All critics have recognized the style as Marston’s and some of the vocabulary is vomited in Poetaster; cf. Small, 93. The date is fixed to 1600 by allusions to hopes of ‘peace with Spaine’, ‘Kemps morice’, and ‘womens yeare’ (i. 37, 45, 166). There is little doubt that the critical Brabant Senior is Jonson, and that the play is that in which he told Drummond that Marston staged him. The cuckolding of Brabant Senior is based upon a story narrated by Jonson to Drummond (Laing, 21) as one in which he had played the active, not the passive, part. If he had imparted the same story to Marston, he not unnaturally resented the use made of it. The minor identifications suggested by Fleay, ii. 74, have nothing to commend them, except possibly that of Sir Edward Fortune with Edward Alleyn, who was building the Fortune in 1600. Were not this a Paul’s play, one might infer from the closing line,
Our Fortune laughes, and all content abounds,
that it was given at the Fortune. Can the Admiral’s have shared it with Paul’s, as the Chamberlain’s shared Satiromastix? In iv. 37–48 Brabant Senior criticizes three ‘moderne wits’ whom he calls ‘all apes and guls’ and ‘vile imitating spirits’. They are Mellidus, Musus, and Decius. I take them to be Marston, Middleton, and Dekker, all writers for Paul’s; others take Decius for Drayton, to whom Sir John Davies applied the name, and Musus, by a confusion with Musaeus, for Chapman or Daniel. For v. 102–14, which bears on the history of the company, cf. ch. xii (Paul’s).
The Life and Death of Jack Straw > 1593
S. R. 1593, Oct. 23. ‘An enterlude of the lyfe and deathe of Jack Strawe.’ John Danter (Arber, ii. 639).
1593. [Colophon, 1594]. The Life and Death of Iacke Straw, A notable Rebell in England: Who was kild in Smithfield by the Lord Maior of London. John Danter, sold by William Barley.
1604. For Thomas Pavier.
Editions in Dodsley4 (1874, v), and by H. Schütt (1901) and J. S. Farmer (1911, T. F. T.).
Fleay, ii. 153, Schütt, and Robertson, 121, all incline to suggest the authorship, whole or in part, of Peele. Schütt would date c. 1588, but the theme is that of T. Nelson’s pageant of 1590–1, for which year a member of Walworth’s company, the Fishmongers, was Lord Mayor. The text of the play is very short, with only four acts.