i. 59, Stoll, and Parrott all arrive at 1604 for the date, which is

rendered probable by allusions to the Jacobean knights (I. i. 263; IV. ii. 77), to the calling in of monopolies (I. i. 284), to the preparation of costly embassies (IV. ii. 114), and perhaps to the royal dislike of tobacco (II. ii. 164). There is a reminiscence of _Hamlet_, III. ii. 393, in II. ii. 91:

our great men Like to a mass of clouds that now seem like An elephant, and straightways like an ox, And then a mouse.

On the inadequate ground that woman’s ‘will’ is mentioned in II. i. 89, Fleay regarded the play as a revision of one written by Chapman for the Admiral’s in 1598 under the title of _The Will of a Woman_. But Greg (_Henslowe_, ii. 194) interprets Henslowe’s entry ‘the iylle of a woman’ as _The Isle of Women_. The 1598 play seems to have been renamed _The Fount of New Fashions_. Hazlitt, _Manual_, 89, 94, says part Heber’s sale included MSS. both of _The Fount of New Fashions_, and of _The Gentleman Usher_ under the title of _The Will of a Woman_, but Greg could not find these in the sale catalogue.

_Bussy D’Ambois. 1604_

_S. R._ 1607, June 3 (Buck). ‘The tragedie of Busye D’Amboise. Made by George Chapman.’ _William Aspley_ (Arber, iii. 350).

1607. Bussy D’Ambois. A Tragedie: As it hath been often presented at Paules. _For William Aspley._

1608. _For William Aspley._ [Another issue.]

1641. As it hath been often Acted with great Applause. Being much corrected and amended by the Author before his death. _A. N. for Robert Lunne._ [Prologue and Epilogue.]

1646. _T. W. for Robert Lunne._ [Another issue.]

1657.... the Author, George Chapman, Gent. Before his death. _For Joshua Kirton._ [Another issue.]

_Editions_ by C. W. Dilke (1814, _O. E. P._ iii), F. S. Boas (1905, _B. L._), W. A. Neilson (1911, _C. E. D._).--_Dissertation_: T. M. Parrott, _The Date of C.’s B. d’A._ (1908, _M. L. R._ iii. 126).

The play was acted by Paul’s, who disappear in 1606. It has been suggested that it dates in some form from 1598 or earlier, because Pero is a female character, and an Admiral’s inventory of 1598 (_Henslowe Papers_, 120) has ‘Perowes sewt, which W^m Sley were’. As Sly had been a Chamberlain’s man since 1594, this must have been a relic of some obsolete play. But the impossible theory seems to have left a trace on the suggestion of Greg (_Henslowe_, ii. 198) that Chapman may have worked on the basis of the series of plays on _The Civil Wars of France_ written by Dekker (q.v.) and others for the Admiral’s at a later date in 1598 than that of the inventories. From one of these plays, however, might come the reminiscence of a ‘trusty Damboys’ in _Satiromastix_ (1601), IV. i. 174. For _Bussy_ itself a jest on ‘leap-year’ (I. ii. 82) points to either 1600 or 1604, and allusions to Elizabeth as an ‘old queen’ (I. ii. 12), to a ‘knight of the new edition’ (I. ii. 124), with which may be compared Day, _Isle of Gulls_ (1606), i. 3, ‘gentlemen ... of the best and last edition, of the Dukes own making’, and to a ‘new denizened lord’ (I. ii. 173) point to 1604 rather than 1600. The play was revived by the King’s men and played at Court on 7 April 1634 (_Variorum_, iii. 237), and to this date probably belongs the prologue in the edition of 1641. Here the actors declare that the piece, which evidently others had ventured to play, was

known, And still believed in Court to be our own.

They add that

Field is gone, Whose action first did give it name,

and that his successor (perhaps Taylor) is prevented by his grey beard from taking the young hero, which therefore falls to a ‘third man’ who has been liked as Richard. Gayton, _Festivous Notes on Don Quixote_ (1654), 25, tells us that Eliard Swanston played Bussy; doubtless he is the third man. The revision of the text, incorporated in the 1641 edition, may obviously date either from this or for some earlier revival. It is not necessary to assume that the performances by Field referred to in the prologue were earlier than 1616, when he joined the King’s. Parrott, however, makes it plausible that they might have been for the Queen’s Revels at Whitefriars in 1609–12, about the time when the _Revenge_ was played by the same company. If so, the Revels must have acquired _Bussy_ after the Paul’s performances ended in 1606. It is, of course, quite possible that they were only recovering a play originally written for them, and carried by Kirkham to Paul’s in 1605.

_Eastward Ho! 1605_

With Jonson and Marston.

_S. R._ 1605, Sept. 4 (Wilson). ‘A Comedie called Eastward Ho:’ _William Aspley and Thomas Thorp_ (Arber, iii. 300).

