Bartholomew Fair. 1614
1631. Bartholomew Fayre: A Comedie, Acted in the Yeare, 1614. By the Lady Elizabeths Seruants. And then dedicated to King Iames of most Blessed Memorie; By the Author, Beniamin Iohnson. I. B. for Robert Allot. [Part of F2. Prologue to the King; Induction; Epilogue. Jonson wrote (n.d.) to the Earl of Newcastle (Harl. MS. 4955, quoted in Gifford’s memoir and by Brinsley Nicholson in 4 N. Q. v. 574): ‘It is the lewd printer’s fault that I can send ... no more of my book. I sent you one piece before, The Fair, ... and now I send you this other morsel, The fine gentleman that walks the town, The Fiend; but before he will perfect the rest I fear he will come himself to be a part under the title of The Absolute Knave, which he hath played with me.’]
Edition by C. S. Alden (1904, Yale Studies, xxv).—Dissertation: C. R. Baskervill, Some Parallels to B. F. (1908, M. P. vi. 109).
No dedication to James, other than the prologue and epilogue, appears to be preserved, but Aubrey, ii. 14, says that ‘King James made him write against the Puritans, who began to be troublesome in his time’. The play was given at Court on 1 Nov. 1614 (App. B), and a mock indenture between the author and the spectators at the Hope, on 31 Oct. 1614, is recited in the Induction and presumably fixes the date of production. One must not therefore assume that a ballad of Rome for Company in Bartholomew Faire, registered on 22 Oct. 1614 (Arber, iii. 554), was aimed at Jonson. Greg, Henslowe Papers, 78, follows Malone and Fleay, i. 80, in inferring from a mention of a forthcoming ‘Johnsons play’ in a letter of 13 Nov. 1613 from Daborne to Henslowe that the production may have been intended for 1613, but I think that Daborne refers to the revival of Eastward Ho! The Induction describes the locality of the Hope as ‘being as durty as Smithfield, and as stinking euery whit’, and possibly glances at the Winter’s Tale and Tempest in disclaiming the introduction of ‘a Seruant-monster’ and ‘a nest of Antiques’, since the author is ‘loth to make Nature afraid in his Playes, like those that beget Tales, Tempests, and such like Drolleries’. There is no actor-list, but in V. iii ‘Your best Actor. Your Field?’ is referred to on a level with ‘your Burbage’. Similarly the puppet Leander is said to shake his head ‘like an hostler’ and it is declared that ‘one Taylor, would goe neere to beat all this company, with a hand bound behinde him’. Field and Taylor were both of the Lady Elizabeth’s men in 1614, while the allusion to Ostler of the King’s men is apparently satirical. The suggestion of Ordish, 225, that Taylor is the water poet, who had recently appeared on the Hope stage, is less probable. The ‘word out of the play, Palemon’ (IV. iii) is set against another, Argalus ‘out of the Arcadia’, and might therefore, as Fleay, i. 377, thinks, refer to Daniel’s Queen’s Arcadia (1605), but the Palamon of T. N. K. was probably quite recent. I see no reason to accept Fleay’s identification of Littlewit with Daniel; that of Lanthorn Leatherhead with Inigo Jones is more plausible. Gifford suggested that the burlesque puppet-play of Damon and Pythias in V. iv may have been retrieved by Jonson from earlier work, perhaps for the real puppet-stage, since ‘Old Cole’ is a character, and in Satiromastix Horace is called ‘puppet-teacher’ (1980) and in another passage (607) ‘olde Coale’, and told that Crispinus and Demetrius ‘shal be thy Damons and thou their Pithyasse’.
The Devil Is An Ass 1616
1631. The Diuell is an Asse: A Comedie Acted in the yeare, 1616. By His Maiesties Seruants. The Author Ben: Ionson. I. B. for Robert Allot. [Part of F2. Prologue and Epilogue. The play is referred to in Jonson’s letter to the Earl of Newcastle, quoted under Bartholomew Fair.]
1641. Imprinted at London.
Edition by W. S. Johnson (1905, Yale Studies, xxix).—Dissertation: E. Holstein, Verhältnis von B. J.’s D. A. und John Wilson’s Belphegor zu Machiavelli’s Novelle vom Belfagor (1901).
In the play itself are introduced references to a performance of The Devil as a new play, to its playbill, to the Blackfriars as the house, and to Dick Robinson as a player of female parts (I. iv. 43; vi. 31; II. viii. 64; III. v. 38). Probably the production was towards the end rather than the beginning of 1616.
Lost Plays