  In 1782 Isaac Reed attributed Gammer Gurton's Needle to a Dr. John Still, who, in 1563, was raised to the see of Bath and Wells. His reasons for doing this are, on examination, found to be somewhat inconclusive. It seems that he discovered in the accounts of Christ's College an entry referring to a play acted at Christmas, 1567 (not 1566, as he states), and, as this is the latest entry of the kind occurring before 1575—the date of publication—he inferred that it related to the representation of Gammer Gurton's Needle, which in Colwell's title-page (see facsimile on page 1) was stated to have taken place "not longe ago." The only Master of Arts of the college then living whose surname began with S, that he was able to find, was John Still, whom he therefore confidently identified with the "Mr. S." who is said to have written Gammer Gurton's Needle. Curiously enough, another Church dignitary has shared with Dr. Still the attributed authorship of, as Dr. Bradley expresses it, "this very unclerical play"—namely, Dr. John Bridges, Dean of Salisbury and Bishop of Oxford. In John Still was the only son of William Still, Esq., of Grantham, in Lincolnshire, and was born in or about 1543. In 1559 he matriculated as a pensioner in Christ's College, Cambridge, and his record, according to The National Dictionary of Biography, supplemented by W. C. Hazlitt in Dodsley's Old Plays, appears to have been as follows:—B.A. in 1561-2; M.A. in 1565; D.D., 1575; Fellow, 1562; presented to the rectory of St. Martin Outwich, London, in 1570; collated by Archbishop Parker to the rectory of Hadleigh, in Suffolk, 1571; and appointed, with Dr. Watts, by the primate to whom he was chaplain, Joint-Dean of Bocking, 1572. From the deanery of Bocking he rose to the canonry at Westminster, the mastership of St. John's College, Cambridge, the vice-chancellorship of the university on two occasions, the mastership of Trinity College, Cambridge, and finally, the bishopric of Bath and Wells, to which last dignity he was named 1592-3. He died at the episcopal palace at Wells, 1607-8, and was buried, on the 4th April following, in the cathedral, where a handsome monument was erected to his memory. He was twice married, and left behind him several children. John Bridges was educated at Pembroke Hall, Cambridge, his record being:—B.A., 1556; M.A., 1560; Fellow, 1556; D.D. from Canterbury, 1575. He spent some years in Italy, and translated three books of Machiavelli into English, which, however, were not printed. This was followed by a translation The question of authorship has, indeed, always been, more or less, a moot point; the same uncertainty applies also to the question of the date of publication; and, notwithstanding recent research and criticism, these questions cannot even yet be said to be settled beyond a doubt. Dr. Bradley, one of the editors of the Oxford English Dictionary, has recently, in Professor Gayley's Representative English Comedies (Macmillan Co., New York, 1903), sifted the available evidence respecting the date and authorship of the play. I am enabled, through the courtesy of Dr. Bradley and the permission, readily granted, of Messrs. Macmillan and Co., to summarise the facts and inferences which Dr. Bradley adduces against the claims of both The facts are as follows:— 1. The colophon of the earliest known edition of Gammer Gurton's Needle bears date 1575. It also states that it was "played on stage, not longe ago, in Christes Colledge in Cambridge," and was "made by Mr. S., Mr. of Art." 2. The register of the Company of Stationers shows that in 1562-3 Colwell (whose dates as a printer-publisher range from 1561 to 1575) paid 4d. for licence to print a play entitled Dyccon of Bedlam, &c. 3. "Diccon the Bedlam" is a character in Gammer Gurton's Needle, and there is a presumption that the piece licensed to Colwell in 1562-63 was identical with that printed in 1575 under another title; or, as an alternative, that Gammer Gurton was a sequel to Dyccon: but that does not affect the value of the argument, as both would probably be by the same author. 4. If Gammer Gurton's Needle is the play licensed in 1563, the performance at Christ's College must have taken place before that date, for it was not the custom to send a play to the press before it had been acted. 5. In the academic year ending Michaelmas, 6. Therefore, as no evidence to the contrary has been found, it appears highly probable that the "Mr. S." of Gammer Gurton's Needle was Mr. William Stevenson, Fellow of Christ's College from 1559 to 1561, and identical with the person of the same name who was Fellow of the college from 1551 to 1554, and who appears in the bursar's accounts as the author of a play acted in the year 1553-54. 7. It is presumed that he was deprived of his fellowship under Queen Mary, and was reinstated under Elizabeth. Whether Stevenson's play of 1559-60 was that given six years before, or a new one, there is no evidence to show, but the former supposition derives plausibility from the fact that allusions to church matters in Gammer Gurton's Needle seem to indicate a pre-Elizabethan date for its composition. [On this Prof. Gayley (of the University of California, and the general editor of Representative English Comedies) remarks that the reference to the King, Act v. ii. (151c), would strengthen the probability that the play of 1575 (and 1559-60) was originally composed during Stevenson's first fellowship, at any rate before the death of Edward VI.; it might therefore be identical with the play acted in 1553-54.] 