1608. The Famelie of Love. Acted by the Children of his Maiesties Reuells. For John Helmes. [Epistle to Reader, Prologue, Epilogue.]
The prologue apologizes that ‘expectation’ hath not ‘filled the general round’. The King’s Revels can hardly have existed before 1607. Fleay, ii. 94, thinks that they inherited the play from Paul’s and assigns it to 1604 ‘when the Family of Love were such objects of public attention’. His chief reason is that the epistle regrets that the play was ‘not published when the general voice of the people had sealed it for good, and the newness of it made it much more desired than at this time’. It had ‘passed the censure of the stage with a general applause’. This epistle is clearly by the author, who says ‘it was in the press before I had notice of it, by which means some faults may escape in the printing’. I agree that there must have been some interval between production and publication. But there is no special virtue in the date 1604. References to the Family of Love are to be found in Sir Giles Goosecap (1601–3), II. i. 263; Dutch Courtesan (1603–4), I. i. 156, I. ii. 18; Mad World, My Masters (1604–6), I. ii. 73; Isle of Gulls (1606), p. 26; Every Woman in Her Humour (?), p. 316. The sect was well known in England as early as 1574–81, when an act was passed for its suppression. It petitioned James c. 1604 and was answered in A Supplication of the Family of Love, printed at Cambridge in 1606. On its history, cf. Fuller, Church History (1868), iii. 239; F. Nippold, Heinrich Niclaes und das Haus der Liebe (1862, Z. f. Hist. Theol.); R. Barclay, Inner Life of the Religious Societies of the Commonwealth (1876), 25; A. C. Thomas, The Family of Love (1893); R. M. Jones, Studies in Mystical Religion (1909), 428; E. B. Daw, Love Feigned and Unfeigned (1917, M. L. A. xxxii. 267).
The Roaring Girl. c. 1610.
With Dekker (q.v.).
A Chaste Maid in Cheapside. 1611.
S. R. 1630, April 8 (Herbert). ‘A play called The Chast Mayd of Chepeside.’ Constable (Arber, iv. 232).
1630. A Chast Mayd in Cheape-side. A Pleasant conceited Comedy neuer before printed. As it hath beene often acted at the Swan on the Banke-side by the Lady Elizabeth her Seruants By Thomas Midelton Gent. For Francis Constable.
It is not known where the Lady Elizabeth’s played during 1611–13, and it may very well have been at the Swan. Nor is there anything improbable in the suggestion of Fleay, 186, that this is the Proud Maid’s Tragedy acted by them at Court on 25 Feb. 1612 (App. B).
No Wit, no Help, like a Woman’s. 1613 (?)
S. R. 1653, Sept. 9. ‘No witt, no helpe like a Woman. Mr. Tho. Midleton.’ H. Moseley. (Eyre, i. 428).