A Select Collection of Old English Plays Volume Xi Part 42

HUS. Not we, sir.

FEE. Then have I something to say to you.

Have you anything to say to me?

BRO. Yes, marry have I, sir.

FEE. Then I have nothing to say to you, for that's the fashion. Father, if you will come away with your cough, do. Let me see, how many challenges I must get writ. You shall hear on me, believe it.

PROUDLY. Nay, we'll not now part angry: stay the feasts, That must attend the weddings. You shall stay.

FEE. Why, then, all friends. I thought you would not have had the manners to bid us stay dinner neither.

HUS. Then all are friends: and lady-wife, I crown Thy virtues with this wreath, that 't may be said, There's a good wife.

BOLD. A widow.

INGEN. And a maid. [_They set garlands on their heads._

WIFE. Yet mine is now approv'd the happiest life, Since each of you hath chang'd to be a wife. [_Exeunt._

FOOTNOTES:

[132] [Edits., _in_.]

[133] _Readiness_, second edit.

[134] Ovid. "Amor." lib. i. el. 5.

[135] In the old copies, by an error, act v. is said again to begin here; it is in fact the second scene of the last act.

[136] The old stage direction states that Subtle enters, _with a letter_, but the words have been misplaced, and should have followed _Brother_, who delivers it to the Lady Honour.

[137] This refers, no doubt, to the scene in the old "most pleasant comedy of 'Mucedorus,'" 1598, when Amadine is pursued by the bear, [vii. 208.]

[138] Old copies, _couching_.

[139] Edits., _I_.

[140] In the margin, opposite what Feesimple says, are inserted the words _Pistols for Bro._, meaning merely to remind the keeper of the properties that at this point it was necessary that Frank, the brother, should be provided with pistols.

[141] [Edits., _For_.]

[142] Old copies read--

"'Twixt this gentleman There have been some love-pa.s.sages, and myself, Which here I free him, and take this lady."

GREEN'S TU QUOQUE;

OR,

THE CITY GALLANT.

_EDITIONS._

(1.) _Greenes Tu quoque, Or, the Cittie Gallant. As it hath beene diuers times acted by the Queenes Maiesties Seruants. Written by Io. Cooke Gent. Printed at London for Iohn Trundle. 1614. 4. Woodcut on t.i.tle._

(2.) _Greenes Tu quoque, Or the Cittie Gallant ... Printed at London for Thomas Dewe and are to be sold at his Shop in Saint Dunstons Church-yard in Fleetstreet. 1622. 4._

(3.) _Greenes Tu Quoque, Or, the Cittie Gallant. As it hath beene divers times acted by the Queenes Majesties Servants. Written by Jo. Cooke Gent. Printed at London by M. Flesher. 4_.[143]

[143] This edition, without a date, was obviously printed after that of 1614, although it has been hitherto placed first on the list of editions, as if it might be that mentioned by Chetwood, and supposed to have been published in 1599.--_Collier._ [Mr Collier does not cite the 4 of 1622.]

INTRODUCTION.

John Cook, the author of this play, is totally unknown. No contemporary writer has taken the least notice of him, nor has any biographer since given the slightest account of his life. All that we are informed of is, that he wrote the following dramatic performance. Langbaine,[144] and the writers since, ascribe the first t.i.tle of it to the excellent performance of Thomas Green in the part of Bubble, whose universal repartee to all compliments is _Tu quoque_. Green was both a writer and actor,[145] and with great probability[146] is supposed to have been a relation of Shakespeare's, and the person by whom he was introduced to the theatre. He was born at Stratford-upon-Avon, which is ascertained by the following lines,[147] spoken by him in one of the old comedies, in the character of a clown:--

"I prattled poesy in my nurse's arms, And, born where late our swan of Avon sung, In Avon's streams we both of us have lav'd, And both came out together."

This pa.s.sage is quoted by Chetwood from the "Two Maids of Moreclack,"

where it is not to be found, though it seems to be a genuine extract; and the writer, by whom it was produced, had perhaps forgotten whence he transcribed it. Heywood, who published this play, says in the preface to it:--"As for Master Greene, all that I will speak of him (and that without flattery) is this: there was not an actor of his nature in his time of better ability in performance of what he undertook, more applauded by the audience, of greater grace at the court, or of more general love in the city." From this preface it appears Green was dead when it was written, and Oldys[148] says there are three epitaphs upon him in Braithwaite's "Remains after Death," 1618, by which it seems that he died after being newly arrived from sea.[149] He was the author of "A Poets Vision and a Princes Glorie. Dedicated to the high and mightie Prince James, King of England, Scotland, France, and Ireland," 4, 1603; and some verses prefixed to [the reprint in octavo of] Drayton's poem on the Barons' Wars. I have seen only two editions of this comedy, one without a date, and the other in 1614, which I apprehend was about the time it was originally published. Chetwood, upon whom no dependence is to be had with respect to dates, a.s.serts it was printed in 1599.[150]

As it is said to have been acted by the Queen's servants, it probably appeared on the stage in the reign of Queen Elizabeth. [There is an entry in the office-book of the Master of the Revels under date of Twelfth Night, 1624, showing that "the masque being put off, and the Prince only there," Tu Quoque, "by the Queen of Bohemia's servants, was acted in its stead."[151]] Langbaine says it was revived after the Restoration at the theatre in Little Lincoln's-Inn-Fields.

"Green's Tu Quoque" is mentioned in "The World's Folly," by I. H., 1615, which contains a general attack on the stage. It would also seem, from the subsequent pa.s.sage, as if Green the actor had performed the part of a baboon:--

"'Vos quoque' *[or, 'Tu quoque,' opposite the asterisk in the margin]

and you also who, with Scylla-barking, Stentor-throated bellowings, flash-choaking squibbles of absurd vanities into the nosthrils of your spectators; barbarously diverting nature and defacing G.o.ds owne image by metamorphosing humane shape* [_Greenes Baboon_ in the margin opposite the asterisk] into b.e.s.t.i.a.ll forme."

FOOTNOTES:

[144] P. 73.

[145] He was an actor at the Red Bull Theatre, as appears by a rather curious scene in the course of this play, where Green is spoken of by name--

"GERALDINE. Why then we'll go to the Red Bull: they say Green's a good clown.