402
NOTES AND QUERIES. [12 s. i. MAY 20, me.
Literature') both refer to the possibility of Glapthorne's authorship without committing themselves to a decision; while Prof. Schelling ('Elizabethan Drama'), though of opinion that "the play is possessed of more motion than any drama of Chapman's," considers it to be "of a general excellence beyond the reach of Glapthorne." It requires, however, no very close study of Glapthorne's acknowledged work to show that it is his.
Glapthorne's dramas—or rather the dramas published under his name and recognized as authentic—are five in number: 'Argalus and Parthenia,' published in 1639; and 'The Hollander,' 'Wit in a Constable,' 'The Tragedy of Albertus Wallenstein,' and 'The Ladies Priviledge,' published in 1640. All of these plays were written between 1634 and 1640. He has also left us a collection of 'Poems' published in 1639; some lines 'On the Death and Poems of his most deare friend Master Thomas Beedome,' 1641; and 'White-Hall, a Poem,' written in 1642, and published in the following year with 'Elegies' on the deaths of Francis, Earl of Bedford; Henry, Earl of Manchester; and Mrs. Anne Kirk. A single reading of these productions has furnished me with the evidence of Glapthorne's authorship of 'Revenge for Honour' here presented.
Turning first to the prologue to the play, we find that "our Author" bewails the impossibility of satisfying the "several phantasies" of the playgoing public of his day. "Hard and severe," he says—
Hard and severe the task is then to write
So as may please each various appetite.
The same complaint, in much the same sort of language, is made in the prologue to 'The Ladies Priviledge.' Again it is "our Author" who speaks, and here he asks:—
How shall we then Please the so various appetites of men ?
I have spoken of Massinger's influence on the author of ' Revenge for Honour.' This is very noticeable in the measured, argumen- tative rhetoric of the speeches of Mura and Tarifa in Acts II., III., and IV. It is even more apparent in parts of ' Argalus and Parthenia,' ' Albertus Wallenstein,' and ' The Ladies Priviledge,' where Glapthorne not only imitates Massinger's style, but not infre- quently borrows his characteristic metaphors and turns of expression. But, apart from these imitations, there is another respect in which Glapthorne resembles Massinger, and that is in his habit of self-repetition. He repeats himself almost as frequently as
Massinger does, and a great deal more-
fragrantly. Two of the more conspicuous of
these repetitions are noted in Pearson's-
edition of his works, where it is pointed out
that a passage seven lines in length, be-
ginning with the words,
Time shall depend like summer on your brow, which appears in Act III. of ' The Hollander/ is reproduced verbatim in Act III. of ' The- Ladies Priviledge'; and that a sixteen-line elegy ' Upon the Death of his Sister, Mrs, Priscilla Glapthorne ' (Pearson, ii. 212), is made to do service again (as an elegy for Parthenia) at the end of ' Argalus and Parthenia.' Even a superficial examination, of his work has been sufficient to disclose several other repetitions of the same kind.. Two ' Epithalamiums/ of sixteen and twenty- two lines each respectively, and the first ten lines of a love-song, all printed among the ' Poems ' (Pearson, ii. 189, 190, and 193),, have also, with a few verbal differences, beep, introduced into the play last named. This being so, if ' Revenge for Honour ' is Glap- thorne's we need not be surprised to find that it contains lines that are also to be- found in 'The Ladies Priviledge.' At the beginning of Act II. sc. ii. of ' Revenge for- Honour ' we find :
Caropia. . . The amorous Turtles, that at first
acquaintance
Strive to expresse in murmuring notes their loves,. Do, when agreed on their affections, change Their chirps to billing.
Abilqualit. And in feather'd arms
Incompasse mutually their gawdy neckes. and in Act I. of ' The Ladies Priviledge ' :
The modest Turtles which
In view of other more lascivious Birds
Exchange their innocent loves in timerous sighes,.
Do when alone most prittily convert
Their chirps to billing ; and with feather'd armes
Encompasse mutually their gawdy neckes.
This alone, taken in conjunction with the- external evidence to which I have referred,, should be conclusive of Glapthorne's author- ship. But I will add a few parallels with, other passages in the play * :
1 who though she be not clad
In Persian silks, or costly Tyrian purples.
I. i. 289.
Mars did not wooe the Queen of Love in Armes, - But wrapt his batter'd limbs in Persian silks, Or costly Tyrian purples.
' Argalus and Parthenia,' I. i. 9.
- The editions used are Pearson's edition of
Chapman's ' Dramatic Works,' 1873, in 3 vols. (vol. iii.), and his two-volume edition of Glap- thorne's ' Plays and Poems,' 1874. References to the plays are by act and scene (or act alone), followed by the page of the volume upon which the passage quoted occurs.
