1633. A Match at Midnight A Pleasant Comœdie: As it hath been Acted by the Children of the Revells. Written by W. R. Aug. Mathewes for William Sheares.
Fleay, 203 and ii. 95, treats the play, without discussion, as written by Middleton and Rowley for the Queen’s Revels c. 1607. Bullen, Middleton, i. lxxxix, and Stork, 17, concur as to the date, the former regarding it as Middleton’s revised c. 1622 by Rowley, the latter as practically all Rowley’s. These views are evidently influenced by the mention of the Children of the Revels on the title-page. Wiggin, 7, noting allusions to the battle of Prague in 1620 and Reynard the Fox (1621), thinks it alternatively possible that Rowley wrote it under Middletonian influence for one of the later Revels companies c. 1622. There was no doubt a company of Children of the Revels in 1622–3 (Murray, i. 198), but the name on a t.p. of 1633 would naturally refer to the still later company of 1629–37 (Murray, i. 279).
The Birth of Merlin (?)
1662. The Birth of Merlin: Or, The Childe hath found his Father. As it hath been several times Acted with great Applause. Written by William Shakespear, and William Rowley. Tho. Johnson for Francis Kirkman and Henry Marsh.
Editions by T. E. Jacob (1889), J. S. Farmer (1910, T. F. T.), and with Sh. Apocrypha.—Dissertations: F. A. Howe, The Authorship of the B. of M. (1906, M. P. iv. 193); W. Wells, The B. of M. (1921, M. L. R. xvi. 129).
Kirkman’s attribution to Shakespeare and Rowley was first made in his play-list of 1661 (Greg, Masques, liii). It is generally accepted for Rowley, but not for Shakespeare. But Fleay, Shakespeare, 289, on a hint of P. A. Daniel, gave Rowley a collaborator in Middleton, and later (ii. 105) treated the play as a revision by Rowley of the Uther Pendragon produced by the Admiral’s on 29 April 1597. This view seems to rest in part upon the analogous character of The Mayor of Quinborough. Howe thinks that Rowley worked up a sketch by Middleton later than 1621, and attempts a division of the play on this hypothesis. But Stork, Rowley, 58, thinks that Rowley revised Uther Pendragon or some other old play about 1608. F. W. Moorman (C. H. v. 249) suggests Dekker, and Wells Beaumont and Fletcher.
Doubtful Plays
The ascription to Rowley on the t.p. of The Thracian Wonder is not generally accepted. His hand has been sought in The Captain, The Coxcomb, and Wit at Several Weapons (cf. s.v. Beaumont) and in Troublesome Reign of King John (cf. ch. xxiv) and Pericles.
MATTHEW ROYDON (> 1580–1622 <).
The reference to his ‘comike inuentions’ in Nashe’s Menaphon epistle of 1589 (App. C, No. xlii) suggests that he wrote plays.