing, for contemning all? </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr><br />
<tr><td>Poore. </td><td>True very wise, nay rich, if hee could gett </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr><br />
<tr><td> </td><td>Even w<sup>th</sup> his best indeauour nourishment: </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr><br />
<tr><td> </td><td>But that now wants whose rich hees only wise </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr><br />
<tr><td> </td><td>T'is the receaved opinion, and what arts </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr><br />
<tr><td> </td><td>Are meanly shrouded in a thred bare coate </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr><br />
<tr><td> </td><td>Want theire due forme, thats a privation of it. </td><td> </td><td>20 </td></tr><br />
<tr><td> </td><td>The worst of ills that is in misery </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr><br />
<tr><td> </td><td>Is that it gives a man contemptible </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr><br />
<tr><td> </td><td>Makes him a scoffe to every painted asse </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr><br />
<tr><td> </td><td>W<sup>ch</sup> beares a golden image, every slave </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr><br />
<tr><td> </td><td>W<sup>ch</sup> came into this Cytty w<sup>th</sup> bare feete </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr><br />
<tr><td> </td><td>And since hath heap'd vp by mechanicke basenes </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr><br />
<tr><td> </td><td>Abundant riches will contem the state </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr><br />
<tr><td> </td><td>That nature brought him to and no more pitty it, </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr><br />
<tr><td> </td><td>Then wisedome will a snake pin'd w<sup>th</sup> much cold </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr><br />
<tr><td>Sly: </td><td><strike>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</strike> you much erre </td><td> </td><td>30 </td></tr><br />
<tr><td>Poore. </td><td>No it is sacred truth, there is not one </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr><br />
<tr><td> </td><td>Who hath not circled w<sup>th</sup> a triple brasse </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr><br />
</table></blockquote><br />
<br><br />
:'''[[Part of Poore (transcription)|Read more...]]'''<br />
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<br><br />
==Theatrical Provenance==<br />
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Performed at Christ Church, Oxford, perhaps around 1616.<br />
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==Probable Genre(s)==<br />
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Comedy (Carnegie). Moral (Harbage).<br />
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==Possible Narrative and Dramatic Sources or Analogues==<br />
<br />
The part of Poore, which provides the entirety of lines spoken by the play's main character, reveals much about the play's narrative, yet our knowledge is obviously limited by the relative paucity of other characters' speeches, which appear exclusively in brief cue lines and occasional false-starts cancelled by the copyist. David Carnegie offered a detailed conjectural plot synopsis, summarizing the evidence with further speculations based on clues within the part ("Play," [http://iiif.lib.harvard.edu/manifests/view/drs:427334889$23i 21–24]). Broadly speaking, the "Play of Poore" was an academic comedy of subterfuge, disguise, and mischief. In the play's first scene, Poore enlists his fellow scholar Sly and the wench Gill to gull unwitting victims out of their money. One of the main plots has Gill, disguised as "Madam Change," presented as a marriage prospect for the foolish Trugull; Poore, disguised as the Yorkshireman "Change," objects that she is already betrothed to him, but agrees to withdraw his claim in exchange for payment; Sly, disguised as the corpulent uncle of "Madam Change," accepts her dowry. A subplot involves the cuckold Snaile, whose wife is coveted by two men, Medle and Quicke, whom Poore sets at odds until a duel leaves each convinced that the other is dead. Complications and confusions ensue, as Poore's mercenary opportunism results in the proliferation of overlapping cons. In the final scene, his machinations exposed, Poore feigns illness, but after making financial restitution to his victims, he reveals that he is well and everyone is reconciled.<br />
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==References to the Play==<br />
<br />
None known.<br />
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==Critical Commentary==<br />
<br />
The vast majority of scholarship on the play of Poore and its manuscript has been written by David Carnegie. The following summary draws heavily on his findings.<br />
<br />
<br />
===Date===<br />
<br />
The manuscript seems originally to have been a blank book into which the actors' parts were successively copied; Carnegie therefore proposed that the order of their appearance indicates a rough chronology of performance. Since Burton's ''Philosophaster'' was performed on 17 February 1617/8 and Goffe's ''Couragious Turk'' on 24 February 1618/9, Carnegie conjectured a date range of 1615–17 for the performance of Poore for which the actor's part was prepared ("Play," 6n). <br />
<br />
<br />
===Genre and Style===<br />
<br />
As Carnegie observes, the characters' "names alone invite us into a world of comic types: Poore, Trugull, Medle, Quicke, and Dry are self-declared, and the cuckold Snaile scarcely less so" ("Play," 13). The play's plot is based on feats of "deception, gulling, and knavery," but by the conclusion, "no real harm has been done" and the "play ends in high spirits with all the gulls reconciled to their deceivers" (13-14). While Harbage designated it a "Moral" play, Carnegie argued that the play's "aim seems to be more to delight than to instruct" (14).<br />
