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The Shares of Fletcher and his Collaborators in the
Beaumont and
Fletcher Canon (V)
by
Cyrus Hoy
In this fifth section of the present study, the shares of Fletcher's collaborators loom larger than do Fletcher's own. Of the five plays considered herein, his work is clearly evident in only one, The Maid in the Mill, written in collaboration with William Rowley. There are traces of Fletcher in a single scene of The Fair Maid of the Inn, but they are faint, and the supposition would seem to be that Fletcher's share in this, presumably the last play on which he worked, was assumed by Ford who, writing in collaboration with Massinger and Webster, brought the play to completion after his death. In the three remaining plays, I find traces of Fletcher in only one, The Nice Valour. Studies of the authorship problem prior to this one have suggested the possibility of Middleton's presence in this play, and I think that the extant text is, in all essential respects, his work, though whether he is present in the play as Fletcher's reviser or collaborator is impossible to say. But to prove his presence on the basis of linguistic evidence alone is not possible. There is nothing inconsistent between the linguistic pattern of The Nice Valour and that which emerges from Middleton's unaided plays, but evidence of a conclusive sort is lacking. So it is with the fourth play considered, The Laws of Candy. Previous studies of the authorship problem have suggested Ford as the sole or partial author of this play, and I am personally persuaded that it is his; but again the linguistic evidence is such that, while it does not rule out the possibility of attributing the play to Ford, neither does it establish his presence in it. And so, while I have attributed the major share of The Nice Valour to Middleton, and all of The Laws of Candy to Ford, I cannot suppose the authorship of either play to be proved on the basis of the evidence set forth below. With regard to the remaining play that is considered here, Wit at Several Weapons, I feel on somewhat surer ground, for I am able to adduce some linguistic
I
The claims of Middleton and Rowley to a share in the plays of the canon will be dealt with first. Linguistic evidence for the unaided plays of Middleton, together with a selection of his city entertainments, is given in tabular form at the end of this section of the present study. Of the thirteen plays listed there, only two, The Widow and No Wit, No Help Like a Woman's, raise any question as to Middleton's unaided authorship. The Widow was published in quarto in 1652 with a title-page ascription to Middleton, Fletcher, and Jonson. The Simpsons can find no trace of Jonson in the extant text, and as they observe,[1] Fletcher is no less difficult to discover in the play. To set the linguistic forms that the play exhibits against those displayed in the body of Middleton's unaided work is to show how much of a piece they are, and how uncharacteristic of Fletcher the language pattern of The Widow—with its 3 ye's, its 35 y's, its 26 ha's—is. No Wit, No Help was first published in the 1657 octavo edition of Middleton's Two New Plays. The play is generally held to have undergone certain revisions by Shirley, the reference in III, 1 to the year 1638 as the present year (a date eleven years after Middleton's death) being the clearest sign of a non-authorial hand.[2] But while the 1657 octavo text does not exhibit what, to judge from the quartos printed during the first three decades of the seventeenth century and from his autograph manuscript of A Game at Chess, seem some of Middleton's most characteristic language forms, these forms, as we shall see, often suffer loss (and in the case of the Middleton a'th' for the contraction o'th' the loss is total) in the texts printed in the 1650's. On the other hand, the extant text of No Wit, No Help does contain occurrences of two forms (sh'as for she has, and 'tad for it had) which, on the evidence available, seem to be Middleton's. Thus, the extant text of the play appears to retain traces at least of Middleton's linguistic practices; and since there is nothing anomalous in the pattern of linguistic usage that the text exhibits, there seems no reason why such confirmatory evidence as is to be gathered from it should not be taken into account.
