as well as in the revision, and the problem can best be discussed in connexion with Shakespeare. Sykes gives part to S. Rowley (q.v.).
The Thracian Wonder c. 1600
1661. Two New Playes: Viz. A Cure for a Cuckold: A Comedy. The Thracian Wonder: A Comical History. As it hath been several times Acted with great Applause. Written by John Webster and William Rowley. Tho. Johnson, sold by Francis Kirkman. [Separate t.p. The Thracian Wonder . . . as above. Epistle to the Reader, signed 'Francis Kirkman'.]
Editions by C. W. Dilke (1815, O. E. P. vi), and in collections of Webster (q.v.).—Dissertations: J. le G. Brereton, The Relation of T. W. to Greene's Menaphon (1906, M. L. R. ii. 34); J. Q. Adams, Greene's Menaphon and T. W. (1906, M. P. iii. 317); O. L. Hatcher, The Sources and Authorship of T. W. (1908, M. L. N. xxiii. 16).
The ascription of the title-page is rejected by Stoll, Webster, 34, and modern writers generally, although Stork, Rowley, 61, thinks that Rowley may have added comic touches. The use of Webster's name may be due to the identity of the plot with that of William Webster's Curan and Argentile (1617). But William Webster took it from Warner's Albion's England (1586), iv. xx. From the same source Greene took it, with a change of names, for Menaphon (1589), and it is Menaphon, with another change of names, that the play follows. Brereton ascribes it to Greene himself; Hatcher thinks that the direct plagiarisms from the source and the archaistic phrase 'old Menaphon' (iv. 2), whereas Greene's hero is a youth, point to an early sixteenth-century admirer of Greene. Adams supports the suggestion of Fleay, i. 287, that this is the War Without Blows and Love Without Suit written by Heywood for the Admiral's in 1598, but this is a mere guess based on Heywood's title (Greg, Henslowe, ii. 199). Fleay then supposed that it was revised for Queen Anne's about 1607; elsewhere (ii. 332) he supposes it a dramatization of Webster's story for Prince Charles's about 1617.
Timon c. 1581 < > 90 (?)
[MS.] Dyce MS. 52. [Epilogue. The MS. is a transcript in two hands.]
Editions by A. Dyce (1842, Sh. Soc.) and W. C. Hazlitt (1875, Sh. Libr. ii. 2).—Dissertation: J. Q. Adams, The Timon Plays (1910, J. G. P. ix. 506).
Greek quotations and other pedantries suggest an academic audience, but there is little indication of place or date, beyond parallels with Pedantius, which lead Moore Smith (M. L. R. iii. 143) to suggest Cambridge and c. 1581-90. Adams thinks that the piece may have been performed by London schoolboys, and known to Shakespeare.
