In the dedication to his Devil's Law Case, John Webster claims to have been the author of a play, which he calls The Guise *, not now known, but plausibly supposed to have related to the slaughter of St. Bartholomew, on which Marlow had written a tragedy with the title of the Massacre at Paris. In Henslowe's Diary is the following item, Lent unto Wm. Jube the 3 Nov., 1601, to bye stamell cloath for a clock, for the Gwise 31.,' and the name of Webster was interlined in different ink. It however sufficiently connects Webster with the performance, which we may conjecture was a new version of Marlow's tragedy, as in another place Webster's Guise is actually called The Masaker of France, a title which

shepheards on Salisburie plaine,' but some minor poems, with the initials T. R. and A. C., are added, besides others, that have no signatures: among the latter is a new Dittie in Prayse of Money, to a new tune called the King's Jigge,' followed by some epigrams. The whole is closed by sentences set upon conduits in London against the day that King James came through the Citie at his first comming to the Crowne.' The following are among them

'Life is a drop, a sparke, a span,
'A bubble: yet how proude is man.

'Life is a debt, which at that day,
The poorest hath enough to pay.

'This world's a stage, whereon to-day,
'Kings and meane men parts do play;
To-morrow others take their roomes,

While they do fill up graves and toomes.'

Dr. Percy (Reliques, ii., 160, edit. 1812) informs us that 'Fair Rosamond' was first printed by Deloney, in 1612; but the preceding list of ballads shows that this statement is mistaken.

*Sce Webster's Works, by the Rev. A. Dyce, I, xiv.

no doubt it also bore. The name of Thomas Middleton occurs late in Henslowe's Diary: Malone, under date of October, 1602, mentions Randall Earl of Chester by Middleton, which without much probability he supposes to be The Mayor of Quinborough under a different title. Middleton also wrote a piece, which Henslowe terms The Chester Tragedy, not introduced by Malone into his list; and if that be the same production as Randall Earl of Chester, it is still less likely that the comedy of The Mayor of Quinborough should be intended.

From the miscellaneous matter in this very remarkable record, I shall only here subjoin an exact copy of an entry of the marriage of Edward Alleyn, the celebrated actor and founder of Dulwich College, with Joan Woodward in October, 1592, which has been often referred to but never quoted correctly.

'Edward Alen wasse maryed unto Jone Wood'ward the 22 day of octobr 1592 In the iiij and thirtie yeare of the Quene's Maties Rayne elizabeth

by the grace of god of Ingland france and Iarland defender of the fayth'

This is in the hand of Henslowe, step-father to Alleyn's wife. Henslowe seems to have been no

*

Cutlack is the name which Henslowe gives to a play in which Alleyn (as in many other parts) seems to have gained considerable reputation. In that rare collection of Epigrams and Satires, printed in 16mo., in 1598, called Skialetheia, or a Shadowe of Truth, I find the following lines, which serve to show the nature of the character of Cutlack: the Epigram is headed 'Of Clodius.'

great proficient either in writing or reading, and he often makes sad work of the titles of the plays he mentions in his Diary. Chalmers states that Alleyn's

'Clodius, me thinks, lookes passing big of late,

'With Dunston's browes and Allen's Cutlack's gait.
'What humours have possest him so, I wonder?
'His eyes are lightning and his words are thunder,' &c.

The same collection makes mention of an actor of the name of Gue, who must have been distinguished in the parts of clowns. I cannot refrain from lengthening this note by the following notices by the anonymous author of Skialetheia, of the poets of his day and earlier, as I am not aware that they have ever been quoted. They are from the Sixth Satire.

For in these our times

'Some of opinion's gulls carp at the rimes

Of reverend Chawcer: other some do praise them,
'And unto heav'n with wonder's wings do raise them.
'Some say the mark is out of Gower's mouth,
'Others he's better then a trick of youth.

