me add, that on the whole this paper defcribes a fpecies of dramatick entertainment of which no memorial is preserved in any annals of the English ftage. STEEVENS. To the preceding extract are now annexed three other "Plotts" of three of our old unpublished dramatick pieces. See No. I. II. and III. The originals are in my poffeffion. 5 The lofs of a number of fuch early plays is perhaps to be lamented only as far as they would have ferved to throw light on the comick dialogue of Shakspeare, which, (as I fufpect,) is in fome places darkened by our want of acquaintance with ridiculous fcenes at which his allufions, during his own time, might have been both This name will ferve to confirm Mr. Tyrwhitt's fuppofition in a note to The Taming of a Shrew, Vol. VI. p. 396, n. 9. STILVENS. There is reason to fuppofe that these curiofities once belonged to the collection of Alleyn, the founder of Dulwich College; nor am I left without expectation that at fome future period I may derive more important intelligence from the dif perfed remains of that theatrical repository. The Dead Man's Fortune and Tamar Cam, will not, I believe, be found in any catalogues of dramatick performances. At least they are not enumerated among fuch as have fallen within Mr. Reed's obfervation, or my own. That the play of Frederick and Bafilea was acted, by the Lord Admiral's Company, four times in the year 1597, may be ascertained from Mr. Malone's Additions, p. 457. In these three "Plotts" the names of feveral ancient players, "unregister'd in vulgar fame," are preferved. But to luckier and more industrious antiquaries of the scene I muft refign the task of collecting anecdotes of their lives: fo that "Pigg, Ledbeter, White and Black Dick and Sam, Jack Gregory, Little Will Barne, and the red-faced fellow," &c. appear at prefent with lefs celebrity than their brethren who figured in the plays of Shakspeare. Notwithstanding the reader muft observe that the drift of the foregoing dramatick pieces cannot be collected from the mere outlines before us, he may be ready enough to charge them with abfurdity. Juftice therefore requires me to add, that even the obviously and fuccefsfully pointed: for as Dr. Johnson, in his comprehenfive preface, has obferved, "Whatever advantages our author might once derive from perfonal allufions, local customs, or temporary opinions, have for many years been loft; and every topick of merriment, or motive of forrow, which the modes of artificial life afforded him, now only obfcure the scenes which they once illuminated." STEEVENS. fcenes of our author would have worn as unpromifing an aspect, had their skeletons only been discovered. For feveral reasons I fufpect that thefe "Plotts" had belonged to three diftinct theatres, in which at different periods Alleyn might have held fhares. -The names of the performers in each company materially difagree; the Plotts" themfelves are written out in very different hands; and (though the remark may feem inconfiderable) their apertures are adapted to pegs of very different dimen fions. See the fecond paragraph in p. *498. STEEVENS. 6 No. I. The dead Man's Fortune. 1. Burbage. 2. Darlowe, 3. Robert Lee. 4. B. Sam. 5. Tyre. man. Not one of the foregoing names occurs in the two following dramas. No. II. Tamar Cam. 1. Allen.* 2. Dick Jubie. 3. Mr. Towne. 4. Mr. Sam. 5. Mr. Charles. 6. W. Cartwright. 7. Mr. Denyghten. 8. Tho. Marbeck. 9. W. Parr. 10. Tho. Parfons. 11. George. 12. H. Jeffs. 13. A. Jeffs. 14. Mr. Burnc. 15. Mr. Singer. 16. Jack Jones. 17. Jack Gregory. 18. Mr. Denyghten's little Boy. 19. Gedion. 20. Gibbs. 21. Little Will. 22. Tho. Rowley. 23. Refter. 24. Old Browne. 25. Ned Browne. 26. Jeames. 27. Gil's Boy. 28. Will Barne. 29. The red-faced fellow. No. III. Frederick and Bafilea. 1. Richard Allen.