1605. Eastward Hoe. As It was playd in the Black-friers. By The Children of her Maiesties Reuels. Made by Geo: Chapman. Ben Ionson. Ioh: Marston. _For William Aspley._ [Prologue and Epilogue. Two issues (_a_) and (_b_). Of (_a_) only signatures E_{3} and E_{4} exist, inserted between signatures E_{2} and E_{3} of a complete copy of (_b_) in the Dyce collection; neither Greg, _Masques_, cxxii, nor Parrott, _Comedies_, 862, is quite accurate here.]

1605. _For William Aspley._ [Another edition, reset.]

_Editions_ in Dodsley^{1, 2, 3} (1744–1825), by W. R. Chetwood in _Memoirs of Ben Jonson_ (1756), W. Scott (1810, _A. B. D._ ii), F. E. Schelling (1903, _B. L._), J. W. Cunliffe (1913, _R. E. C._ ii), J. S. Farmer (1914, _S. F. T._); and with Marston’s _Works_ (q.v.).--_Dissertations_: C. Edmonds, _The Original of the Hero in the Comedy of E. H._ (_Athenaeum_, 13 Oct. 1883); H. D. Curtis, _Source of the Petronel-Winifred Plot in E. H._ (1907, _M. P._ v. 105).

Jonson told Drummond in 1619 (Laing, 20): ‘He was dilated by Sir James Murray to the King, for writing something against the Scots, in a play Eastward Hoe, and voluntarly imprissoned himself with Chapman and Marston, who had written it amongst them. The report was, that they should then [have] had their ears cut and noses. After their delivery, he banqueted all his friends; there was Camden, Selden, and others; at the midst of the feast his old Mother dranke to him, and shew him a paper which she had (if the sentence had taken execution) to have mixed in the prisson among his drinke, which was full of lustie strong poison, and that she was no churle, she told, she minded first to have drunk of it herself.’ The _Hatfield MSS._ contain a letter (i) from Jonson (Cunningham, _Jonson_, i. xlix), endorsed ‘1605’, to the Earl of Salisbury, created 4 May 1605. Another copy is in the MS. described by B. Dobell, with ten other letters, of which Dobell, followed by Schelling, prints three by Jonson, (ii) to an unnamed lord, probably Suffolk, (iii) to an unnamed earl, (iv) to an unnamed ‘excellentest of Ladies’, and three by Chapman, (v) to the King, (vi) to Lord Chamberlain Suffolk, (vii) to an unnamed lord, probably also Suffolk. These, with four others by Chapman not printed, have no dates, but all, with (i), seem to refer to the same joint imprisonment of the two poets. In (i) Jonson says that he and Chapman are in prison ‘unexamined and unheard’. The cause is a play of which ‘no man can justly complain’, for since his ‘first error’ and its ‘bondage’ [1597] Jonson has ‘attempered my style’ and his books have never ‘given offence to a nation, to a public order or state, or to any person of honour or authority’. The other letters add a few facts. In (v) Chapman says that the ‘chief offences are but two clawses, and both of them not our owne’; in (vi) that ‘our unhappie booke was presented without your Lordshippes allowance’; and in (vii) that they are grateful for an expected pardon of which they have heard from Lord Aubigny. Castelain, _Jonson_, 901, doubts whether this correspondence refers to _Eastward Ho!_, chiefly because there is no mention of Marston, and after hesitating over _Sejanus_, suggests _Sir Giles Goosecap_ (q.v.), which is not worth consideration. Jonson was in trouble for _Sejanus_ (q.v.), but on grounds not touched on in these letters, and Chapman was not concerned. I feel no doubt that the imprisonment was that for _Eastward Ho!_ Probably Drummond was wrong about Marston, who escaped. His ‘absence’ is noted in the t.p. of Q_{2} of _The Fawn_ (1606), and chaffed by A. Nixon, _The Black Year_ (1606): ‘Others ... arraign other mens works ... when their own are sacrificed in Paul’s Churchyard, for bringing in the Dutch Courtesan to corrupt English conditions and sent away westward for carping both at court, city, and country.’ Evidently Jonson and Chapman, justly or not, put the blame of the obnoxious clauses upon him, and renewed acrimony against Jonson may be traced in his Epistles of 1606. I am inclined to think that it was the publication of the play in the autumn of 1605, rather than its presentation on the stage, that brought the poets into trouble. This would account for the suppression of a passage reflecting upon the Scots (III. iii. 40–7) which appeared in the first issue of Q_{1} (cf. Parrott, ii. 862). Other quips at the intruding nation, at James’s liberal knightings, and even at his northern accent (I. ii. 50, 98; II. iii. 83; IV. i. 179) appear to have escaped censure. Nor was the play as a whole banned. It passed to the Lady Elizabeth’s, who revived it in 1613 (_Henslowe Papers_, 71) and gave it at Court on 25 Jan. 1614 (cf. App. B). There seems to be an allusion to Suffolk’s intervention in Chapman’s gratulatory verses to _Sejanus_ (1605):

Most Noble Suffolke, who by Nature Noble, And judgement vertuous, cannot fall by Fortune, Who when our Hearde, came not to drink, but trouble The Muses waters, did a Wall importune, (Midst of assaults) about their sacred River.

