Having mentioned Henrietta Maria, Shirley's Royal Mistress, the reader will pardon a digression, which flows from tenderness, and is no more than an expression of humanity. Her life-time in England [28] was embittered with a continued persecution; she lived to see the unhappy death of her Lord; she witnessed her exiled sons, not only oppressed with want, but obliged to quit France, at the remonstrance of Cromwel's ambassador; she herself was loaded with poverty, and as Voltaire observes, "was driven to the most calamitous situation that ever poor lady was exposed to; she was obliged to sollicit Cromwel to pay her an allowance, as Queen Dowager of England, which, no doubt, she had a right to demand; but to demand it, nay worse, to be obliged to beg it of a man who shed her Husband's blood upon a scaffold, is an affliction, so excessively heightened, that few of the human race ever bore one so severe."

After an active service under the marquis of Newcastle, and the King's cause declining beyond hope of recovery, Shirley came again to London, and in order to support himself and family, returned his former occupation of teaching a school, in White Fryars, in which he was pretty successful, and, as Wood says, 'educated many ingenious youths, who, afterwards in various faculties, became eminent.' After the Restoration, some of the plays our author had written in his leisure moments, were represented with success, but there is no account whether that giddy Monarch ever rewarded him for his loyalty, and indeed it is more probable he did not, as he pursued the duke of Lauderdale's maxim too closely, of making friends of his enemies, and suffering his friends to shift for themselves, which infamous maxim drew down dishonour on the administration and government of Charles II. Wood further remarks, that Shirley much assisted his patron, the duke of Newcastle, in the composition of his plays, which the duke afterwards published, and was a drudge to John Ogilby in his translation of Homer's Iliad [29] and Odysseys, by writing annotations on them. At length, after Mr. Shirley had lived to the age of 72, in various conditions, having been much agitated in the world, he, with his second wife, was driven by the dismal conflagration that happened in London, Anno 1666, from his habitation in Fleet-street, to another in St. Giles's in the Fields. Where, being overcome with miseries occasioned by the fire, and bending beneath the weight of years, they both died in one day, and their bodies were buried in one grave, in the churchyard of St. Giles's, on October 29, 1666.

