The Poor Man’s Comfort, c. 1617 (?)
[MS.] Egerton MS. 1994, f. 268.
[Scribal signature ‘By P. Massam’ at end.]
S. R. 1655, June 20. ‘A booke called The Poore Mans comfort, a Tragicomedie written by Robert Dawborne, Mr of Arts.’ John Sweeting (Eyre, i. 486).
1655. The Poor-Mans Comfort. A Tragi-Comedy, As it was diuers times Acted at the Cockpit in Drury Lane with great applause. Written by Robert Dauborne Master of Arts. For Rob: Pollard and John Sweeting. [Prologue, signed ‘Per E. M.’]
The stage-direction to l. 186 is ‘Enter 2 Lords, Sands, Ellis’. Perhaps we have here the names of two actors, Ellis Worth, who was with Anne’s men at the Cockpit in 1617–19, and Gregory Sanderson, who joined the same company before May, 1619. But there is also a James Sands, traceable as a boy of the King’s in 1605. The performances named on the title-page are not necessarily the original ones and the play may have been produced by the Queen’s at the Red Bull, but 1617 is as likely a date as another, and when a courtier says of a poor man’s suit (l. 877) that it is ‘some suit from porters hall, belike not worth begging’, there may conceivably be an allusion to attempts to preserve the Porter’s Hall theatre from destruction in the latter year. In any case, Daborne is not likely to have written the play after he took orders.
Doubtful and Lost Plays
The Henslowe correspondence appears to show Daborne as engaged between 17 April 1613 and 2 April 1614 on the following plays:
(a) Machiavel and the Devil (17 April-c. 25 June 1613), possibly, according to Fleay and Greg, Henslowe, ii. 152, based on the old Machiavel revived by Strange’s men in 1592.
(b) The Arraignment of London, probably identical with The Bellman of London (5 June–9 Dec. 1613), with Cyril Tourneur, possibly, as Greg, Henslowe Papers, 75, suggests, based on Dekker’s tract, The Bellman of London (1608).