Recently Recovered "Lost" Tudor Plays with some others

by Unknown

in which the Museum catalogue has made a slight blunder in copying from the title-page, which may be consulted on page 311. Impatient Poverty, as already stated, is mentioned in the old play of Sir Thomas More, itself only extant in a somewhat mutilated manuscript. The passage is as follows:

Moore. I prethee, tell me, what playes have ye?

Player. Diuers, my lord; The Cradle of Securitie, Hit Nayle o' th' Head, Impacient Povertie, The Play of Foure Pees, Diues and Lazarus, Lustie Juuentus, and The Mariage of Witt and Wisedome.—Shakes. Soc. ed., 55-56.

The copy now happily recovered shows the play to have been "newly" printed in 1560 by John King, who was in business at the Sign of the Swan in St. Paul's Churchyard from 1555 to 1561. There is no entry in the Stationers' Register for the year 1560 or earlier. The British Museum copy is a tolerably well-printed black-letter quarto of its kind; it is also in excellent preservation. A reduced facsimile of the title-page is given on page 311, but unfortunately the paper used in these volumes is not altogether suitable for illustrative work. The old copy is, however, announced among The Tudor Drama Facsimile Texts, and will shortly be available in collotype. The collation is A to Eii in 4s (18 leaves). The first sheet (A) has no signature, but the others are regular in notation. Impatient (= intolerable, unendurable) Poverty is by an unknown author, but a very shrewd attribution might even now be made were not the time, as yet, hardly ripe for scientific deductions. The materials are not at hand for anything like a systematic study of pre-Shakespearean dramatic effort and achievement; and the study of isolated plays can, at best, lead to imperfect and perhaps erroneous conclusions. Unquestionably, however, the Tudor drama deserves to be studied, as Shakespeare is now-a-days studied: as a whole, and not piecemeal. But—alack and alack!—where is the accessible material for such an inquiry? Still, if at present we do not know the author's name, we can nevertheless learn something of him from his play. He was evidently a sedate man, serious to a degree, with apparently deep-seated religious principles: note the long-sustained exhortations and the general tone of the play. It is also noteworthy that, for the period, the bawdry is "cut" to the lowest limit. There are no women's parts, and the Vice is a watered-down specimen of his class. There is little internal evidence to enable one to form an idea of the date of composition, though this may, I think, be fixed as probably not earlier than 1545, but before 1552. The allusions to usury seem to point to a period anterior to the repeal by Edward VI. in 1552 of the Usury Act of 37 Henry VIII., which was re-enacted by Elizabeth in 1570. Yet the reference to "the Queen" ([347],d), unless a later interpolation, is obviously to Queen Elizabeth, and not to Queen Mary. The play is too distinctly and settled Protestant—indeed, the tone is even that of "the new learning" victorious—to admit of a Marian chronology. In this latter case the downward limit would be extended at least to 1558. Other allusions are likewise scanty or unilluminating—"Joy and solace be in this hall" ([321],a), seems suggestive of a College or Inns of Court audience, as distinguished from a purely Court performance; the joining of simony with covetise ([325],c) recalls the Edward VI. Act against simony (1552); "Conscience, the high judge of the law" ([328],b), is reminiscent of Respublica: cf. 227,d; other references are to Newgate, Tyburn, the Fleur de Lys, etc., but they do not appear to have any special meaning. The present text is transcribed direct from a rotary-bromide copy of the original, and having been twice collated, once with the photo-text, and again finally with the original, it will, I hope, be found as accurate as human care can make it. Variations and Corrigenda are as follows: The colophon ([312],d) is in original given on Eii. v. at the end of the play—The text begins at the top of Aii r without title—The stage directions in brackets do not appear in the original—The names of the speakers are in the present text systematised a little, and are consequently, in some cases, slightly different