which an indiscreet editor thereupon ascribed to George Ferrers (cf. s.v. Sir H. Lee).
NATHAN FIELD (1587-?).
For life vide supra Actors (ch. xv).
A Woman is a Weathercock. 1609 (?) S. R. 1611, Nov. 23 (Buck). 'A booke called, A woman is a weather-*cocke, beinge a Comedye.' John Budge (Arber, iii. 471). 1612. A Woman is a Weather-cocke. A New Comedy, As it was acted before the King in White-Hall. And diuers times Priuately at the White-Friers, By the Children of her Maiesties Reuels. Written by Nat: Field. For John Budge. [Epistles to Any Woman that hath been no Weathercock and to the Reader, both signed 'N. F.', and Commendatory verses 'To his loved son, Nat. Field, and his Weather-*cock Woman', signed 'George Chapman'.] Editions in O. E. D. (1830, ii), by J. P. Collier (1833, Five Old Plays), in Dodsley^4 (1875, xi), and by A. W. Verity in Nero and Other Plays (1888, Mermaid Series). This must, I suppose, have been one of the five plays given at Court by the Children of the Whitefriars in the winter of 1609-10. Fleay, i. 185, notes that I. ii refers to the Cleve wars, which began in 1609. The Revels children were not at Court in 1610-11. In his verses to The Faithful Shepherdess (1609-10) Field hopes for his 'muse in swathing clouts', to 'perfect such a work as' Fletcher's. The first Epistle promises that when his next play is printed, any woman 'shall see what amends I have made to her and all the sex'; the second ends, 'If thou hast anything to say to me, thou know'st where to hear of me for a year or two, and no more, I assure thee', as if Field did not mean to spend his life as a player.
Amends for Ladies. > 1611
1618. Amends for Ladies. A Comedie. As it was acted at the Blacke-Fryers, both by the Princes Seruants, and the Lady Elizabeths. By Nat. Field. G. Eld for Math. Walbancke.
1639. . . . With the merry prankes of Moll Cut-Purse: Or, the humour of roaring A Comedy full of honest mirth and wit. . . . Io. Okes for Math. Walbancke.
Editions, with A W. is a W. (q.v.).
The title-page points to performances in Porter's Hall (c. 1615-16) by the combined companies of the Prince and Princess; but the Epistle to A W. is a W. (q.v.) makes it clear that the play was at least planned, and probably written, by the end of 1611. Collier, iii. 434, and Fleay, i. 201, confirm this from an allusion to the play in A. Stafford's Admonition to a Discontented Romanist, appended to his Niobe Dissolved into a Nilus (S. R. 10 Oct. 1611). Fleay is less happy in fixing an inferior limit of date by the publication of the version of the Curious Impertinent story in Shelton's Don Quixote (1612), since that story was certainly available in Baudouin's French translation as early as 1608.