8. An objection to Stevenson's authorship of 9. Reverting now to the former attributions of the play to Dr. Bridges and Bishop Still, it is clear, to take the former first, that Dr. Bridges was not "Mr. S." Further, he did not belong to Christ's College, but to Pembroke. These two facts make it difficult to understand why the author of the Martin Marprelate tracts should have thrice claimed for him the authorship of this play, once in the Epistle (1588) and twice in the Epitome. In the first the attribution is somewhat ambiguous; but in the others the writer evidently believed what he stated. Dr. Bradley suggests in explanation that as Dr. Bridges was resident [Reduced Facsimile of Title-page of "The Disobedient Child," from a Copy in the British Museum. [Reduced Facsimile of Title-page of "The Disobedient Child," from a Copy in the British Museum.] So far Dr. Bradley. The arguments against Still's authorship of Gammer Gurton, and in favour of that of Bridges, are stated at length in an article by Mr. C. H. Ross in the nineteenth volume of Anglia (1896). The main contention is that "Mr. S." is a "blind" of some sort, standing, it may be, for the last letter, or the last syllable of the name "Bridges." "This is," remarks Prof. Hales in The Age of Transition, ii. 37, "possible, if not very likely." "Professor Boas," adds the same authority, "is disposed to support the Stevenson theory, but with qualifications. He points out (in a private letter) that it does not follow, because the play was acted at Christ's, that the writer was necessarily a member of that college, and he grants weight to the confident assertion of the Marprelate writer that Bridges was the author, although Bridges was at Pembroke College.... Professor Boas's As regards Still, if Stevenson's authorship be accepted, Reed's conclusion of course falls to the ground; and the extraordinary seriousness of character of Bishop Still renders it incredible that he can ever have distinguished himself as a comic writer. Archbishop Parker, in 1573, speaks of him as "a young man," but "better mortified than some other forty or fifty years of age"; and another eulogist commends "his staidness and gravity." If seriousness had been qualified by wit, there would surely have been some indication of the fact in the vivaciously written account of him given by Harrington, who attests his excellent character, and says that he was a man "to whom I never came but I grew more religious, and from whom I never went but I parted more instructed." But neither there nor elsewhere is there any evidence that he ever made a joke, that he ever wrote a line of verse, or that he had any interests other than those connected with his sacred calling. John Payne Collier, in his History of Dramatic Poetry, noting the fact that Gammer Gurton's Needle was the first existing English play acted at either university, commented on the singular coincidence that the The play is a comedy-farce in five acts, the central idea being the loss by an old dame of her needle, a half-crazy mischief-making wag setting it about that this (at that time of day) precious possession has been stolen by another old woman, the whole village being ultimately set by the ears about the matter. Finally it is found sticking in the breech of Gammer Gurton's man Hodge. The text followed is that of Colwell's edition of 1575, modernised in spelling and punctuation. Copies of the original are to be found in the British Museum, Bodleian, and Huth libraries. It has been several times reprinted, but never before in modern days in a separate form: (1) in quarto in 1661; (2) in Hawkins' Origin of the English Drama, 1773; (3) in all the editions of Dodsley's Old Plays (1744, 1780, 1825, and 1876); (4) in The Ancient British Drama, ed. by Sir W. Scott, 1810; (5) in Old English Drama, 1830; (6) in Prof. Manly's Specimens of the Pre-Shakspearean Drama, 1897; and (7) in Gayley's Representative English Comedies, 1903. A facsimile title-page will be found preceding the text, and the device of Thomas Colwell, the printer of the play, on page 64. The song on page 12 is one of the oldest drinking-songs extant. An older version, modernised in spelling, is given below. Dr. Bradley does not regard it as likely to be "much older than the middle of the sixteenth century (the O.E.D. gives it as c. 1550), and it may possibly be later." As Skelton died 1529, the inference is obvious. Back and side go bare, go bare; [Reduced facsimile of the Title-page of "Gammer Gurton's Needle" from the British Museum Copy. [Reduced facsimile of the Title-page of "Gammer Gurton's Needle" from the British Museum Copy.]
The Names of the Speakers in this Comedy: Diccon, the Bedlam God Save the Queen |
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