Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 9.djvu/280

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226 NOTES AND QUERIES, r 12 s.ix. SEPT. 17,1921. Act V., sc. ii. The collaboration of the two authors in this final sfcene seems to have been of the most intimate kind, as might be expected, seeing that .nearly all the characters are brought together for a general reconcilia- tion. Every now and then Webster's hand becomes apparent, especially in the passages of verse at the beginning and end. The scene opens with a feeble pun : Lord Beaufort : Sirrah, begone ! you're base. Knavesby : Base, my good lord ! 'Tis a ground part in music, trebles, means, All is but fiddling. As this is put into the mouth of the Clown in ' Appius and Virginia,' III. iv. (III. 187) : . . . though I can sing a treble, yet I am accounted but as one of the base ; and is found in association with the word " fiddle," used equivocally (as again in ' The Devil's Law Case ' and in Webster's part of ' The Fair Maid ' ), there need be no hesitation in attributing it to Webster. And if evidence is sought of his participation in the closing lines of the play, we may with equal confidence assign to him this passage from the last speech of Franklin senior : My son was dead ; whoe'er outlives his virtues Is a dead man. Years ago the late Mr. A. H. Bullen ex- pressed doubts of Middleton's sole author- ship of this play. To him the character of Lady Cressingham seemed more in Shirley's manner than Middleton's, and he suggested that Shirley might have revised and com- pleted the play after Middleton's death. Swinburne (though finding this suggestion "ingenious and plausible") objected that the conception of the character in question was " happier and more original " than could be accounted for on such a hypo- thesis. His high opinion of Lady Cressing- ham is of particular interest in view of the light here thrown upon the identity of her creator. " The young stepmother," ho says, " whose affectation of selfish levity and grasping craft is really designed to cure her husband of his infatuation, and to reconcile him with the son who regards her as his worst enemy, is a figure equally novel, effective and attractive."* Dyce dated this play 1617, on very slender grounds. If the passage in II. i. to which I have alluded does refer to ' A Cure for a Cuckold,' it cannot have been written much before 1626, the year previous to Middleton's death, the internal evidence that the latter play followed Massinger's ' Parliament of Love ' being too strong to be resisted. H. DUGDALE SYKES. Enfield.

  • ' The Age of Shakespeare,' p. 160.

PRINCIPAL LONDON COFFEE-HOUSES, TAVERNS, AND INNS IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. (See 12 S. vii. 485; ix. 85, 105, 143, 186.) (An asterisk denotes that the house still exists as a tavern, inn or public-house in -many cases rebuilt.) Haddock's Bagnio. Half Moon ., Half Moon . . Half Moon . . Half Moon Half Moon and Punchbowl Half-way House Hamlin's Hampstead

  • Hand and Flower

Cdvent Garden Strand Upper Holloway Southwark . . Half Moon Street Buckle Street, Whitechapel . . Kensington Turnpike Swithin's Alley, near the Royal Exchange High Street, Hampstead Hammersmith Road 1770 'Trials for Adultery,' 1780, ii. 216. 1723 Lane's 'Handy Book,' p. 167. - Midd. and Herts Notes and Queries, 1898, iv. 127. Larwood, p. 500. Thornbury, ii. 274. 1732 ' Parish Clerks' Remarks of London,' p. 385. Painting in Bishopsgate Institute. Larwood, p. 388. Thornbury, v. 121-2. 1712 Defoe to Lord Harley : Portland MSS., Oct. 3. 1720 Daily Courant, Aug. 25. 1744 London Daily Post, Feb. 21. 1749 General Advertiser -, June 8. 1773 Copy of the Court Rolls of the Manor of Hampstead. 1790 Public Advertiser, Jan. 2.