VOL. II. Tragedy of Sir John Van Olden Barnavelt. In The Athenaeum of January 19, 1884, my friend, Mr. S.L. Lee, pointed out that the first performance of this remarkable play took place in August, 1619. I had thrown out the suggestion that the play was produced at Michaelmas, 1619. "I have been fortunate enough," says Mr. Lee, "to meet with passages in the State Papers that give us positive information on this point. In two letters from Thomas Locke to Carleton, the English ambassador at the Hague, I have found accounts of the circumstances under which the tragedy was first performed in London. The earlier passage runs as follows:—'The Players heere', writes Locke in London on August 14th, 1619, 'were bringing of Barnevelt vpon the stage, and had bestowed a great deale of mony to prepare all things for the purpose, but at th'instant were prohibited by my Lo: of London' (Domestic State Papers, James I., vol. cx. No. 18). The play was thus ready on August 14th, 1619, and its performance was hindered by John King, Bishop of London. The excitement that the Arminian controversy had excited in England would sufficiently account for the prohibition. But the bishop did not persist in his obstruction. On August 27th following Locke tells a different story. His words are: 'Our players haue fownd the meanes to goe through with the play of Barnevelt, and it hath had many spectators and receaued applause: yet some say that (according to the proverbe) the diuill is not so bad as he is painted, and that Barnavelt should perswade Ledenberg to make away himself (when he came to see him after he was prisoner) to prevent the discovrie of the plott, and to tell him that when they were both dead (as though he meant to do the like) they might sift it out of their ashes, was thought to be a point strayned. When Barnevelt vnderstood of Ledenberg's death he comforted himself, which before he refused to do, but when he perceaueth himself to be arested, then he hath no remedie, but with all speede biddeth his wife send to the Fr: Ambr: which she did and he spake for him, &c.' (Domestic State Papers, James I., vol. cx. No. 37). Locke is here refering to episodes occurring in the play from the third act onwards. In Act III. sc. iv. Leidenberch is visited in prison by Barnavelt, who bids him 'dye willingly, dye sodainely and bravely,' and adds, 'So will I: then let 'em sift our Actions from our ashes,'—words that Locke roughly quotes (see p. 262 of Mr. Bullen's 'Old Plays,' vol. ii.). The first performance of the tragedy we may thus assign to a day immediately preceding the 27th of August, 1619. When we remember that Barnavelt was executed on May 13th of the same year, we have in this play another striking instance of the literal interpretation given by dramatists of the day to Hamlet's definition of the purpose of playing."

I have tried hard to decipher the passages that are scored through (probably by the censor's pen) in the MS., but hitherto I have not had much success.

Vol. III.—The Wisdome of Doctor Dodypoll.

The stealing of an enchanter's cup at a fairy feast by a peasant is a favourite subject of fairy mythology. See Ritson's Fairy Tales.

The Distracted Emperor.

William Tyndale in his Practyse of Prelates, 1530, relates the wild legend of Charlemagne's dotage:—"And beyond all that, the saying is that in his old age a whore had so bewitched him with a ring and a pearl in it and I wot not what imagery graven therein, that he went a salt after her as a dog after a bitch and the dotehead was beside himself and whole out of his mind: insomuch that when the whore was dead he could not depart from the dead corpse but caused it to be embalmed and to be carried with him whithersoever he went, so that all the world wondered at him; till at the last his lords accombered with carrying her from place to place and ashamed that so old a man, so great an emperor, and such a most Christian king, on whom and on whose deeds every man's eyes were set, should dote on a dead whore, took counsel what should be the cause: and it was concluded that it must needs be by enchantment. Then they went unto the coffin, and opened it, and sought and found this ring on her finger; which one of the lords took off, and put it on his own finger. When the ring was off, he commanded to bury her, regarding her no longer. Nevertheless he cast a fantasy unto this lord, and began to dote as fast on him, so that he might never be out of sight; but where our Charles was, there must that lord also be; and what Charles did, that must he be privy unto: until that this lord, perceiving that it came because of this enchanted ring, for very pain and tediousness took and cast it into a well at Acon [Aix la Chapelle], in Dutchland. And after that the ring was in the well, the emperor could never depart from the town; but in the said place where the ring was cast, though it were a foul morass, yet he built a goodly monastery in the worship of our lady, and thither brought relics from whence he could get them, and pardons to sanctify the place, and to make it more haunted. And there he lieth, and is a saint, as right is: for he did for Christ's Vicar as much as the great Turk for Mahomet; but to save his holiness, that he might be canonised for a saint, they feign that his abiding there so continually was for the hot-baths' sake which be there." (Works, ed. Parker Society, ii. 265.)