About a number of Middleton's language practices, there is nothing
As I have already observed, the a'th' spelling in Middleton is but one feature of a general linguistic practice that is evident in all his work. He regularly employs a, the weakened form of the prepositions on and of, in a variety of phrases, and not alone in the standard contraction for on/of the.[6] In this, of course, he is not alone among his contemporary dramatists, and it is the sheer frequency with which such phrases as the following occur in his unaided work that gives them any significance as authorial evidence: "a tother side" (A Trick, sig. G1 A Game at Chess, III,1,56); "a my troth" (A Trick, sigs. G2, H1v; A Mad World, sigs. H1, H2v; Phoenix, sig. B1); "a my life" (A Trick, sig. H2); "a my credit" (A Mad World, sig. G4v); "a horseback" (A Mad World, sig. H3v; A Chaste Maid, sig. G2); "a Sundaies" (Michaelmas Term, sig. E1v); "a purpose" (A Trick, sig. A4; Hengist, IV,2,22; No Wit, No Help, sig. E4v); "a one side" (World Tost at
Middleton's use of the contraction h'as for he has is very like Fletcher's;[7] but he uses as well a series of related forms that are rather more distinctive. Of these, the most significant is sh'as for she has, which appears in ten of his thirteen unaided plays, in The Triumphs of Integrity, and in Entertainments VIII and X of the Honorable Entertainments. The corresponding past tense forms—h'ad for he had, and sh'ad for she had—Middleton makes less use of, but they are worth noting in his work because they are so infrequent elsewhere. Sh'as does not occur in the unaided plays of either Fletcher or Massinger. In the plays of the canon considered thus far in the present study, it occurs but a single time in two: in The Double Marriage, and in the Lambarde manuscript text of Beggars' Bush. H'ad occurs in six of Fletcher's unaided plays: twice in The Pilgrim, a single time in The Mad Lover, Valentinian, A Wife for a Month, Women Pleased, and in the Lambarde manuscript text of The Woman's Prize. It occurs a single time in one of the unaided plays (Believe as you List) of Massinger. Elsewhere among the plays of the canon considered thus far, there are single occurrences of h'ad in The Scornful Lady, The Maid's Tragedy, Love's Pilgrimage, The Coxcombe, The Honest Man's Fortune, The Queen of Corinth (plays connected with either Beaumont or Field). Sh'ad is found in none of the unaided plays of Fletcher; a single time in one (The Duke of Milan) of Massinger; and elsewhere in the canon to this point, a single time in The Knight of Malta and in the manuscript text of Beggars' Bush.
The contraction 'tas for it has is found
in eight
of Middleton's unaided plays, and there is a single occurrence as well in
Entertainment X of the Honorable Entertainments. The
corresponding contraction 'tad for it had
appears in
five of the unaided plays. Both forms are found twice in Middleton scenes
of The Old Law. For all the fact that 'tas is
found
no more than 4 times in any one play, and 'tad no more than
twice, Middleton's use of both contractions is worth noting, again, because
of their infrequency elsewhere. Fletcher uses 'tas twice in a
single play (Rule a Wife); Massinger never uses the form in
his
unaided work. Elsewhere in the canon 'tas appears twice in
Wit Without Money; once in The Lovers' Progress,
Thierry and Theodoret,
There is nothing significant in Middleton's use of contractions in 's for his. The final feature of his linguistic pattern that does possess value as authorial evidence is his use of the contraction ha' for have. The form has been found in the work of other dramatists whose shares in the plays of the canon have been previously examined, notably in the work of Beaumont and Field.[8] Ha' is found in nine of Middleton's thirteen unaided plays, in the Inner Temple Masque, and in the Honorable Entertainments. Although the form seems to have suffered no diminution in the 1652 quarto of The Widow, it appears in none of the plays printed in octavo in 1657. Even in the plays in which the form does appear, its rate of occurrence varies widely, from the 33 occurrences in Michaelmas Term to the 2 in A Game at Chess; but, with the exceptions already noted, and the manuscript text of Hengist, King of Kent, from which it is wholly absent, the persistence with which ha' appears in Middleton's unaided work makes it worth noting.
II
Rowley's unaided plays are usually said to be four in number: A Shoemaker A Gentleman; A New Wonder, A Woman Never Vext; All's Lost by Lust; A Match at Midnight. That the last of these is indeed a work of Rowley's sole authorship, I seriously doubt. When the linguistic pattern which it displays is set against that exhibited by the other three plays, as in the table for Rowley's plays that is given below, it is soon apparent that, linguistically at least, A Match at Midnight is not of a piece with the others.[9] Linguistically, A Match displays too much of nearly everything: too many i'th's, too many o'th's, much too many ye's. The matter is of some importance, because to posit a pattern of linguistic usage for Rowley that takes into account A Match at Midnight, with its near-Fletcherian incidence of ye, is to assume
Rowley's use of such contracted forms as i'th', o'th', h'as, and 's for his has no significance as authorial evidence. There is nothing to distinguish between his use of hath and doth, and the practice of such a dramatist as Middleton. The contracted forms—a'th', sh'as/sh'ad, 'tas/ 'tad, ha'—to which I have drawn attention in the work of Middleton either do not occur in Rowley's unaided plays, or are found there to a negligible degree (there is a single occurrence of 'tas in A Woman Never Vext, and 4 instances of ha' in All's Lost by Lust, not counting the 15 occurrences of the latter form in A Match at Midnight, which are suspect). The most significant feature of Rowley's language practice is one which is not immediately discernible from the table of linguistic evidence for his unaided plays. This involves his use of the contracted pronominal form 'em, and sundry variants thereof. In only one of his unaided plays, A Shoemaker, is there a clear cut distinction between the 'em spelling of the pronominal contraction (which is used 23 times) and the expanded form (used 33 times). In A Woman Never Vext, the form of the contraction that is regularly used is 'm (30 times), as against 45 them's.[10] In All's Lost there are 17 them's, whereas the contracted form appears 5 times as 'em, once as 'm, 8 times as 'um.