to the original—"What people are tho[se]" ([314],a), in original tho (A.S. = those)—"for shame thou shouldst bear" ([315],a), in original shuls—"that with humility" ([316],b), in original humyly—"Thy very duty" ([317],a), in original They—"this well I knaw" ([317],a), in original wyll—"Let it be tryd by manhood, and thereto I give thee my glove" ([317],c), in original tryet and thertho—"I pray you sir" ([317],d), in original your—"I hold it punishment" ([318],a), in original punisshment—"Nay by God! there ho!" ([318],d), in original good ... hoo—"I break your head" ([319],a), in original heed—"Pater dimitte illis" ([319],b), in original misprinted dimitie—"beati pauperes spiritu" ([319],b), in original beaty pauperes spiritu—"As it doth often" ([320],c), in original doeth—"Exeunt ambo" ([320],d), in original Exiunt ambo—[Enter Abundance] ([321],a), throughout this is Haboundaunce—"though he would" ([321],d), in original thought—"be openly known" ([321],d), in original he—"Singular commodum" ([321],d), so in original—"to them that are needy" ([322],a), in original theym—"Because I may forbear" ([322],b), in original Bycause—"Cons. Evensine very shame" ([322],b), in original, Evensynne—"Cons. To make restitution" ([324],a), in original Doo—"Make amends" ([324],c), in original Mke—"you cannot come in" ([324],d), should be thou, as in original—"Now in faith" ([326],b), in original fayte—"He goeth in a cloak" ([327],b), in original clocke—"the temporalty" ([327],c), in original themporaltye—"pride, sloth, and lechery" ([327],c), in original slewth—"Set covetire in your room" ([328],b), in original rowm—"[Envy] Y-wys, cousin" ([328],d), not in original, but the speech is clearly to Envy—"by Cocks passion" ([330],a), in original coxs; so also at 330,c—"I have of gold three hundred pound" ([331],a), in original hundreth—"I am your kinsman" ([331],b), in original Kyngman—"Ye must have more servants" ([331],c), in original moo—"most expedient" ([331],c), original expedyende—"Because he can so well sing" ([332],b), in original Bycause—"Tush! take no thought" ([332],d), in original though—"at a pinch ... broad as an inch" ([333],d), the punctuation may not rightly interpret the exact sense here, but it seems elliptical and to require If before her heel: i.e. how little light-heeled she were she would still serve to inflame Prosperity; the whole speech in original is without a single punctuation mark—"Because he is old" ([333],d), in original Bycause—The signature ([335],d) given as B1,r should of course have been D1,r—"That so can read his destiny" ([336],a), in original destanye—"tell me at one word" ([337],a), in original our—"obscured with clouds" ([337],d), original obscrued—Colhazard (passim), this in original is variously spelt; Colhasard, Collhasard, Colehazard, Collhassard, etc.—"Sober your mood" ([340],a), in original sobre you mode—"won all my good" ([340],c), original wome—"Cannot chance a main groat" ([341],c), original man—"for I obtain all thing" ([343],a), in original optayne—"upon you a great slande[r]" ([343],c), in original sclaunde—"and live in great advoutry" ([343],d), original misprints aduantrye—"what will ye then say" ([344],a), original thed—"And then sayeth the Sumner" ([344],b), original them ... somuer—"be unto God" ([344],c), original into—"brought me to this distress" ([345],a), original his—"leeful for a callet" ([345],b), original called—"and great usurers" ([345],c), in original usures—"Bawds, advouterers" ([345],c), in original Bandes—"fornicators, and escheaters" ([345],c), in original echeters—"made his purgation" ([345],d), original is—"as Thou art omnipotent" ([347],d), in original onypotent.

In, (a) in manus tuas (M[23],b), from Psalm xxx. 6: in manus tuas commendo spiritum meum = into Thy hands I commit my spirit. The queck in text should not have been in italics.

(b) "i[n] forma juris d'hazard" (M[29],c), restored by Prof. Brandl: in original, "do yt forma jurys dasard."

Incroke, "He took of her an incroke" (IP[326],c),?—As a verb, Murray has incrook and inkroke = to bend or bow down; e.g. in Rom. xi. 10, the phrase "and bow down their back alway" is given by Wyclif as "in kroke" their back.

Ingham, see Macro Plays.

Inquest, "to do at your inquest" (R[234],b), request: in original, enquest.