Lambeth MS. 838.
Edition by G. C. Moore Smith (1910).—Dissertation: G. C. Moore Smith, The Cambridge Play ‘Laelia’ (1911, M. L. R. vi. 382).
The production is assigned by Fuller, Hist. of Cambridge (ed. Nichols), 217, to a visit by the Earl of Essex to Cambridge as Chancellor of the University in 1597–8. Moore Smith has, however, shown that it almost certainly belongs to an earlier visit, and took place at Queens’ College on 1 March 1595. The chief evidence is the reference in Rowland Whyte’s account of the Device by Essex or Bacon (q.v.) for 17 Nov. 1595 to ‘Giraldy’ and ‘Pedantiq’, as played at Cambridge. These may fairly be taken to be the Gerardus and the pedant Petrus of Laelia. The actors of these two parts are identified with George Meriton and George Mountaine, Fellows of Queens’, by John Weever, Epigrammes (1599), iv. 19.
Your entertaine (nor can I passe away)
Of Essex with farre-famed Laelia;
Nor fore the Queen your service on Queens day.
Conceivably this may also attribute authorship of the play and the device. The play is an adaptation of the Italian Gl’ Ingannati (c. 1531) through Les Abusez (1543) of Charles Estienne. It is possible that, directly or indirectly, it influenced Twelfth Night.
Leander (March 1598).
By W. Hawkesworth (q.v.).
Machiavellus (1597).