Did the matter end here, we would be dealing with nothing more than a compositorial spelling variant of a common enough sort. But there is evidence outside Rowley's unaided plays which proves conclusively that 'um was a form which he employed. Whether he also, on occasion, employed 'm is less certain. I would like to think that he did, because the 30 'm's of A Woman Never Vext explain what is otherwise inexplicable: the appearance of 2 'm's—a form that has not previously occurred in the play—near the end of The Maid in the Mill, when the Fletcherian ye's have abruptly broken off and Rowley's hand is once again discernible (as all students of the play agree) with the entrance of Antonio, Constable, and Officers. But our experience with the occurrence of 'um elsewhere in the plays of the canon has made this much clear: that a dramatist's tendency to use this less familiar form, rather than the more common 'em, is likely to lead to compositorial confusion. We have seen this in Thierry and Theodoret and The Scornful Lady, where 'em and 'um occur together in the same scenes. If Beaumont used the 'um form of the contraction—as the evidence of Philaster, The Scornful Lady, and A King and no King seems to imply—then it came out variously as 'em and 'am (in The Knight of the Burning Pestle and The Woman Hater), and 'm (in The Maid's Tragedy).[11] Thus it is not surprising to find Rowley's 'um appearing as 'm—assuming that his preference in the matter was fixed, and he did not occasionally write 'm himself.
But the form by which Rowley is known is 'um, and it now remains to demonstrate this. First, 'um is the form that occurs in Rowley's dedicatory letter (sig. A2) "To the Nobly Disposed, Virtuous, and Faithful-Breasted / Robert Grey, Esq." that prefaces the 1617 quarto of A Fair Quarrel. But the real proof lies in the linguistic evidence which this Middleton-Rowley collaboration displays—evidence that provides the key for distinguishing their shares in a play of their joint authorship.
sigs. | ye | y' | 'em | 'um | 'am | them | i'th' | a'th' | o'th' | h'as | sh'as | ha' | |
B-B2 | 1 | 4 | 1 | [I,1(a) | |||||||||
B2v-C3v | 2 | 3 | 8 | 1 | 4 | 3 | 1 | [I,1(b) | |||||
C3v-D3 | 2 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 2 | [II,1 | ||||||
E-E2v | 1 | 2 | 1 | [II,2 | |||||||||
E3-F1v | 4 | 1 | [III,1 | ||||||||||
F3-F3v | 7 | [III,2 | |||||||||||
F4v | 1 | [III,3 | |||||||||||
G1v-G4 | 1 | 2 | 1 | [IV,1 | |||||||||
G4v-H | 4 | [IV,2 | |||||||||||
H2v-H3v | 2 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | [IV,3 | |||||||
H3v-I2v [*] | 15 | 1 | [IV,4 | ||||||||||
H4-K2 | 1 | 2 | 6 | 1 | [V,1 |
Here the alteration of 'em and 'um gives us our principal clue to the respective shares of the two dramatists. Middleton's 4 'em's mark his presence through the opening pages of I,1, to Russell's speech beginning "How now Gallants?" (sig. B2v) where we find the first signs of Rowley's presence. With the change of author comes a change in the form of the pronominal contraction that is immediately apparent. One of Rowley's 'um's has been reproduced as 'am, as it is again in the next scene (II,2) in which his hand is present. But thereafter the compositor would appear to have the spelling under control. I doubt that the appearance of 'em and 'um together in IV,3 is a mistake; both dramatists' work has been traced in the scene. The 15 'um's of IV,4 confirm what we know, that this, the "roaring" scene added to the second impression of the first quarto, is the work of Rowley. His work is evident throughout the remainder of the play. As for the remainder of Middleton's share: the occurrence of 'em, a'th', sh'as, and ha' together in II,1 points to his linguistic practice. The y's and ha's give evidence of his work in Act III. The only scene of the play that offers no shred of linguistic evidence for its authorship is IV,2.
