Present her with thy goodliest ripened fruites.
The plague and absence of term from London might fit either 1592 or 1593 (cf. App. E), but I agree with McKerrow, iv. 418, that the earlier year is indicated. In 1593 the plague did not begin in the dog-days, nor did Elizabeth go on progress. And it is on 6 Sept. 1592 that Stowe (1615), 764, records the emptying of Thames. I may add a small confirmatory point. Are not ‘the horses lately sworne to be stolne’ (l. 250) those stolen by Germans in the train of Count Mompelgard between Reading and Windsor and referred to in Merry Wives, IV. v. 78. The Count came to Windsor on 19 Aug. 1592 (Rye, xcix). Now I part company with Mr. McKerrow, who thinks that, although the play was written in 1592, it may have been revised for performance before Elizabeth in a later year, perhaps at her visit to Whitgift on 14 Aug. 1600. His reasons are three: (a) Sol’s reference to the Thames seems to date it in a year earlier than that in which he speaks; (b) the seasonal references suggest August, while Stowe’s date necessitates September at earliest, and the want of term points to October; (c) the references to Elizabeth imply her presence. I think there is something in (a), but not much, if the distinction between actual and dramatic time is kept in mind. As to (b), the tone of the references is surely to a summer prolonged beyond its natural expiration for Eliza’s benefit, well into autumn, and in such a year the fruits of autumn, which in this country are chiefly apples, will be on the trees until October. As to (c), I cannot find any evidence of the Queen’s presence at all. Surely she is on progress elsewhere, and due to ‘return’ in the future. I may add that Elizabeth was at Croydon in the spring of 1593, and that it would, therefore, have been odd to defer a revival for her benefit until another seven years had elapsed. The 1592 progress came to an end upon 9 Oct. and I should put the performance not long before. When Q1 of Pierce Penilesse (S. R. 8 Aug. 1592) was issued, Nashe was kept by fear of infection ‘with my Lord in the Countrey’, and the misinterpretations of the pamphlet which he deprecates in the epistle to Q2 (McKerrow, i. 154) are hinted at in a very similar protest (l. 65) in the play.
The prologue is spoken by ‘the greate foole Toy’ (ll. 10, 1945), who would borrow a chain and fiddle from ‘my cousin Ned’ (l. 7), also called ‘Ned foole’ (l. 783). The epilogue is spoken (l. 1194) and the songs sung (ll. 117, 1871) by boys. Will Summer (l. 792) gives good advice to certain ‘deminitiue urchins’, who wait ‘on my Lords trencher’; but he might be speaking either to actors or to boys in the audience. The morris (l. 201) dances ‘for the credit of Wostershire’, where Whitgift had been bishop. The prompter was Dick Huntley (l. 14), and Vertumnus was acted by Harry Baker (l. 1567). There is a good deal of Latin in the text. On the whole, I think that the play was given by members of Whitgift’s household, which his biographer describes as ‘a little academy’. The prologue (l. 33) has ‘So fares it with vs nouices, that here betray our imperfections: we, afraid to looke on the imaginary serpent of Enuy, paynted in mens affections, haue ceased to tune any musike of mirth to your eares this twelue-month, thinking that, as it is the nature of the serpent to hisse, so childhood and ignorance would play the goslings, contemning and condemning what they vnderstood not’. This agrees curiously in date with the termination of the Paul’s plays. Whitgift might have entertained the Paul’s boys during the plague and strengthened them for a performance with members of his own household. But would they call themselves ‘nouices’?
Dido, Queen of Carthage > 1593
With Marlowe (q.v.).
Lost Plays
Terminus et non Terminus. 1586 < > 8
Vide supra. McKerrow, v. 10, thinks that the name of Nashe’s alleged part may be a jest, and points out that the identification by Fleay, ii. 124, of the play, of which nothing more is known, with the ‘London Comedie’ of the Cards referred to in Harington’s Apology (cf. App. C, No. xlv) is improbable.
The Isle of Dogs. 1597
Meres, Palladis Tamia (S. R. 7 Sept. 1598), writes: