1591. Campaspe, Played . . . on twelfe day. . . . Thomas Orwin for William Broome.
S. R. 1597, Apr. 12 (in full court). 'Sapho and Phao and Campaspe . . . the which copies were Thomas Cadmans.' Joan Broome (Arber, iii. 82). 1601, Aug. 23 (in full court). 'Copies . . . which belonged to Mystres Brome . . . viz. Sapho and Phao, Campaspe, Endimion, Mydas, Galathea.' George Potter (Arber, iii. 191). Editions in Dodsley^{1-3} (1825, ii), and by W. Scott (1810, A. B. D. i), J. M. Manly (1897, Specimens, ii. 273), G. P. Baker (1903, R. E. C.)—Dissertations: R. Sprenger, Zu J. L.'s C. (1892, E. S. xvi. 156); E. Koeppel, Zu J. L.'s A. und C. (1903, Archiv, cx). The order of the 1584 prints is not quite clear; (c) follows (b), but the absence of any collation of (a) leaves its place conjectural. I conjecture that it came first, partly because a correction in the date of Court performance is more likely to have been made after one inaccurate issue than after two, partly because its abandoned t.p. title serves as running title in all three issues. I do not think the reversion to 'twelfe day' in 1591, when the facts may have been forgotten, carries much weight. If so, the Court production was on a 1 Jan., and although the wording of the t.p. suggests, rather than proves, that it was 1 Jan. in the year of publication, this date fits in with the known facts of Lyly's connexion with the Blackfriars (cf. ch. xvii). The Chamber Accounts (App. B) give the performers on this day as Lord Oxford's servants, but I take this company to have been a combination of Chapel and Paul's children (cf. chh. xii, xiii). Fleay, ii. 39, and Bond, ii. 310, with imperfect lists of Court performances before them, suggest 31 Dec. 1581, taking 'newyeares day at night', rather lamely, for New Year's Eve. So does Feuillerat, 574, but I am not sure that his view will have survived his Blackfriars investigations. In any case, the play must have been written later than Jan. 1580, as Lyly uses Sir T. North's English translation of Plutarch, of which the preface is dated in that month. In a prefatory note by N. W. to S. Daniel, The Worthy Tract of Paulus Jovius (1585), that work is commended above 'Tarlton's toys or the silly enterlude of Diogenes' (Grosart, Daniel, iv. 8).
Sapho and Phao. 3 Mar. 1584
S. R. 1584, Apr. 6. 'Yt is graunted vnto him yat yf he gett ye comedie of Sappho laufully alowed vnto him, then none of this cumpanie shall interrupt him to enjoye yt' (in margin 'Lyllye'). Thomas Cadman (Arber, ii. 430). 1584. Sapho and Phao, Played beefore the Queenes Maiestie on Shrouetewsday, by her Maiesties Children, and the Boyes of Paules. Thomas Dawson for Thomas Cadman. [Prologues 'at the Black fryers' and 'at the Court', and Epilogue.] 1591. Thomas Orwin for William Broome.
S. R. 1597, Apr. 12 }
1601, Aug. 23 } vide supra s.v. Campaspe.