For proof that the alternation of 'em/'um in the 1617 quarto of A Fair Quarrel is not the result of mere compositorial caprice, but does in fact point to two distinct linguistic practices, there is the evidence of another Middleton-Rowley collaboration, their Courtly Masque of The World Tost at Tennis, printed in quarto in 1620. The linguistic evidence exhibited in that edition is as follows.
sigs. | ye | y' | 'em | 'um | them | i'th' | a'th' | o'th' | h'as | sh'as | 'tas | ha' | [Ent.Five |
B2v-D2 | 6 | 1 | 13 | 6 | 3 | 1 | [Starches | ||||||
D2v-E4 | 1 | 7 | 2 | 4[*] | 1[**] | 1 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 1 | [Ent.King,etc. | ||
E4v-F2 | 2 | 2 | 2[*] | ||||||||||
F2v | 1 | [Last speech |
Linguistically, the masque breaks into two main divisions, with 'um occurring regularly as the preferential form of the pronominal contraction through sig. D2, after which 'em begins to appear, to recur through most of the remainder. It is pleasant to note that the authorial division thus indicated by the linguistic evidence accords exactly with the division agreed to on the basis of verse tests by all those who have examined the Middleton-Rowley collaborations. Miss Wiggin, Stork, and Robb[12] are at one in attributing to Rowley everything from the beginning of the Induction to the entrance of the Five Starches. The Starches enter near the bottom of sig. D2; the last of the 13 'um's in this first division of the play occurs at the end of the stage direction which brings them on (". . . White-Starch challenging precedency, standing vpon her right by Antiquity, out of her iust anger presents their pride to vm."). About what follows, the students of Middleton and Rowley are not of one accord. Miss Wiggin would assign to Middleton everything from the entrance of the Starches to the end of the masque. Stork and Robb would exclude from this the prose speeches of Simplicity, which they attribute to Rowley. Without going into the details of the matter, which do not concern us here, it is sufficient for our purposes to note that all the linguistic evidence for Middleton's work is quite clearly confined to the second half of the masque. The one possible exception is the characteristically Middleton ath' which occurs (sig. B4v) in Rowley's share. But the evidence to be derived from the occurrence of the a'th'/o'th' contraction in the text is confusing at best; it occurs three times, and each time it is differently spelled; in addition to the ath' in Rowley's share of the masque, there are an oth' (sig. E1) and an a the (sig. E3) in Middleton's. The i'th'/i'the variants evident in the text may point to a kindred compositorial indecision. But the 7 'em's, and the use, for the first time in the text, of the contractions sh'as, 'tas, and ha', are evidence for Middleton's
Still further evidence that the respective shares of Middleton and Rowley can be distinguished, in a general way at least, in a play of their joint authorship by the occurrence of 'em/'um is available in the 1653 quarto text of The Changeling, as the following table shows.
