Alice and Alexis
A fragment (to iii. 1) of a play on the loves of Alice and Alexis, thwarted by Tanto, with an argument of the whole, is in Douce MS. 171 (Bodl. 21745), f. 48v. The date ‘1604’ is scribbled amongst the pages. The manuscript also contains sixteenth-century accounts. There seems nothing to connect this with Massinger’s Alexius, or the Chaste Lover, licensed by Herbert on 25 Sept. 1639 and apparently included in Warburton’s list of burnt plays (3 Library, ii. 232, 249).
Alphonsus, Emperor of Germany > 1636
S. R. 1653, Sept. 9. ‘A play called Alphonso, Emperor of Germany, by John Poole.’ H. Moseley (Eyre, i. 428).
1654. The Tragedy of Alphonsus Emperour of Germany. As it hath been very often Acted (with great applause) at the Privat house in Black-Friers by his late Maiesties Servants. By George Chapman Gent. For Humphrey Moseley. [Epistle to the Reader. The B.M. copy of the play is dated ‘Novemb. 29, 1653’.]
Editions by K. Elze (1867) and H. F. Schwarz (1913), and in collections of Chapman (q.v.).
Alphonsus may reasonably be identified with the Alfonso given before the Queen and the Elector Palatine at the Blackfriars on 5 May 1636 (Cunningham, xxiv). The ascription on the title-page to Chapman is repeated therefrom by Langbaine who rejects that of Kirkman in 1661 and 1671 (Greg, Masques, xlviii) to Peele, but the intimate knowledge of German shown in the dialogue has led Elze and Ward, ii. 428, to give Chapman a German collaborator, conceivably one Rudolf Weckerlin of Würtemberg, who after a preliminary visit before 1614 settled permanently in England about 1624 and obtained political employment, which he varied with literary exercises. Later critics are inclined to reject Chapman’s authorship altogether, and the case against it has been effectively put by E. Koeppel, Quellen-Studien zu den Dramen Chapman’s, 78, and Parrott. The ascription to Peele has been revived by Robertson, T. A. 123, and though Parrott does not accept the full argument, he agrees in regarding the play as originally of Peele’s date, possibly by him, with or without a collaborator, and drastically revised at a later period, perhaps by Weckerlin in 1636. Fleay, ii. 156, 311, also accepts Peele and identifies the play with Harry of Cornwall, revived by Strange’s for Henslowe on 25 Feb. 1592, but, as Greg (Henslowe, ii. 151) points out, the character in Alphonsus is not Henry, but Richard of Cornwall. It must be observed that no critic has noticed the S. R. ascription to John Poole, which may quite well be the origin of Kirkman’s ‘Peele’. Who John Poole was, I do not know.
Apius and Virginia > 1567–8
S. R. 1567–8. ‘A Tragedy of Apius and Virgine.’ Richard Jones (Arber, i. 357).
1575. A new Tragicall Comedie of Apius and Virginia, Wherein is liuely expressed a rare example of the vertue of Chastitie, by Virginias constancy, in wishing rather to be slaine at her owne Fathers handes, then to be deflowred of the wicked Iudge Apius. By R. B. William How for Richard Jones. [Prologue and Epilogue.]