The imprisonment was over by Nov. 1605, when Jonson (q.v.) was employed about the Gunpowder plot. I put it and the correspondence in Oct. or Nov. The play may have been staged at any time between that and the staging of Dekker and Webster’s _Westward Hoe_, late in 1604, to which its prologue refers. Several attempts have been made to divide up the play. Fleay, ii. 81, gives Marston I. i-II. i, Chapman II. ii-IV. i, Jonson IV. ii-V. iv. Parrott gives Marston I. i-II. ii, IV. ii, V. i, Chapman II. iii-IV. i, Jonson the prologue and V. ii-v. Cunliffe gives Marston I, III. iii and V. i, the rest to Chapman, and nothing to Jonson but plotting and supervision. All make III. iii a Chapman scene, so that, if Chapman spoke the truth, Marston must have interpolated the obnoxious clauses.

_May Day. c. 1609_

1611. May Day. A witty Comedie, diuers times acted at the Blacke Fryers. Written by George Chapman. _For John Browne._

_Edition_ by C. W. Dilke (1814, _O. E. P._ iv).--_Dissertation_: A. L. Stiefel, _G. C. und das italienische Drama_ (1899, _Jahrbuch_, xxxv. 180).

The _chorus iuvenum_ with which the play opens fixes it to the occupancy of the Blackfriars by the Chapel and Revels in 1600–9. Parrott suggests 1602 on the ground of reminiscences of 1599–1601 plays, of which the most important is a quotation in IV. i. 18 of Marston’s _2 Antonio and Mellida_ (1599), V. ii. 20. But the force of this argument is weakened by the admission of a clear imitation in I. i. 378 _sqq._ of ch. v. of Dekker’s _Gull’s Hornbook_ (1609), which it seems to me a little arbitrary to explain by a revision. The other reasons given by Fleay, i. 57, for a date _c._ 1601 are fantastic. So is his suggestion that the play is founded on the anonymous _Disguises_ produced by the Admiral’s on 2 Oct. 1595, which, as pointed out by Greg (_Henslowe_, ii. 177), rests merely on the fact that the title would be appropriate.

_The Widow’s Tears. 1603 < > 9_

_S. R._ 1612, Apr. 17. _John Browne_ [see _The Revenge of Bussy D’Ambois_].

1612. The Widdowes Teares. A Comedie. As it was often presented in the blacke and white Friers. Written by Geor: Chap. _For John Browne._ [Epistle to Jo. Reed of Mitton, Gloucestershire, signed ‘Geo. Chapman’.]

_Edition_ in Dodsley^{1, 2, 3} (1744–1827).

The play was given at Court on 27 Feb. 1613, but the reference on the title-page to Blackfriars shows that it was originally produced by the Chapel or Revels not later than 1609 and probably before _Byron_ (1608). Wallace, ii. 115, identifies it with the Chapel play seen by the Duke of Stettin in 1602 (cf. ch. xii), but Gerschow’s description in no way, except for the presence of a widow, fits the plot. The reference to the ‘number of strange knights abroad’ (iv. 1. 28) and perhaps also that to the crying down of monopolies (I. i. 125) are Jacobean, rather than Elizabethan (cf. _M. d’Olive_). Fleay, i. 61, and Parrott think that the satire of justice in the last act shows resentment at Chapman’s treatment in connexion with _Eastward Ho!_, and suggest 1605. It would be equally sound to argue that this is just the date when Chapman would have been most careful to avoid criticism of this kind. The Epistle says, ‘This poor comedy (of many desired to see printed) I thought not utterly unworthy that affectionate design in me’.

_Charles, Duke of Byron. 1608_

_S. R._ 1608, June 5 (Buck). ‘A booke called The Conspiracy and Tragedie of Charles Duke of Byronn written by Georg Chapman.’ _Thomas Thorp_ (Arber, iii. 380).

1608. The Conspiracie, And Tragedie of Charles Duke of Byron, Marshall of France. Acted lately in two playes, at the Black-Friers. Written by George Chapman. _G. Eld for Thomas Thorpe._ [Epistle to Sir Thomas and Thomas Walsingham, signed ‘George Chapman’, and Prologue. Half-title to