sigs. | ye | y' | 'em | 'um | them | i'th' | o'th' | ha' | |
B-B4 | 1 | 3 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 2 | 1 | [I,1 | |
C-C3 | 1 | 1 | 3 | 1 | [I,2 | ||||
C4-D | 2 | 2 | 1 | 1 | [II,1 | ||||
D-D3 | 2 | 7 | 3 | [II,2 | |||||
D3v | 1 | [III,2 | |||||||
D4-E3v | 4 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 1 | [III,3 | |||
E4-F1v | 4 | 1 | 1 | [III,4 | |||||
F2-F3 | 1 | 2 | 2 | [IV,1 | |||||
F4 | 2 | [IV,2(a) | |||||||
F4-G1v | 1 | 2 | 1 | [IV,2(b) | |||||
G2v-G4v | 1 | 7 | 4 | 1 | [IV,3 | ||||
H-H2 | 3 | 2 | 1 | 3 | [V,1 | ||||
H3-H4 | 1 | 4 | [V,2 | ||||||
H4v-I3 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 1 | [V,3 |
Here, as elsewhere, Rowley's 'um first appears as 'em (sig. B1v). 'Em and 'um appear together on sig. C3. But thereafter throughout Act I, which all students of the play agree is Rowley's, the pronominal form is 'um. 'Em, on the other hand, is the form that prevails throughout Act II, and this, by general scholarly assent, is Middleton's. Neither them, or a contraction thereof, occurs in the brief III,1 and 2. In Rowley's III,3, the form of the contraction varies in a manner that is familiar; it first appears as 'em (sig. D4v), then as 'um (sig. E1), again as 'em (sig. E2), finally as 'um as (sig. E2v). Middleton's III,4 displays a single occurrence of 'em; his IV,1, two occurrences of the form. The extent to which this particular piece of linguistic evidence can point to two distinct authorial practices when it has been
The remaining one of Middleton and Rowley's acknowledged collaborations, The Spanish Gipsy, like The Changeling, was printed in 1653, but the quarto text in which it survives displays none of the linguistic features that serve to distinguish their work in collaboration —a fact that may support the view that the play has been revised by Ford. We have seen how the more distinctive features of Middleton's language practices are absent from his work that was not printed until the mid-seventeenth century; and, with the notable exception of The Changeling, this tends to be true as well for such of Rowley's work as was first printed at this period. As no 'um's are to be found in the 1653 quarto of The Spanish Gipsy, neither does the form appear in Fortune by Land and Sea (Q 1655), The Old Law (Q 1656), A Cure for a Cuckold (Q 1661), The Birth of Merlin (Q 1661). But the single occurrence of 'um in the 1658 quarto of The Witch of Edmonton occurs (sig. H3v) in a speech of Young Banks, the Clown, and it is generally acknowledged that Cuddy Banks is entirely Rowley's creation.
Having shown the extent to which, on the evidence of linguistic criteria, the respective shares of Middleton and Rowley can be distinguished in their acknowledged collaborations, we return to the Beaumont and Fletcher canon, and the comedy of Wit at Several Weapons.
- Middleton: I,1; II,1; III; IV.
- Rowley: I,2; II,2-4; V.
Wit at Several Weapons
Since the time of Fleay, Middleton and Rowley's names have been associated with this play. The comic intrigue, with its premium on trickery not alone sedulously practiced but actively encouraged, has obvious affinities with the pattern of the action in Middleton's city comedies; and the Clown Pompey Doodle, a role that Rowley doubtless acted, has seemed to many Rowley's creation: "own brother" in the words of Robb, (p. 138) "to Cuddy Banks and Bustopha [in The Maid in the Mill]."
But one wants grounds more relative than this in attributing Wit at Several Weapons to Middleton and Rowley, and in the linguistic pattern which the text of the play in the 1647 folio affords, I think it is available. The pattern is by no means perfectly preserved, but the traces of it that persist are enough to make it clear that it is identical with the pattern we have found to exist in the quarto texts of A Fair Quarrel, The World Tost at Tennis, and The Changeling. Here, as in the acknowledged Middleton-Rowley collaborations, the pattern consists in fact of two alternating ones: that of Middleton being distinguished by an occasional occurrence of a'th' and the steady appearance of the contraction ha', while the pattern of Rowley is again marked by the here sporadic but significant appearance of 'um. In his portion of the play, Rowley used a contraction for them 24 times. This has been reproduced as 'um on 7 occasions which are distributed over three scenes (II,2; V,1-2). On the evidence set forth above, I submit that 'um is the form that Rowley used, and that its occurrence in the 1647 folio text of Wit at Several Weapons can therefore serve as evidence for determining his share in the authorship of the play. Here there is no question of the 'um contraction representing a compositorial spelling variant. 'Em and 'um occur together in each of the three scenes designated above; often they occur together in the same folio column (as at 72b, 73a, 89a). And it is important to note that 'um appears in no scenes but Rowley's; it is never found in scenes where either the Middleton a'th' or ha' contractions appear. Five instances of Middleton's a'th' have been preserved; since there are no occurrences of o'th', this would appear to be all of them, unless of course the a'th' spelling is held to be compositorial. But this seems unlikely, if for no other reason than that the precise form of the contraction is so various: it is found as a the in column 69b, just as it is on sig. E3 of Middleton's share of The World Tost at Tennis (above, p. 86); elsewhere in the