'Some blame deep Spencer for his grandam words,
'Others protest that in them he records

'His maister-peece of cunning, giving praise
And gravity to his profound-prickt layes.
'Daniel (as some hold) might mount if he list,
'But others say that he's a Lucanist.

'Markham is censur'd for his want of plot,
'Yet others thinke that no deepe stayning blot:
'As Homer writ his Frogs'-fray learnedly,
'And Virgil his Gnats' unkind Tragedy,
'So though his plot be poore, his subject's rich,
'And his Muse soares a falcon's gallant pitch.
'Drayton's condemn'd of some for imitation,
'But others say 'twas the best poet's fashion,

6

" In spight of sicke opinion's crooked doome,

Traytor to kingdome mind, true judgment's toomb,
'Like to a worthy Romaine he hath wonne
'A three-fold name affined to the Sunne,
When he is mounted in the glorious South,
' And Drayton's justly sirnam'd Golden-mouth.

'The

wife was the daughter of Henslowe *,' but she was in fact the daughter of his wife, who had previously been married to a person of the name of Woodward. Henslowe, nevertheless, constantly terms Alleyn his son, and seems to have left the control of theatrical matters very much to him as the acting manager. Alleyn also now and then negociated with poets for their plays, and it is not at all clear that he was not himself an author. In August, 1602, he received 41. from Henslowe for two books,' called Philip of Spain and Longshanks, which perhaps were revivals with additions; the last, of Peele's play of Edward I. called Longshanks by Henslowe on its first appearance. In October of the same year, we find a notice of a third production by Alleyn, called Tamberzan, perhaps a revival of Marlow's Tamburlaine. Henslowe's entry runs thus: Paid unto my sonne E.

The double-volum'd Satyre praysed is,
And lik'd of divers for his rods in pisse;
'Yet other-some, who would his credite crack,
6 Have clap'd Reactioe's action on his back.

'Nay, even wits Cæsar, Sidney, for whose death
The fates themselves lamented England's scath,
'And Muses wept, till of their teares did spring

Admiredly a second Castal spring,

Is not exempt for prophanation,

'But censured for affectation.'

Drayton was called 'golden-mouthed' by C. Fitzgeffrey, in his poem on the death of Sir F. Drake, 1596. The double-volumed Satire' was Marston, who entitled one of his satires Re-actio. The entry by Henslowe, regarding the new poet Mr. Marstone,' has been inserted in the Annals of the Stage, vol. i. p. 335.'

* Malone's Shakespeare by Boswell, iii. 504.

Alleyn at the apoyntment of the company, for his booke of Tamberzan, the 29th Oct. 1602, 40s.** These circumstances are omitted by Malone.

From the whole of the minute and authentic, though confused, details furnished by Henslowe, it appears that between Feb. 19th, 1591, and July 14th, 1597, upwards of one hundred and ten different plays were performed by the companies with which he was in that interval connected: viz., Lord Strange's, the Lord Admiral's, the Lord Chamberlain's, and Lord Pembroke's players. In the period between October, 1597, and March, 1603, the titles of not less than one hundred and sixty pieces are inserted by him, either as original compositions, or as revivals of older plays. Independently of individual testimony (like that of Thomas Heywood, an actor and an author under Henslowe in 1597, who claimed at a subsequent datef to have been concerned, more or less importantly, in no less than two hundred and twenty plays), we have here the most remarkable and unquestionable proof of the prolific talents of our old dramatists. No less than thirty different authors were in Henslowe's pay subsequent to 1597, and not a few of them, as has been already remarked, wrote for other companies

There was also what I suppose to have been an extempore play, called Tamar Cam, the 'platform' of which was formerly preserved in Dulwich College: a copy of it is inserted in Malone's Shakespeare by Boswell, iii. 356. This, however, could scarcely be the book of Tamberzan,' bought by Henslowe of Alleyn.

† In the Address before his English Travelier, printed in 1633.