(Med. Stage, ii. 454). Fleay, 64; ii. 288, 294, proposes to identify this with the Wit and Will played at court in 1567-8 (cf. App. B), as Will is a character. Meleager (?) B. Dobell, in Athenaeum for 14 Sept. 1901, described a MS. in his possession with the title A Register of all the Noble Men of England sithence the Conquest Created. The date of compilation is probably 1570-90. On f. 3, is the argument in English of a play headed:
Children of Paules Play. Publij Ovidij Nasonis Meleager.
Presumably the play was in English also. It was classical in manner with five acts, a chorus, and dumb-shows. Act I opened with a dumb-show before Melpomene of the Fates, Althea and the burning brand. It seems distinct from the Meleager of W. Gager (q.v.). The Merry Devil of Edmonton c. 1603
S. R. 1607, Oct. 22 (Buck). 'A Plaie called the Merry Devill of Edmonton.' Arthur Johnson (Arber, iii. 362). [The Life and Death of the Merry Devil of Edmonton, entered 5 April 1608, is a pamphlet by T. B.] 1608. The Merry Devill of Edmonton. As it hath beene sundry times Acted, by his Maiesties Seruants, at the Globe, on the banke-*side. Henry Ballard for Arthur Johnson. [Prologue; Induction.] 1612; 1617; 1626; 1631. S. R. 1653, Sept. 9. 'The merry devil of Edmonton, by W^m: Shakespeare.' H. Moseley (Eyre, i. 429). 1655. For William Gilbertson.
Editions in Dodsley (1875, x), and by H. Walker (1897, T. D.), J. S. Farmer (1911, T. F. T.), J. M. Manly (1913, R. E. C. ii), and in collections of Sh. Apocrypha.
Moseley's attribution was repeated in the play lists of Archer in 1656 and Kirkman in 1661 (Greg, Masques, lxxxix), and the play was bound with Mucedorus and Fair Em as 'Shakespeare, vol. i' in Charles II's library. The attempt of Fleay, ii. 313 (cf. his Shakespeare, 294), to show that Sir John the priest was originally called Oldcastle and gave a name to the play is too far-fetched, but it leads him to support a tradition originally based on a note by Coxeter (Dodsley^2, v. 247) that the author was Drayton. He puts it in 1597, apparently because Jessica calls Lancelot a 'merry devil' in M. V. II. iii. 2. But the Host is pretty clearly copied from him of the Merry Wives (c. 1599), and allusions to the king's hunting (IV. i. 158, 186), although perhaps merely part of the historic action, might also have been topical under James I. The play existed by 1604, when it is mentioned in T. M.'s Black Book (Bullen, Middleton, viii. 36). Jonson calls it 'your dear delight' in the prologue to The Devil is an Ass (1616), and it was revived at court on 3 May 1618 (Cunningham, xlv).
