Fleay, ii. 295, assigns to Edwardes Godly Queen Hester, a play of which he had only seen a few lines, and which W. W. Greg, in his edition in Materialien, v, has shown with great probability to date from about 1525–9. His hand has also been sought in R. B.’s Apius and Virginia and in Misogonus (cf. ch. xxiv).
ELIZABETH (1533–1603).
H. H. E. Craster (E. H. R. xxix. 722) includes in a list of Elizabeth’s English translations a chorus from Act II of the pseudo-Senecan Hercules Oetaeus, extant in Bodl. MS. e Museo, 55, f. 48, and printed in H. Walpole, Royal and Noble Authors (ed. Park, 1806), i. 102. It probably dates later than 1561. But he can find no evidence for a Latin version of a play of Euripides referred to by Walpole, i. 85.
RICHARD FARRANT (?-1580).
Farrant’s career as Master of the Children of Windsor and Deputy Master of the Children of the Chapel and founder of the first Blackfriars theatre has been described in chh. xii and xvii. It is not improbable that he wrote plays for the boys, and W. J. Lawrence, The Earliest Private Theatre Play (T. L. S., 11 Aug. 1921), thinks that one of these was Wars of Cyrus (cf. ch. xxiv), probably based on W. Barker’s translation (1567) of Xenophon’s Cyropaedia, and that the song of Panthea ascribed to Farrant in a Christ Church manuscript (cf. vol. ii, p. 63) has dropped out from the extant text of this. Farrant’s song, ‘O Jove from stately throne’, mentioning Altages, may be from another play. I think that Wars of Cyrus, as it stands, is clearly post-Tamburlaine, and although there are indications of lost songs at ll. 985, 1628, there is none pointing to a lament of Panthea. But conceivably the play was based on one by Farrant.
GEORGE FEREBE (c. 1573–1613 <)
A musician and Vicar of Bishop’s Cannings, Wilts.
The Shepherd’s Song. 1613
S. R. 1613, June 16. ‘A thinge called The Shepeherdes songe before Queene Anne in 4. partes complete Musical vpon the playnes of Salisbury &c.’ Walter Dight (Arber, iii. 526).
Aubrey, i. 251, says ‘when queen Anne came to Bathe, her way lay to traverse the famous Wensdyke, which runnes through his parish. He made severall of his neighbours good musitians, to play with him in consort, and to sing. Against her majesties comeing, he made a pleasant pastorall, and gave her an entertaynment with his fellow songsters in shepherds’ weeds and bagpipes, he himself like an old bard. After that wind musique was over, they sang their pastorall eglogues (which I have, to insert into Liber B).’ Wood’s similar account in Fasti (1815), i. 270, is probably based on Aubrey’s. He dates the entertainment June 11 (cf. ch. iv. and App. A, s. ann. 1613), and gives the opening of the song as