Representative English Comedies by Various Writers

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Title: Representative English Comedies
with introductory essays and notes

Author: Various

Editor: Charles Mills Gayley

Release Date: August 15, 2015 [EBook #49710]

Language: English

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title page

Representative English Comedies

FROM THE BEGINNINGS

TO

SHAKESPEARE

decoration

REPRESENTATIVE ENGLISH

COMEDIES

WITH INTRODUCTORY ESSAYS AND NOTES

AN HISTORICAL VIEW OF OUR EARLIER COMEDY

AND OTHER MONOGRAPHS

BY VARIOUS WRITERS

UNDER THE GENERAL EDITORSHIP OF

CHARLES MILLS GAYLEY, Litt.D., LL.D.
Professor of the English Language and Literature

in the University of California

FROM THE BEGINNINGS

TO

SHAKESPEARE

New York:

THE MACMILLAN COMPANY.
LONDON: MACMILLAN & CO., Ltd.

1926

All rights reserved.

Copyright, 1903,

By THE MACMILLAN COMPANY.

Set up, electrotyped, and published March, 1903.

Norwood Press

J. S. Cushing & Co.—Berwick & Smith Co.

Norwood, Mass., U.S.A.

PREFACE

"'Dost thou think, because thou art virtuous, there shall be no more cakes and ale ...

nor ginger hot i' the mouth?' Or knowest not that while man, casting the dice with Fate
and Mistress Grundy, imagineth a new luck, there shall be new comedy? Why, then,
reprint these old?"

In part, because the comedies of a nation are for literature as well as for the footlights,

and literature, in most cases, begins after the footlights are out. In part, because old
comedies make good reading, not only for lovers of fiction and the stage, but for the
student of society and the historian. Until rival forms of literary art began to usurp their
function, comedies were—in England, not to speak of other and older lands—the
recognized and cherished exponent of the successive phases of contemporary life. For us
they still are living sketches of the social manners, morals, vanities, and ideals of
generations of our ancestors; history "unbeknownst" as written by contemporaries.
Unfortunately, many of these old comedies are inaccessible to the public; and, therefore,
we venture to hope that the general reader may find such a collection as the present
acceptable, whether he care to enter upon a historical and technical study of the subject
or not.

To the student of literary history, however, this series will, we trust, justify its existence

for quite another reason. For the aim of this volume and those which will follow is to
indicate the development of a literary type by a selection of its representative specimens,
arranged in the order of their production and accompanied by critical and historical
studies. So little has been scientifically determined concerning evolution or permutation in
literature that the more specific the field of inquiry, the more trustworthy are the results
attained,—hence the limitation of this research not merely to a genus like the drama, but
to one of its species. What is here presented to the public differs from histories of the
drama in that it is more restricted in scope and that it substantiates the narrative of a
literary growth by reproducing the data necessary to an induction; it differs from editions
of individual plays and dramatists, on the other hand, because it attempts to concatenate
its texts by a running commentary upon the characteristics of the species under
consideration as they successively appear. It is an illustrated, if not certified, history of
English comedy.

The plays, in this series called representative, have been chosen primarily for their

