bestiall forme. Those also stand within the stroke of my penne, who were wont to Curtaine ouer their defects with knauish conueyances, and scum off the froth of all wanton vanity, to qualifie the eager appetite of their slapping Fauorites.'
lx. 1615. J. Cocke.
[The variant texts of this character are here given from the two editions
of John Stephens' essays, in each of which it is Bk. ii, char. 4, viz. (A)
Satyrical Essayes Characters and Others (1615) and (B) Essayes and Characters,
Ironical and Instructive. The second impression (1615), of which a
reprint is in J. O. Halliwell, Old Books of Characters (1857), 131. Between
A and B had appeared the sixth edition of The Wife, with the character of
An Excellent Actor and the reference to a rival as 'the imitating Characterist'
(v. No. lxi). To this the additions in B are a rejoinder, and they
are reinforced by two epistles. One is 'To the namelesse Rayler: who
hath lenghthened his Excellent Actor, a most needy Caracter following
the wife with a peece of dog-skin witt; dressed ouer with oyle of sweaty
Posthorse'. Here the writer, I. S., says he did 'admit a friends Satyre'.
The other epistle, 'To the nameles Author of a late Character entituled,
an Excellent Actor, following the Wife', is signed by 'I. Cocke', who says,
'witnes your gross mistaking of approued and authorised actors for
counterfeit Runagates, or country Players, inueighed against by the
Characterist'. Some appended verses claim for Cocke the authorship of
the Tinker, Apparator, and Almanac-maker in The Wife. It seems clear
that Cocke and not Stephens wrote the present character, and that An
Excellent Actor was a reply to it. It is true that Stephens only speaks
of it as 'lenghthened' by the attack on himself, but 'lenghthened' may
mean 'pieced out', and there is no version, long or short, in any of the
five first editions of The Wife, while a reference to 'the sixt impression
of S. Thomas Overburyes wife' on p. 434 of B shows this was before its
writers. John Stephens (cf. ch. xxiii) was a Lincoln's Inn dramatist.
I cannot find a likely Cocke in the Lincoln's Inn Admission Books; there
is an Isaac Cox, admitted 10 Jan. 1611 (i. 154), and a John Cookes on 6 June
1614 (i. 166). Can the satirist be the John Cooke (cf. ch. xxiii) who wrote
Greene's Tu Quoque?]
A common Player
Is a slow Payer, seldom a Purchaser, never a Puritan. The Statute hath done wisely to acknowledg him a Rogue errant[1], for his chiefe essence is, A daily Counterfeit[2]: He hath beene familiar so long with out-sides, that he professes himselfe (being unknowne) to be an apparant Gentleman. But his thinne Felt, and his silke Stockings, or his foule Linnen, and faire Doublet, doe (in him) bodily reveal the Broker: So beeing not sutable, hee proves a Motley: his mind observing the same fashion of his body: both consist of parcells and
- ↑ errant. Om. A. B has marginal note 'Erratum in the last impression'.
- ↑ B adds in margin, King Agesilaus teaches the respect due to common players in his answere to Callipides, who being a presumptious excellent actor; & thinking himself not graced enough by the kings notice, as the king passed along, doth sawcily interrupt him thus; doth not your grace know me? Yes, said the king, thou art Calipides the Player.
