plays at the end of the season were The Widow's Charm (Munday or Wadeson),[1] William Cartwright (Haughton), Hoffman (Chettle),[2] 2 London Florentine (Chettle and Heywood), The Siege of Dunkirk and Alleyn the Pirate (Massey). The revival of old plays continued. Costumes for Vortigern, one of those bought from Alleyn in the previous year, were in preparation during September, and Alleyn's stock yielded three more, Philip of Spain and Longshanks in August and Tamar Cham, probably the second part, as the extant 'plot' testifies, in October. The last two of these belonged to the Admiral's repertory of 1594-7, but the origin of Philip of Spain is unknown. A book of The Four Sons of Aymon, for which £2 was paid to Robert Shaw, was probably also old, and was bought on condition that Shaw should repay the £2, unless the play was used by the Admiral's or some other company with his consent by Christmas 1604. Bird and Rowley had £4 in September for additions to Dr. Faustus. Dekker completed some alterations of Tasso's Melancholy, another 1594-7 play, in December, and in the same month Middleton wrote 'for the corte' a prologue and epilogue to Greene's Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay, which I should suppose to have been Henslowe's property, as it was played by Strange's men in 1592-3 and the Queen's and Sussex's in 1594. This probably served for the first of the three appearances made by the Admiral's at Court, on 27 December. The other two were on 6 March and on a date unspecified. For one of these occasions Chettle was writing a prologue and epilogue at the end of December, but the play is not named.[3] One of the new plays, Merry as May Be, was intended for Court, when the first payment on account of it was made on 9 November.
On 12 March 1603 Henslowe practically closes the detailed record which he had kept continuously in his diary since October 1597 of his financial transactions, otherwise than by way of rent, with the Admiral's men. A brief review of these is not without interest.[4] His advances from 21 October 1597 to 8 March 1598 amounted to £46 7s. 3d., and to this he took the signatures of the company, with the note, 'Thes men dothe aknowlege this deat to be dewe by them by seatynge
- ↑ All four entries merely show the payments as made to 'Antony the poyete'.
- ↑ Finished later and extant; probably identical with the Danish Tragedy of 1601-2.
- ↑ I suppose that it was the play which Chettle 'layd vnto pane' to Mr. Bromfield, and which had to be redeemed for £1 (Henslowe, i. 174).
- ↑ The more so as I do not think that Dr. Greg's survey in Henslowe. ii. 135, is accurate.