<br />
According to Carnegie, although the "language of the play is for the most part a functional, undistinguished blank verse" (16), certain salient characteristics—an "enthusiasm for classical writers, the purple rhetoric, an extraordinary overblown set-piece lecture for Strange on the subject of the dawn, a student drinking game"—suggest satirical sendups of the academic audience watching the play (15). Many of the play's stock elements are representative of university satire; however, numerous parallels of plot and language with Jonson's ''The Alchemist'' suggest some degree of influence if not imitation (18-19).<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
===Performance===<br />
<br />
Costumes and properties for the performance would have included a dagger, a letter, a ring, gold, blue coats, slops, a rapier, a false beard, a country gentleman's attire with padding, a nightgown, and "physicians' gowns" of fustian (Carnegie, "Play," 10, 16). Besides Poore, there are twelve other speaking roles evident in the part, although the fact that one is identified as the Third Officer (f. 23v) implies that First and Second Officers appeared in the play as well ("Play," 20-21). The part was apparently copied out by the actor playing the role of Poore ("Play," 11). (Stern cites William Prynne who laments "how many houres, evenings, halfe-dayes, dayes, and sometimes ''weekes, are spent by all the Actors'' (especially in solemne academicall Enterludes) ''in coppying, in conning, in practising their parts''" [''Histriomastix'', sig. 2R1a; qtd. Stern 239].) Carnegie's study of Houghton Library, MS Thr 10.1 found that the two later parts were evidently written in the hand of Thomas Goffe ("Identification"). While the hand that transcribed the part of "Poore" differs from Goffe's in 1618-19, Carnegie nevertheless left open the possibility that Goffe may have prepared the two earlier parts, including that of "Poore" ("Play," 6n; "Part," 113). (Carnegie's further suggestion that "Poore" may have been acted by the play's author—as suggested by the uncommon lack of mistakes in the transcription—therefore allows for the possibility that Goffe wrote the "Play of Poore" ["Play," 11].)<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
===Comparison with the Orlando Part===<br />
<br />
The only actor's part to survive from the professional Shakespearean stage is that used by Edward Alleyn performing the title role in Robert Greene's ''Orlando Furioso'' (Dulwich College, MSS 1, Article 138; [http://www.henslowe-alleyn.org.uk/images/MSS-1/Article-138/01r.html online]).<br />
Carnegie, comparing this document to the four parts in Houghton Library, MS Thr 10.1 (prepared, as they were, for academic rather than professional performance), observes that the two documents share several basic characteristics, but differ in physical form (Alleyn's part was prepared as a roll, as opposed to the book format used for the university parts) and nature of the cue lines (the university parts not only name the speakers of the cue lines, but provide slightly more text) ("Play," 12). Carnegie, however, notes that, in light of the paucity of surviving evidence, it must remain uncertain "whether the production of the college plays, in entirely different circumstances, in any way signals that professional practices were changing twenty years on," or whether these differences are "simply a by-product of the amateur student actors' simplifying memorization of both lines and action" ("Play," 13). <br />
<br />
Palfrey and Stern, by way of an answer to this question, show that the Restoration-era part for Trico (played by Matthew Medbourne) in Ferdinando Parkhurst's translation of Ruggle's ''Ignoramus'' (Houghton Library, MS Eng 1258/5), performed at the Cockpit and at Whitehall in 1662, typically has short cues lacking characters' names, thereby resembling the Orlando part more than that of Poore (29-31), although the part of Trico was prepared as a book rather than a roll.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
==For What It's Worth==<br />
<br />
Content welcome.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
==Works Cited==<br />
<br />
<div style="padding-left: 2em; text-indent: -2em">Carnegie, David. "Actors' Parts and the 'Play of Poore'." ''Harvard Library Bulletin'' 30 (1982): 5–24. [http://iiif.lib.harvard.edu/manifests/view/drs:427334889$7i Online].</div><br />
<div style="padding-left: 2em; text-indent: -2em">Carnegie, David, ed. "The Part of 'Poore'." Malone Society ''Collections XV''. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1993. 111–169.</div><br />
<div style="padding-left: 2em; text-indent: -2em">Carnegie, David. "The Identification of the Hand of Thomas Goffe, Academic Dramatist and Actor." ''The Library'' 26 (1971): 161–65.</div><br />
<div style="padding-left: 2em; text-indent: -2em">Goffe, Thomas. ''The Couragious Turke, or, Amurath the First''. London, 1632.</div><br />
<div style="padding-left: 2em; text-indent: -2em">Palfrey, Simon, and Tiffany Stern. ''Shakespeare in Parts''. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2007.</div><br />
<div style="padding-left: 2em; text-indent: -2em">Prynne, William. ''Histriomastix''. London, 1633.</div><br />
<div style="padding-left: 2em; text-indent: -2em">Stern, Tiffany. ''Documents of Performance in Early Modern England''. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2009.</div><br />
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Site created and maintained by [[Misha Teramura]], University of Toronto; transcription added 09 May 2016 by [[David McInnis]].<br />
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