Project Gutenberg's A Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. III, by Various

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Title: A Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. III

Author: Various

Release Date: January 17, 2004 [EBook #10734]

Language: English

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK OLD ENGLISH PLAYS ***

Produced by Jonathan Ingram, Tapio Riikonen and PG Distributed Proofreaders

A COLLECTION OF OLD ENGLISH PLAYS; VOL. III

In Four Volumes

Edited by

A.H. BULLEN

1882-1889.

CONTENTS:

Preface
Sir Gyles Goosecappe
The Wisdome of Dr. Dodypoll
The Distracted Emperor
The Tryall of Chevalry
Footnotes

PREFACE.

I have not been able to give in the present volume the unpublished play of Heywood's to which I referred in the Preface to Vol. I. When I came to transcribe the play, I found myself baffled by the villanous scrawl. But I hope that, with the assistance of some expert in old handwriting, I may succeed in procuring an accurate transcript of the piece for the fourth volume.

One of the plays here presented to the reader is printed for the first time, and the others have not been reprinted. I desire to thank ALFRED HENRY HUTH, Esq., for the loan of books from his magnificent collection. It is pleasant to acknowledge an obligation when the favour has been bestowed courteously and ungrudgingly. To my friend F.G. FLEAY, Esq., I cannnot adequately express my gratitude for the great trouble that he has taken in reading all the proof-sheets, and for his many valuable suggestions. Portions of the former volume were not seen by him in the proof, and to this cause must be attributed the presence of some slight but annoying misprints. One serious fault, not a misprint, occurs in the first scene of the first Act of Barnavelt's Tragedy (p. 213). In the margin of the corrected proof, opposite the lines,

    "And you shall find that the desire of glory
    Was the last frailty wise men ere putt of,"

I wrote

"That last infirmity of noble minds,"

a [mis]quotation from Lycidas. The words were written in pencil and enclosed in brackets. I was merely drawing Mr. FLEAY'S attention to the similarity of expression between Milton's words and the playwright's; but by some unlucky chance my marginal pencilling was imported into the text. I now implore the reader to expunge the line. On p. 116, l. 12 (in the same volume), for with read witt; p. 125 l. 2, for He read Ile; p. 128, l. 18, for pardue read perdue; p. 232, for Is read In; p. 272, l. 3, for baste read haste; p. 336, l. 6, the speaker should evidently be not Do. (the reading of the MS.) but Sis., and noble Sir Richard should be noble Sir Francis; p. 422, l. 12, del. comma between Gaston and Paris. Some literal errors may, perhaps, still have escaped me, but such words as anottomye for anatomy, or dietie for deity must not be classed as misprints. They are recognised though erroneous forms, and instances of their occurrence will be given in the Index to Vol. IV.

5, WILLOW ROAD, HAMPSTEAD, N.W. January 24, 1884.

INTRODUCTION TO SIR GYLES GOOSECAPPE.

This clever, though somewhat tedious, comedy was published anonymously in 1606. There is no known dramatic writer of that date to whom it could be assigned with any great degree of probability. The comic portion shows clearly the influence of Ben Jonson, and there is much to remind one of Lyly's court-comedies. In the serious scenes the philosophising and moralising, at one time expressed in language of inarticulate obscurity and at another attaining clear and dignified utterance, suggest a study of Chapman. The unknown writer might have taken as his motto a passage in the dedication of Ovid's Banquet of Sense:— "Obscurity in affection of words and indigested conceits is pedantical and childish; but where it shroudeth itself in the heart of his subject, uttered with fitness of figure and expressive epithets, with that darkness will I still labour to be shrouded." Chapman's Gentleman Usher was published in the same year as Sir Gyles Goosecappe; and I venture to think that in a passage of Act III., Scene II., our author had in his mind the exquisite scene between the wounded Strozza and his wife Cynanche. In Strozza's discourse on the joys of marriage occur these lines:—

    "If he lament she melts herselfe in teares;
    If he be glad she triumphs; if he stirre
    She moon's his way: in all things his sweete Ape."

The charming fitness of the expression "sweet ape" would impress any capable reader. I cannot think that by mere accident the anonymous writer lighted on the same words:—

    "Doe women bring no helpe of soule to men?
    Why, friend, they either are mens soules themselves
    Or the most witty imitatrixes of them,
    Or prettiest sweet apes of humane soules."

From a reference to Queen Elizabeth in Act I., Scene I., it is clear that Sir Gyles Goosecappe was written not later than 1603. The lines I have quoted may have been added later; or our author may have seen the Gentleman Usher in manuscript.

Chapman's influence is again (me judice) apparent in the eloquent but somewhat strained language of such a passage as the following:—

    "Alas, my noble Lord, he is not rich,
    Nor titles hath, nor in his tender cheekes
    The standing lake of Impudence corrupts;
    Hath nought in all the world, nor nought wood have
    To grace him in the prostituted light.
    But if a man wood consort with a soule
    Where all mans sea of gall and bitternes
    Is quite evaporate with her holy flames,
    And in whose powers a Dove-like innocence
    Fosters her own deserts, and life and death
    Runnes hand in hand before them, all the skies
    Cleare and transparent to her piercing eyes.
    Then wood my friend be something, but till then
    A cipher, nothing, or the worst of men."

Sir Gyles Goosecappe is the work of one who had chosen the "fallentis semita vitae"; who was more at home in Academic cloisters than in the crowded highways of the world. None of the characters bears any impression of having been drawn from actual life. The plot is of the thinnest possible texture; but the fire of verbal quibbles is kept up with lively ingenuity, and plenty of merriment may be drawn from the humours of the affectate traveller and the foolish knight by all who are not

"of such vinegar aspect That they'll not show their teeth in way of smile, Though Nestor swear the jest be laughable."

The romantic friendship between