[404] There are two title-pages to this comedy in the year 1633, but they are both the same edition. The one has the words the second impression upon it; the other is without them; but in all other respects they are precisely similar. Whether the performance did not sell well in the first instance, and the stationer resorted to this expedient to get rid of copies remaining on hand, must be matter of conjecture only.—Collier.
[405] "Thomas May, father of the poet, purchased Mayfield Place, in Sussex (formerly an archiepiscopal palace, and afterwards the seat of the Greshams), of Henry Neville, of Billingbere, Berks, in 1597. He was knighted at Greenwich, July 3, 1603, and died 1616. He was father to Thomas May, the celebrated poet and historian, by whom Mayfield was aliened from the family in 1617: his mother, Joan May, and cousin, Richard May, of Islington, gent. joining with him in the conveyance to John Baker, Esq., whose descendants have ever since enjoyed it."—Nichols's "Leicestershire," iii. 156, note.—Gilchrist.
[406] Life, edit. 1759, p. 35.
[407] Some writers suppose he was disgusted that Sir William Davenant was appointed to succeed Ben Jonson as poet laureate, in the year 1637.
[408] He was appointed to the post of Historiographer by the Parliament.
[409] This poem was dedicated to Charles I. in 1635; hence it appears that he wrote it by command of the king. "Those defects," he says, "whatsoever they be, can be imputed only to insufficiency, for neither was there argument wanting nor yet endeavour, since I had the actions of a great king to require my skill, and the command of a greater king to oblige my care."—Collier.
[410] Thomas May has a complimentary poem prefixed to Pilkinton's "Tournament of Tottenham," &c. 4o. 1631.—Gilchrist.
[411] The subsequent lines are found in "Wit's Recreations," 1641—
"TO MR. THOMAS MAY.
"Thou son of Mercury, whose fluent tongue
Made Lucan finish his Pharsalian song,
Thy fame is equal, better is thy fate,
Thou hast got Charles his love, he Nero's hate."