witnessed by Nashe in his Pierce Penilesse of 1592, where he classes him with Tarlton, Knell, and Bentley, and says, 'Not Roscius nor Aesope, those admyred tragedians that haue liued euer since before Christ was borne, could euer performe more in action than famous Ned Allen'; and in his Strange Newes of the same year, where he says of Edmund Spenser that 'his very name (as that of Ned Allen on the common stage) was able to make an ill matter good'.[1] An undated letter at Dulwich, written to him by an admirer who signs himself W. P., offers a wager in which 'Peele's credit' was also in some way concerned, and in which Alleyn was to have the choice of any one of Bentley's or Knell's plays, and promises that, even if he loses, 'we must and will saie Ned Allen still'.[2] In 1594 The Knack to know a Knave is ascribed, quite exceptionally, on its title-page, not to the servants of a particular lord, but to 'Ed. Allen and his Companie'. From 1594 to 1597 Alleyn was one of the Admiral's men (q.v.) at the Rose. He then 'leafte playnge', but resumed at the request of the Queen, although apparently without becoming a full sharer of the company, when the Fortune (q.v.), which he had built for them, was opened in the autumn of 1600. He became a servant of Prince Henry with the rest of his fellows in 1604, and at the coronation procession on 15 March appeared as the Genius of the City and delivered a 'gratulatory speech' to James 'with excellent action and a well-tun'de, audible voyce'.[3] Further testimonies to his talent are rendered by John Weever;[4] by Ben Jonson, Epigram lxxxix (1616), who equals him to Aesop and Roscius, and himself to Cicero, who praised them; by Heywood, who says, 'Among so many dead let me not forget one yet alive, in his time the most worthy, famous Maister Edward Allen';[5] and by Fuller, who says, 'He was the Roscius of our age, so acting to the life that he made any part (especially a majestic one) to become him.'[6] Of his parts are recorded Faustus,[7] Tamburlaine, Barabas in The Jew of Malta,[8] and Cutlack in aander, The first to Allen, Phoebus did transfer The next, Thames Swans receiu'd fore he coulde land her, Of both more worthy we by Phoebus doome, Then t' Allen Roscius yeeld, to London Rome. </poem> ]play'd:
. . . in Tamberlaine,
</poem> ]*
- ↑ Works, i. 215, 296.
- ↑ Henslowe Papers, 32. The verses on the same theme in Collier, Memoirs, 13, are forged.
- ↑ Dekker, Plays, i. 280.
- ↑ Epigrammes (1599), iv. 23:
In Ed: Allen.
Rome had her Roscius and her Theater,
Her Terence, Plautus, Ennius and Me[n
- ↑ Heywood, Apology, 43.
- ↑ Fuller, Worthies (ed. 1840), ii. 385.
- ↑ S. Rowland, Knave of Clubs (1609), 29:
<poem>
The gull gets on a surplis
With a crosse upon his breast,
Like Allen playing Faustus,
In that manner he was drest. - ↑ Heywood, Epistle to The Jew of Malta (1633), 'the part of the Jew presented by so vnimitable an Actor as M^r Allin'; and Prologue, <poem> And He, then by the best of Actors [in margin 'Allin'