importance in the history of comedy, generally also for their literary quality, and, when
possible, for their practical, dramatic, or histrionic value. Of the studies accompanying
them, some are special, such as those dealing with the several authors and plays; some
general, the monographs upon groups or movements, and the sketch introductory to the
volume. The essay prefatory to a play includes, when possible, an outline of the
dramatist's life, a concise history of his contribution to comedy, with reference, when
appropriate, to his productions in other fields, an estimate of his output in its relation to
the national, social, literary, and technical development of the type in question, and to
such foreign movements and influences as may be cognate, and, finally, an exposition and
criticism of the play presented. By the insertion in proper chronological position of
occasional monographs, it is intended to represent minor dramatists or groups of the same
school, period, or movement,—sometimes, indeed, an author of exceptional importance,
—in such a way that the historical continuity of the species may be as evident in its minor
manifestations as in the better known. The general introductions to these volumes will
usually attempt to discuss matters of historical interest not covered by the editors of
special portions of the work. It has been necessary, therefore, to open the series, in this
book, with an historical view of the beginnings of comedy in England. While the various
contributors to the enterprise have exercised their individual preferences in matters of
literary treatment, judgment, and style, the general editor has attempted to secure the
requisite degree of uniformity by requesting each to conform so far as his taste and
historical conscience might permit to a common but elastic outline of method previously
prepared. If the attempt has succeeded, there has been gained something of continuity
and scientific value for the series. The presence, at the same time, of an occasional
personal element in the several articles of the history will enhance its value for our dear
friend, the good old-fashioned reader, who sets no store by literary science, but judges
books by his liking, and likes to read such judgments of them.

v

vi

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The texts of the comedies presented are, to the best ability of their respective editors,

faithful reprints of the best originals; where possible, those published during the authors'
lives. Spelling and language have been preserved as they were; but for the convenience of
readers, the punctuation and the style of capitals and letters, such as i, j, u, v, s, have
been, unless otherwise specified, conformed to the modern custom.

The general editor regrets that it has not been feasible to preface the series with some

of the still earlier experiments in comedy, but he indulges the hope that such a volume may
later be added, and, also, that it may soon be possible to publish in its proper proportions
the materials which have been condensed into the Historical View here submitted. He
takes this opportunity to express his appreciation of the courtesy of the scholars who
have engaged with him in this undertaking, and especially to thank Mr. Pollard of the
British Museum, and Mr. E. W. B. Nicholson of the Bodleian Library, Professor
Gummere, Professor Dowden, and the Master of Peterhouse for assistance,
encouragement, and counsel which have contributed to make this labour a delight. Other
volumes of this series are well under way, and will follow with all reasonable celerity.

CHARLES MILLS GAYLEY.

University of California,
February 3, 1903.

CONTENTS

Page

I. An Historical View of the Beginnings of English Comedy

By Charles Mills Gayley

Of the University of

California
xi

II. John Heywood: Critical Essay. Alfred W. Pollard

Of St. John's College, Oxford, and the British Museum
1

Edition of the Play of the Wether.
The Same
19

Edition of a Mery Play betweene Johan
Johan, Tyb, etc.
The Same
61

III. Nicholas Udall: Critical Essay. Ewald Flügel

Of Stanford University
87

Edition of Roister Doister.
The Same 105

Appendix on Various Matters.
The Same 189

IV. William Stevenson: Critical Essay. Henry Bradley

Of the University of

Oxford 195

Edition of Gammer Gurtons Nedle.
The Same 205

Appendix.
The Same 259

V. John Lyly: Critical Essay. George P. Baker

Of Harvard University 263

Edition of Alexander and Campaspe.
The Same 277

VI. George Peele: Critical Essay. F. B. Gummere

Of Haverford College 333

Edition of The Old Wives' Tale.
The Same 349

Appendix.
The Same 383

VII. Greene's Place in Comedy: A Monograph. G. E. Woodberry

Of Columbia University 385

VIII. Robert Greene: His Life, and the Order of his Plays. Charles Mills Gayley
395

Edition of the Honourable Historie of Frier
Bacon.
The Same 433

viii

ix

x

Appendix on Greene's Versification.
The Same 503

IX. Henry Porter: Critical Essay. Charles Mills Gayley
513

Edition of The Two Angry Women of
Abington.
The Same 537

X. Shakespeare As a Comic Dramatist. Edward Dowden

Of Trinity College,

Dublin 635

Index.

