[258b] The Merry Devill of Edmonton, a comedy which was first published in 1608, was also re-entered by Moseley for publication on September 9, 1653, as the work of Shakespeare (see p. 181 supra).
[259a] Dyce thought he detected traces of Shirley’s workmanship, but it was possibly Theobald’s unaided invention.
[259b] The 1634 quarto of the play was carefully edited for the New Shakspere Society by Mr. Harold Littledale in 1876. See also Spalding, Shakespeare’s Authorship of ‘Two Noble Kinsmen,’ 1833, reprinted by New Shakspere Society, 1876; article by Spalding in Edinburgh Review, 1847; Transactions, New Shakspere Society, 1874.
[260] Cf. Mr. Robert Boyle in Transactions of the New Shakspere Society, 1882.
[261] Reliquiæ Wottonianæ, 1675, pp. 425-6. Wotton adds ‘that the piece was set forth with many extraordinary circumstances of Pomp and Majesty, even to the matting of the Stage; the Knights of the Order, with their Georges and Garters, the Guards with their embroidered Coats, and the like: sufficient in truth within a while to make greatness very familiar, if not ridiculous. Now King Henry making a Masque at the Cardinal Wolsey’s House, and certain Canons being shot off at his entry, some of the paper or other stuff wherewith one of them was stopped, did light on the Thatch, where being thought at first but an idle Smoak, and their eyes more attentive to the show, it kindled inwardly, and ran round like a train, consuming within less than an hour the whole House to the very grounds. This was the fatal period of that vertuous fabrique; wherein yet nothing did perish, but wood and straw and a few forsaken cloaks; only one man had his breeches set on fire, that would perhaps have broyled him, if he had not by the benefit of a provident wit put it out with bottle[d] ale.’ John Chamberlain writing to Sir Ralph Winwood on July 8, 1613, briefly mentions that the theatre was burnt to the ground in less than two hours owing to the accidental ignition of the thatch roof through the firing of cannon ‘to be used in the play.’ The audience escaped unhurt though they had ‘but two narrow doors to get out’ (Winwood’s Memorials, iii. p. 469). A similar account was sent by the Rev. Thomas Lorkin to Sir Thomas Puckering, Bart., from London, June 30, 1613. ‘The fire broke out,’ Lorkin wrote, ‘no longer since than yesterday, while Burbage’s company were acting at the Globe the play of Henry VIII’ (Court and Times of James I, 1848, vol. i. p. 253). A contemporary sonnet on ‘the pittifull burning of the Globe playhouse in London,’ first printed by Haslewood ‘from an old manuscript volume of poems’ in the Gentleman’s Magazine for 1816, was again printed by Halliwell-Phillipps (i. pp. 310, 311) from an authentic manuscript in the library of Sir Matthew Wilson, Bart., of Eshton Hall, Yorkshire.
[263a] Bodl. MS. Rawl. A 239; cf. Spedding in Gentleman’s Magazine, 1850, reprinted in New Shakspere Society’s Transactions, 1874.
[263b] Cf. Mr. Robert Boyle in New Shakspere Society’s Transactions, 1884.
[264] Halliwell-Phillipps, ii. 87.
[265a] Manningham, Diary, March 23, 1601, Camd. Soc. p. 39.
[265b] Cf. Aubrey, Lives; Halliwell-Phillipps, ii. 43; and art. Sir William D’Avenant in the Dictionary of National Biography.