Blacke-friers, by his Maiesties Seruants. . . . The Second Impression,
corrected, and amended. For Thomas Walkley. [Epistle to the Reader by Walkley. Different text of I. i; V. iv, v.] 1628. A. M. for Richard Hawkins. [Epistle by the Stationer to the Understanding Gentry.] 1634; 1639; 1652; N.D. [1663]; 1687. Editions by J. S. L. Strachey (1887, Mermaid, i), F. S. Boas (1898, T. D.), P. A. Daniel (1904, Variorum, i), A. H. Thorndike (1906, B. L.), W. A. Neilson (1911, C. E. D.).—Dissertations: B. Leonhardt, Über die Beziehungen von B. und F.'s P. zu Shakespeare's Hamlet und Cymbeline (1885, Anglia, viii. 424) and Die Text-Varianten von B. und F.'s P. (1896, Anglia, xix. 34). The play is apparently referred to in John Davies of Hereford, Scourge of Folly (S. R. 8 Oct. 1610), ep. 206:
To the well deseruing M^r John Fletcher. Loue lies ableeding, if it should not proue Her vttmost art to shew why it doth loue. Thou being the Subiect (now) It raignes vpon: Raign'st in Arte, Iudgement, and Inuention: For this I loue thee: and can doe no lesse For thine as faire, as faithfull Shepheardesse.
If so, the date 1608-10 is suggested, and I do not think that it is possible to be more precise. No trustworthy argument can be based with Gayley, 342, on the fact that Davies's epigram follows that praising Ostler as 'Roscius' and 'sole king of actors'; and I fear that the view of Thorndike, 65, that 1608 is a 'probable' conjecture is biased by a desire to assume priority to Cymbeline. There were two Court performances in the winter of 1612-13, and Fleay, i. 189, suggests that the versions of I. i and V. iv, v which appear in Q_{1} were made for these. The epistle to Q_{2} describes them as 'dangerous and gaping wounds . . . received in the first impression'. There is general agreement that most of the play, whether Davies knew it or not, is Beaumont's. Most critics assign V. iii, iv and some the whole or parts of I. i, ii, II. ii, iv, and III. ii to Fletcher.
The Coxcomb. 1608 < > 10
1647. The Coxcomb. [Part of F_{1}. Prologue and Epilogue.]
1679. [Part of F_{2}. 'The Principal Actors were Nathan Field, Joseph Taylor, Giles Gary, Emanuel Read, Rich. Allen, Hugh Atawell, Robert Benfeild, Will Barcksted.']
Dissertation: A. S. W. Rosenbach, The Curious-Impertinent in English Dramatic Literature (1902, M. L. N. xvii. 179).
The play was given at Court by the Queen's Revels on 2 or 3 Nov. 1612. It passed, doubtless, through the Lady Elizabeth's, to whom the actor-list probably belongs, to the King's, who took it to Court on 5 March 1622 (Murray, ii. 193) and again on 17 Nov. 1636 (Cunningham, xxiv). There was thus more than one opportunity for the prologue, which speaks of the play as having a mixed reception at first, partly because of its length, then 'long forgot', and now revived
