The Miseries of Enforced Marriage, by George Wilkins, was entered S. R. 31st July 1607. It was founded on the life of Mr. Caverley, the hero of The Yorkshire Tragedy, and the play ends with a reconciliation before October 1603, when his third child was born, and dating about January or February, just before the accession of King James. This play was written before 1605. Mr. P.A. Daniel discovered the identity of story in it and in The Yorkshire Tragedy. The share of G. Wilkins in the authorship of Timon and Pericles has already been noticed. He left the King's company for the Queen's in 1607, before publishing the present play. He is not the G. Wilkins who died in 1603: Mr. W.C. Hazlitt's statement in his Handbook to that effect is a mistake.
1605.
A Yorkshire Tragedy, founded on the same story, was certainly acted soon after the execution of Caverley, 5th August 1605. The murdered children were buried in April. The prose account of Caverley's trial was entered S. R. 24th August, and the story of his life was printed by V. S. (Valentine Simmes) in the same year. The play was entered S. R. 2d May 1608, and printed as by William Shakespeare. I cannot think that this was unauthorised. Compare the parallel instance of The London Prodigal. Was the author his brother Edmund; and did Shakespeare assist in or revise his work? (See p. [60].) The "young mistress" of Scene 1 is the Clare Harcup of the Enforced Marriage, and her decline is inconsistent with her death in that play, but in accordance with facts. Together with three other probably similar short plays it was acted as All's One, or one of the Four Plays in One.
1605.
Volpone or the Fox, by Jonson, was acted in this year.
1605-6.
Mucedorus, an old play, originally written, I think, for the Queen's company by T. Lodge, was revived under exceptional circumstances, with additions at Court. From the added part at the end of the play it appears that "a lean hungry neagre (meagre) cannibal," "a scrambling raven with a needy beard," had written "a comedy" for the King's players, containing "dark sentences pleasing to factious brains," and that information had been given to "a puissant magistrate," and that the players feared "great danger or at least restraint" in consequence. Moreover, this "unwilling error" had been lately "presented" to the King: nevertheless, not being "boys," but "men," they had avoided the "trap," apologised, and been pardoned. The only known new comedy, not Shakespeare's, produced by the King's men between 1604 and 1610 was Jonson's Fox. It contains a good deal, even in its present state, that must have been unpalatable at Court, especially on monopolies and spies; and Jonson altered his plays so much after performance for publication, that it is dangerous to draw conclusions as to what the play may have originally contained. One thing in it, however, was particularly "obnoxious to construction," the miraculous "Oglio del Scoto," which, in the case of one who was this same year imprisoned for satirising the Scots in Eastward Ho, might well be taken as a gird at the Scotch King's miraculous charisma in treating for the King's evil. It is to the Eastward Ho affair that the "trap for boys, not men," alludes; and the meagreness and "needy beard" plainly indicate Jonson as the "raven" (Corbaccio) who wrote the comedy. In accordance with this view stands the fact that on the Christmas succeeding this unfortunate performance of 1605-6 there was no Court masque produced by Jonson. The date hitherto assigned to the "additions" in Mucedorus has been 1610, because the edition of that year was issued as it was acted before the King on Shrove Sunday night. But there was no Court performance in the 1609-10 winter on account of the plague. The date 1610 is therefore impossible; the words on the title were probably repeated in the usual way from the 1606 edition, of which, though mentioned in Beauclerc's Catalogue, 1781, no copy unfortunately is extant. Of the authorship of the original play, with its Induction, "cooling-card" mark, and many similarities to Marius and Sylla, there can be no doubt: it was written by Lodge. Who wrote the "additions" in 1605-6 it would be hard to say: perhaps Wilkins.
1607-11.
The Revenger's Tragedy by Cyril Tourneur (?) was entered S. R. 7th October 1607, and probably acted not long before. The Second Maiden's Tragedy, licensed in 1611, which we know to have been acted by the King's men, was probably by the same author.