663

An Historical View

OF THE

BEGINNINGS OF ENGLISH COMEDY

By Charles Mills Gayley

AN HISTORICAL VIEW OF THE BEGINNINGS OF

ENGLISH COMEDY

I. Liturgical Fragments, Early Saints' Plays and Parodies

The earliest evidence of dramatic effort in England is to be found in Latin tropes of the

Easter service, composed for use in churches at different periods between 967 and the
middle of the eleventh century. While these are, of course, serious in nature and function,
they interest the historian of comedy because they show that the dramatic spirit was at
work among our ancestors before the Anglo-Saxons had passed under the yoke of the
Normans. Likewise naturally devoid of comic interest, but of vital importance in the
development of a dramatic technique, are certain fragments of liturgical plays, belonging
to the library of Shrewsbury School, which were published in 1890 by Professor
Skeat.[1] Each of these deals, as an integer, with a crisis in the career of our Lord; and,
except for occasional choruses and passages from the liturgy in Latin, the plays are
English—the English, in fact, translating and enlarging upon the Latin of the service.
Though the manuscript is probably not older than 1400, it is a fragment, as Professor
Manly has said, of a series of plays of much earlier date, which were "performed in a
church on the days and in the service celebrating events of which the plays treat."[2] These
fragments are of great importance as constituting a link between the dramatic tropes of
the tenth and eleventh centuries and the scriptural pageants presented at a later period
outside the church: first by the clergy, with the assistance, perhaps, of townspeople (as
may have been the case when a Resurrection play was given in the churchyard of St.
John's, Beverley, about 1220); afterward by the civic authorities and the several gilds
when church plays had come to be acted commonly in the streets, that is, after the
reinstitution of the feast of Corpus Christi in 1311.

The existence of tropes at a period earlier than that in which mention is made of plays

based upon the miracles of the saints appears to me to negative Professor Ten Brink's
conjecture that in the development of our sacred drama legendary subjects preceded the
biblical. Indeed, the fact that dramas on subjects both biblical and legendary, and of a
technique even more highly developed than that of the Shrewsbury, were, as early as
1160, produced for liturgical functions in France, not only by Frenchmen, but by one
Hilarius, who was presumably an Englishman, favours the opinion that the earliest saints'
plays in England, also, were as frequently derived from scriptural as from legendary
sources. It is, moreover, likely that the first saints' plays on legendary subjects in England
of which we have record were neither the first of their kind in the period attributed to their
presentation, nor a notable advance in dramatic art when they were presented. There is
nothing in the earliest record of a legendary saint's play, the miracle of St. Katharine,
presented by Geoffrey, afterwards Abbot of St. Albans, at Dunstable about 1100, to
warrant the inference that it was a novelty, even at that date. Since Geoffrey was at the
time awaiting a position as schoolmaster, he was probably within his function, de
consuetudine magistrorum et scholarum,[3] when he produced the play; and it is to be
noticed that when Matthew of Paris writes concerning the matter, about 1240, he
appears to be much more interested in an accident which attended the performance than
in the mere composition and presentation of what he calls "some play or other of St.
Katharine, of the kind that we commonly call Miracles."[4] Indeed, William Fitzstephen,
writing some seventy years before Matthew, speaks of such plays of the saints as in his
time quite customary. The probabilities are, then, that this first legendary saint's play
recorded as acted in England had been preceded by others of its kind, and they in turn by
miracles of biblical heroes and by liturgical plays and dramatic tropes of the services of
the church.

It is not unreasonable to surmise that this legendary kind of miracle, although

sometimes used as part of the church service on the saint's day, and originally possessed
of serious features, speedily developed characteristics helpful in the progress of the comic
drama. All we know of the St. Katharine play is that it was written for secular
presentation at a date when no mention is yet made of the public acting of scriptural plays.
The dramatist would, however, be more likely to adorn the useful with the amusing in the
preparation of a play not necessarily to be performed within the sacred precincts; and
while the technique of the legendary miracle was presumably akin from the first to that of
the biblical, it is natural to suppose that the plot was handled with larger imaginative

xiii

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