Or tie my pen to penny knaves’ delight,
But live with fame, and so for fame to write.
He is less likely than Nashe to be the ‘young Juvenal, that biting satirist, that lastly with me together writ a Comedy’ of Greene’s Groats-worth of Wit epistle in 1592 (cf. App. C, No. xlviii). I should not cavil at the loose description of A Looking Glass for London and England as a comedy; but ‘biting satirist’ hardly suits Lodge; and at the time of Greene’s last illness he was out of England on an expedition led by Thomas Cavendish to South America and the Pacific, which started on 26 Aug. 1591 and returned on 11 June 1593. After his return Lodge essayed lyric in Phillis (1593) and satire in A Fig for Momus (1595); but he cannot be shown to have resumed writing for the stage, although the Dulwich records make it clear that he had relations with Henslowe, who had in Jan. 1598 to satisfy the claims which Richard Topping, a tailor, had made against him before three successive Lord Chamberlains, as Lodge’s security for a long-standing debt (Greg, Henslowe Papers, 44, 172). Lodge himself was then once more beyond the seas. One of the documents was printed by Collier, Memoirs of Alleyn, 45, with forged interpolations intended to represent Lodge as an actor, for which there is no other evidence. Subsequently Lodge took a medical degree at Avignon, was incorporated at Oxford in 1602, and obtained some reputation as a physician. He also became a Catholic, and had again to leave the country for recusancy, but was allowed to return in Jan. 1610 (cf. F. P. Wilson in M. L. R. ix. 99). About 1619 he was engaged in legal proceedings with Alleyn, and for a time practised in the Low Countries, returning to London before his death in 1625. Small, 50, refutes the attempts of Fleay, i. 363, and Penniman, War, 55, 85, to identify him with Fungoso in E. M. O. and Asotus in Cynthia’s Revels. Fleay, ii. 158, 352, adds Churms and Philomusus in the anonymous Wily Beguiled and Return from Parnassus.
Collection
1878–82. E. Gosse, The Works of Thomas Lodge (Hunterian Club). [Introduction reprinted in E. Gosse, Seventeenth Century Studies (1883).]
Dissertations: D. Laing, L.’s Defence of Poetry, Music, and Stage Plays (1853, Sh. Soc.); C. M. Ingleby, Was T. L. an Actor? (1868) and T. L. and the Stage (1885, 6 N. Q. xi, 107, 415); R. Carl, Ueber T. L.’s Leben und Werke (1887, Anglia, x. 235); E. C. Richard, Ueber T. L.’s Leben und Werke (1887, Leipzig diss.).
The Wounds of Civil War. c. 1588
S. R. 1594, May 24. ‘A booke intituled the woundes of Civill warre lively sett forthe in the true Tragedies of Marius and Scilla.’ John Danter (Arber, ii. 650).
1594. The Wounds of Ciuill War. Liuely set forth in the true Tragedies of Marius and Scilla. As it hath beene publiquely plaide in London, by the Right Honourable the Lord high Admirall his Seruants. Written by Thomas Lodge Gent. John Danter.
Editions in Dodsley3, 4 (1825–75) and by J. D. Wilson (1910, M. S. R.).