Burton in the Anatomy of Melancholy, Part iii., Sect. 2, Memb. 3,
Subs. 5, briefly narrates the story.

In the first scene of the Distracted Emperor, l. 17, for the reading of the MS. "Can propp thy mynde, fortune's shame upon thee!" we should undoubtedly substitute "Can propp thy ruynde fortunes? shame upon thee!"

Dr. Reinhold KÖhler of Weimar explains once for all the enigmatical letters at the end of the play:—"The line denotes:

Nella fidelta finiro la vita.

For as the letters [Greeek: ph d ph n r] must be read by their Greek names, so must also the B—better written [Greek: B]—be read by its Greek name [Greek: Baeta], or by Neo-Greek pronunciation vita. With this meaning the line is given in the work of Etienne Tabourot 'Les Bizarrures du Seigneur des Accords,' which is said to have appeared first in 1572 or 1582, in Chap. ii. on 'rÉbus par lettres.' I only know the passage by a quotation in an interesting work by Johannes Ochmann 'Zur Kentniss der Rebus,' Oppeln, 1861, p. 18. I have also found our rebus in a German novel entitled 'The Wonderful Life of the Merry Hazard,' Cosmopoli, 1706. In this book, p. 282, it is related that a priest wrote as a souvenir in Hazard's album:—

'Nella [Greek: phd]. [Greek: phnr] la [Greek: B].
As an assurance of his heart
That knows no joking
It said' … …

And further (p. 283):—'Hazard knew not what to make of these mere Greek letters and spent several days in fruitless thoughts, until the priest let him understand that he was only to pronounce them, then he would hear from the sounds that it was Italian and meant: Nella fideltÁ finirÓ la vita.' This is the solution of the various hypotheses that have been set up about the meaning of 'la B.'"

Vol. IV.—Everie Woman in her Humor.

P. 312 "Phy. Boy!—Sleepe wayward thoughts." The words "sleepe wayward thoughts" are from a song in Dowland's First Book of Songs or Airs of four parts, 1597. In Oliphant's Musa Madrigalesca the song is given thus:—

"Sleep, wayward thoughts, and rest you with my love;
Let not my love be with my love displeased;
Touch not, proud hands, lest you her anger move,
But pine you with my longings long diseased.
Thus, while she sleeps, I sorrow for her sake;
So sleeps my love—and yet my love doth wake.

But, oh! the fury of my restless fear,
The hidden anguish of my chaste desires;
The glories and the beauties that appear
Between her brows, near Cupid's closed fires!
Sleep, dainty love, while I sigh for thy sake;
So sleeps my love,—and yet my love doth wake."

P.335. "For I did but kisse her."—Mr. Ebsworth kindly informs me that these words are from a song (No. 19) in The First Booke of Songs and Ayres (1601?) composed by Robert Jones. The song runs:—

"My Mistris sings no other song
But stil complains I did her wrong.
Beleeue her not, it was not so,
I did but kiss her and let her go.

And now she sweares I did, but what,
Nay, nay, I must not tell you that:
And yet I will, it is so sweete,
As teehee tahha when louers meet.

But womens words they are heedlesse,
To tell you more it is needlesse:
I ranne and caught her by the arme
And then I kist her, this was no harme.

But she alas is angrie still,
Which sheweth but a womans will:
She bites the lippe and cries fie, fie,
And kissing sweetly away she doth flie.

Yet sure her lookes bewraies content
And cunningly her bra[w]les are meant:
As louers use to play and sport,
When time and leisure is too short."

On p. 373 Philautus gives another quotation from the same song.

P. 340. "The fryer was in the—." Mr. Ebsworth writes:—"This song is extant among the Pepysian Ballads (the missing word is equivalent to 'Jakes'): original of 'The Friar in the Well.'"