S. R. 1615, Aug. 14. (Taverner). ‘A play called The Honest Lawyer.’ Richard Redmer (Arber, iii. 571). [Assigned by Redmer, apparently at once, to Richard Woodriffe.]
1616. The Honest Lawyer. Acted by the Queenes Maiesties Seruants. Written by S. S. George Purslowe for Richard Woodroffe. [Epilogue.]
Edition by J. S. Farmer (1914, S. F.).
A conceivable author is Samuel Sheppard (q.v.), but the absence of extant early work by him makes a definite attribution hazardous.
How a Man may Choose a Good Wife from a Bad c. 1602
1602. A pleasant conceited Comedie, Wherein is shewed how a man may chuse a good Wife from a bad. As it hath bene sundry times Acted by the Earle of Worcesters Seruants. For Mathew Law.
1605; 1608; 1614; 1621; 1630; 1634.
Editions: 1824 (for Charles Baldwin), in O. E. D. (1825, i) and Dodsley4 (1876–9, ix), and by A. E. H. Swaen (1912, Materialien, xxxv) and J. S. Farmer (1912, T. F. T.).—Dissertations: C. R. Baskervill, Sources and Analogues of H. (1909, M. L. A. xxiv. 711); J. Q. Adams, Thomas Heywood and H. (1912, E. S. xlv. 30).
The B.M. copy of 1602 (C. 34, b. 53) has the note ‘Written by Ioshua Cooke’ in ink on the title-page. Presumably the author of Greene’s Tu Quoque (q.v.) is meant, with which Swaen, xiii, declares that the play shows ‘absolutely no similarity or point of agreement’. Fleay, i. 289, suggested an ascription to Heywood on the ground of parallelisms with The Wise Woman of Hogsdon, and this case is elaborately and plausibly argued by Swaen and Adams. The date must be before Worcester’s begin to appear in Henslowe’s diary, 17 Aug. 1602. Fleay’s attempt to twist its mentions of a certain ‘Thomas’ in the text (l. 790) into references to Heywood himself and Thomas Blackwood, the actor, is mere childishness.