  This play, named after the chorus, is on the same subject as Calderon’s El Principe Constante, from which the little common to both plays is directly taken. Some of the differences are historic, but the most dramatic. Sala ben Sala, whose fine figure is substituted for Muley, is a famous warrior; and the whole story has this claim on English attention, that the Portuguese Regulus, Ferdinand, and his brother Henry, ‘the Navigator’ of more solid renown, were grandchildren of John of Gaunt, through his daughter Philippa, who was married to King Joam I. The history is shortly given in the King of Fez’s long speech, page 103, line 120 et seq. 1886. In the first edition the hymn Jesu dulcis memoria is directed to be sung to the music written for it by Allegri and Anerio. This was intended to indicate the sort of polyphonic music which I imagined for the stage effect. As the date of the play must be about 1420 its use would be an anachronism, but it is one that would never be observed, and it may therefore fairly be allowed. 1902. THE HUMOURS OF THE COURTThe Humours of the Court is founded on two Spanish comedies, which when I read them, appeared to me to be variations of the same story. These are Calderon’s El secreto Á voces, and Lope’s El perro del hortelano; the latter already used by MoliÈre. My play owes its plot to Calderon, and to Lope the first scene of its third act, which is the opening scene of El perro del hortelano. But since in that play the secretary is actually detected in what, in my play, he is only falsely suspected of, and yet, in spite of this, is married by Lope to the Countess, it may be judged that Lope’s play is something farcical. I believe this is a full statement of my indebtedness, for where I have borrowed incident I have not, that I remember, translated. Yattendon, 1893. OXFORD: HORACE HART
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