The works of this author

  1. Changes, or Love in a Maze, a Comedy, acted at a private house in Salisbury Court, 1632.
  2. Contention for Honour and Riches, a Masque, 1633.
  3. Honoria and Mammon, a Comedy; this Play is grounded on the abovementioned Masque.
  4. The Witty Fair One, a Comedy, acted in Drury Lane, 1633.
  5. The Traitor, a Tragedy, acted by her Majesty's servants, 1635. This Play was originally written by Mr. Rivers, a jesuit, but altered by Shirley.
  6. The Young Admiral, a Tragi-Comedy, acted at a private house in Drury Lane, 1637.
  7. The Example, a Tragi-Comedy, acted in Drury Lane by her Majesty's Servants, 1637.
  8. Hyde Park, a Comedy, acted in Drury Lane, 1637.
  9. The Gamester, a Comedy, acted in Drury Lane, 1637; the plot is taken from Queen Margate's Novels, and the Unlucky Citizen.
  10. The Royal Master, a Tragi-Comedy, acted at the Theatre in Dublin, 1638.
  11. [30] The Duke's Mistress, a Tragi-Comedy, acted by her Majesty's servants, 1638.
  12. The Lady of Pleasure, a Comedy, acted at a private house in Drury Lane, 1638.
  13. The Maid's Revenge, a Tragedy, acted at a private house in Drury Lane, with applause, 1639.
  14. Chabot, Admiral of France, a Tragedy, acted in Drury Lane, 1639; Mr. Chapman joined in this play; the story may be found in the histories of the reign of Francis I.
  15. The Ball, a Comedy, acted in Drury Lane, 1639; Mr. Chapman likewise assisted in this Comedy.
  16. Arcadia, a Dramatic Pastoral, performed at the Phænix in Drury Lane by the Queen's servants, 1649.
  17. St. Patrick for Ireland, an Historical Play, 1640; for the plot see Bedes's Life of St. Patrick, &c.
  18. The Humorous Courtier, a Comedy, presented at a private house in Drury Lane, 1640.
  19. Love's Cruelty, a Tragedy, acted by the Queen's servants, 1640.
  20. The Triumph of Beauty, a Masque, 1646; part of this piece seems to be taken from Shakespear's Midsummer's Night's Dream, and Lucian's Dialogues.
  21. The Sisters, a Comedy, acted at a private house in Black Fryars, 1652.
  22. The Brothers, a Comedy, 1652.
  23. The Doubtful Heir, a Tragi-Comedy, acted at Black Fryars, 1652.
  24. The Court Secret, a Tragi-Comedy, acted at a private house in Black Fryars, 1653, dedicated to the Earl of Strafford; this play was printed before it was acted.
  25. The Impostor, a Tragi-Comedy, acted at a private house in Black Fryars, 1653.
  26. [31] The Politician, a Tragedy, acted in Salisbury Court, 1655; part of the plot is taken from the Countess of Montgomery's Urania.
  27. The Grateful Servant, a Tragi-Comedy, acted at a private house in Drury Lane, 1655.
  28. The Gentleman of Venice, a Tragi-Comedy, acted at a private house in Salisbury Court. Plot taken from Gayron's Notes on Don Quixote.
  29. The Contention of Ajax and Ulysses for Achilles's Armour, a Masque, 1658. It is taken from Ovid's Metamorphosis, b. xiii.
  30. Cupid and Death, a Masque, 1658.
  31. Love Tricks, or the School of Compliments, a Comedy, acted by the Duke of York's servants in little Lincoln's-Inn-Fields, 1667.
  32. The Constant Maid, or Love will find out the Way, a Comedy, acted at the New House called the Nursery, in Hatton Garden, 1667.
  33. The Opportunity, a Comedy, acted at the private house in Drury Lane by her Majesty's servants; part of this play is taken from Shakespear's Measure for Measure.
  34. The Wedding, a Comedy, acted at the Phænix in Drury Lane.
  35. A Bird in a Cage, a Comedy, acted in Drury Lane.
  36. The Coronation, a Comedy. This play is printed with Beaumont's and Fletcher's.
  37. The Cardinal, a Tragedy, acted at a private house in Black Fryars.
  38. The Triumph of Peace, a Masque, presented before the King and Queen at Whitehall, 1633, by the Gentlemen of the Four Inns of Court.

We shall present the reader with a quotation taken from a comedy of his, published in Dodsley's collection of old plays, called A Bird in a Cage, p. 234. Jupiter is introduced thus speaking,

[32] Let the music of the spheres,
Captivate their mortal ears;
While Jove descends into this tower,
In a golden streaming shower.
To disguise him from the eye
Of Juno, who is apt to pry
Into my pleasures: I to day
Have bid Ganymede go to play,
And thus stole from Heaven to be
Welcome on earth to Danae.
And see where the princely maid,
On her easy couch is laid,
Fairer than the Queen of Loves,
Drawn about with milky doves.

Footnotes:

  1. Athen. Oxon. p 376
  2. Wood, ubi supra.

James Howel, Esq;

Was born at Abernant in Carmarthenshire, the place where his father was minister, in the year 1594[1]. Howel himself, in one of his familiar epistles, says, that his ascendant was that hot constellation of Cancer about the middle of the Dog Days. After he was educated in grammar learning in the free school of Hereford, he was sent to Jesus College in the beginning of 1610, took a degree in arts, and then quitted the university. By the help of friends, and a small sum of money his father assisted him with, he travelled for three years into several countries, where he improved himself in the various languages; some years after his return, the reputation of his [33] parts was so great, that he was made choice of to be sent into Spain, to recover of the Spanish monarch a rich English ship, seized by the Viceroy of Sardinia for his master's use, upon some pretence of prohibited goods being found in it.