331. It may, however, be founded on some French romance.
332. The play will be found in Hazlitt's 'Dodsley,' vol. xii, whence I quote. Hazlitt suggests that 'the episode of Sylvia and Thyrsis' may have had its foundation in certain intrigues traceable in Digby's memoirs, and Fleay would see in the characters of Stella and Mirtillus a hint of Dorset's liaison with Lady Venetia. I suppose that it has been thought necessary to find allusions to actual persons, chiefly because the author explicitly denies their existence. Homer Smith describes the play as a pure Arcadian drama. 'The court element,' he writes, 'is so completely overshadowed by the pastoral' as to justify the classification, in spite, apparently, of the fact that the heroine never appears on the stage in pastoral guise at all, and that in the greater part of the last three acts the scene is laid at court.
333. See above, p. 246, for Fanshawe's version of the passage in question.
334. Were it not for these points of similarity, I should have supposed Gosse to have been misled by the pastoral-sounding title of Randolph's Plautine comedy into confusing it with the Amyntas. The criticism is from an article in the Cornhill for December, 1876. Homer Smith cites it.
335. The surname rests on Kirkman's authority, the addition of the Christian name is apparently due to Chetwood, and is therefore to be accepted with caution. I have been unable to trace any one of the name.
336. II. ii, sig. C 1^v of the old edition.
337. Halliwell, Description of MSS. in the Public Library, Plymouth, to which are added Some Fragments of Early Literature hitherto unpublished. MS. CII is a copy of the original manuscript in the possession of Sir E. Dering. A manuscript of the play was in Quaritch's Catalogue for November, 1899; I have been unable to trace it.
338. I may take the opportanity of mentioning in a note one or two Latin plays. In Emmanuel College (to the courtesy of whose librarian, Mr. E. S. Shuckburgh, I am much indebted) is preserved the manuscript of a play entitled Parthenia, which was no doubt acted at Cambridge, but concerning which no record apparently survives. The introduction of 'Pan Arcadiae deus' and of a character 'Cacius Latro' show that the piece was influenced both by the mythological drama and the romance of adventure. The most interesting point about the play is that the chief male characters bear the names of Philissides and Amyntas, which will be recognized as the pastoral titles of Sidney and Watson respectively. Since, however, the handwriting appears to be after 1600, and there is no correspondeuce in the female parts, it is more than doubtful whether any allusion was intended. Another Cambridge piece is the Silvanus, a MS. of which is in the Bodleian (Douce 234). It was performed on January 13, 1596, and may possibly have been written by one Anthony Rollinson--the name is erased.
339. Bullen's Peele, i.p. 363.
340. The only recorded copy of the original is in the British Museum, but is imperfect, having the title-page in facsimile from some other copy at present unknown. A reprint from another copy, possibly of a different edition, is found in Nichols' Progresses of Elisabeth, from which a modernized reprint was prepared by the Lee Priory Press in 1815. Finally, it appears in Mr. Bond's edition of Lyly, i. p. 471, whence I quote.