* 2. Dick Jubie. 3. Mr. Towne.*. 4. Mr. Sam. 5. Mr. Charles. 6. Dick. 7. Black Dick. 8. Mr. Dunstan. Griffen. 10. Tho. Hunt. 11. Will. 12. Mr. Martyn. 13. Ed. Dutton. 14. Ledbeter. 15. Pigg. 16. E. Dutton's Boy. The plays No. II. and III. have no performers in common, except fuch as are diftinguished by afterifks. STEEVENS. 1 Singer.] Perhaps he was author of a dramatick entertainment entitled Singer's Voluntary. See p. 479. Other memoranda of feveral of thefe actors, will be found in preceding pages, among Mr. Malone's notes to his Additions. STEEVENS. ANCIENT AND MODERN COMMENDATORY VERSES O N SHAKSPEAR E. On WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE, who died in April, 1616.2 RENOWNED Spenfer, lie a thought more nigh To learned Chaucer; and rare Beaumont lie A little nearer Spenfer, to make room For Shakspeare, in your three-fold, four-fold tomb. 2 In a collection of manufcript poems which was in the poffeffion of the late Gustavus Brander, Efq. thefe verfes are entitled"BASSE HIS ELEGIF one [on] poett Shakespeare, who died in April 1616." The MS. appears to have been written foon after the year 1621. In the edition of our author's poems in 1640, they are fubfcribed with the initials W. B. only. They were erroneously attributed to Dr. Donne, in a quarto edition of his poems printed in 1633; but his fon Dr. John Donne, a Civilian, published a more correct edition of his father's poems in 1635, and rejected the verfes on Shakspeare, knowing, without doubt, that they were written by another. William Baffe, according to Wood, [Athen. Oxm. Vol. II. p. 812,] "was of Moreton, near Thame in Oxfordshire, and was fometime a retainer to the Lord Wenman of Thame Park." There are fome verses by him in Annalia Dubrenfia, 4to. 1636; and in Bathurst's Life and Remains, by the Reverend Thomas Warton, 8vo. 1761, there is a poem by Dr. Bathurst" to Mr. William Baffe, upon the intended publication of his Poems, Jan. 13, 1651.” The volume never, I believe, appeared. From the words "who died in April, 1616," it may be inferred that these lines were written recently after Shakspeare's death, when the month and year in which he died were well known. At a more distant period the month would probably have been for To lodge all four in one bed make a shift gotten; and that was not an age of fuch curiofity as would have induced a poet to fearch the register at Stratford on fuch a fubject. From the addrefs to Chaucer and Spenfer it fhould feem, that when thefe verfes were compofed the writer thought it probable that a cenotaph would be erected to Shakspeare in Weftminster-Abbey. There is a copy of these lines in a manufcript volume of poems written by W. Herrick and others, among Rawlinfon's Collections in the Bodleian library at Oxford; and another among the Sloanian MSS. in the Museum, No. 1702. In the Oxford Copy they are entitled "Shakspeare's Epitaph;" but the author is not mentioned. There are fome flight variations in the different copies, which I fhall fet down. Line 2. To rare Beaumond, and learned Beaumond lie, &c. Edit. 1633. To lodge in one bed all four make a fhift-MS. Brander. To lodge all four in one bed, &c. MS. R. and S. To lie all four, &c. Edit. 1633. Line 5. Line 7. So, B. S. and R. by fates be flain. Edit. 1633. Line 8. So, B. and S. will be drawn again. R. need be drawn again. 1633. Line 9. But if precedency of death, &c. Edit. 1633. Line 10. So, B. R. and edit. 1633. A fourth to have place in your fepulcher,-S. Line 11. So, B. and R. under this curled marble of thine own. under this fable, &c. S. Line 12. So, B. S. and edit. 1633. Line 13. So, B. and R. Edit. 1633. Line 14. Thine unmolefied peace, unfhared cave-S. Edit. 1633 grave. S. to thy grave. R. So, B. This couplet is not in edit. 1633. That unto us, or others, &c. B. R. and S. MALONE. |