The play is unique among those in the Beaumont and Fletcher canon for the great number of phrases employing a, the weakened form of the o' contraction for on and of. I have already drawn attention to this as a characteristic feature of Middleton's linguistic practice, and I cite the following examples of such phrases from Wit at Several Weapons as further evidence for his presence here: "Would a' my life" (III,1; 79a); "bang'd a' both sides" (III,1; 80a); "take heed a that" (III,1; 80a) "few men dye a beating" (III,1; 80b); "beaten a both sides" (III,1; 80b); "could a yeelded" (III,1; 80b); "take it off a my finger" (III,1; 81b); "Sessions a Thursday, / Jury cul'd out a Friday, Judgment a Saturday, / Dungeon a Sunday, Tyburne a Munday"
A few points regarding the vocabulary of Middleton's scenes are worth noting. Sir Gregory's query in III,1 (81a), "Is Pompey growne so malepert? so frampell?" employs a word ("frampold") that occurs as well in the Inner Temple Masque ("frampole", sig. A3v), and in what, according to Bullen (I, xxxv), is a Middleton scene (III,1) of The Roaring Girl ("phrampell", sig. E3v). There is a reference at IV,1 (82a) to the Polychronicon, mentioned in the Prologue to Hengist, King of Kent by its author, Raynulph of Chester, who serves as the presenter of that play. The Neece's lines at IV,2 (85a): "After I have pelted you sufficiently, / I tro you will learne more manners," employs a verbal particle, the obsolete "tro" for "trow", that Middleton uses often (e.g., A Trick, II,1; A Game at Chess, II,1; Hengist, V,1; Women Beware Women, III,2; No Wit, No Help, I,3). The fact that the form occurs again in Rowley's V,2 (90a), within six lines of the pish that is found in that scene, may point to Middleton's presence at this point. Robb (p. 137) notes that "there is a good deal of composite writing in the play, scenes in the main by Rowley showing also signs of Middleton, and vice versa." Thus, in designating any given scene as the work of one or the other dramatist, it will be understood that I imply nothing more than that, in the scene in question, that dramatist's hand is the dominant one.
A word should be said regarding the possibility of Fletcher's presence in the play. I agree with Oliphant (The Plays of Beaumont and Fletcher, p. 454) that such a pair of lines as these from V,1 (87b) have a decidedly Fletcherian ring: "Upon my life the Knight will love you for't, / Exceedingly love you, for ever love you." And when, later in the same scene (89a), Witty-Pate says to his father: "You were not wont to slubber a project so," it is necessary to remind oneself that the mere appearance of a word with which a known author regularly signs his style is not an infallible warrant of his presence, so inured am I to Fletcher's use of "slubber" (e.g., in The Mad Lover, V,3; The Wild Goose Chase, II,2; Rule a Wife, IV,1; Monsieur Thomas, IV,1; Wit Without Money, I,1; Cupid's Revenge, II,3; The Custom of the Country, I,2; The Spanish Curate, II,2). The Epilogue subjoined to the first
What Fletcher had to do in; his brisk Muse
Was so Mercuriall, that if he but writ
An Act, or two, the whole Play rise up wit.
- The Nice Valour
- Fletcher and Middleton: I,1; II,1; IV,1; V,2-3.
- Middleton: III; V,1.
Oliphant (pp. 449-450), after making a complicated division of The Nice Valour between Beaumont, Fletcher, and Middleton, concludes: "As it stands, the play is almost entirely Middleton's." I believe this is right, but it is hard to establish Middleton's claim to the play on the basis of linguistic evidence alone. There is only one linguistic feature of the extant text that points strongly in his direction, and that is the steady occurrence of ha' throughout the whole of the play, to the total of 23 times. This is the greatest number of times that ha' is to be found in any play of the canon, and is approached only by the 21 instances of the contraction that Beaumont brought to Love's Pilgrimage. The 18 contractions in y', together with the infrequent use that is made of ye, which appears but a scant 2 times, accord well with the practice revealed in Middleton's unaided plays. There are 'em's in abundance (29 in all), and this agrees well too with Middletonian practice, but avails nothing in establishing his claims to the authorship over those of such other dramatists as Beaumont or Fletcher. There are
The question of authorship is here bound up with the unsatisfactory state of the extant text. Oliphant (p. 441) pointed out that The Nice Valour is the shortest play in the canon, and he enumerated some of the dislocations in the action that have resulted from abridgement. But whether the play as we have it has not only been abridged but has also been revised is by no means clear. The Prologue speaks of a revival, and this, together with the alternate title, The Passionate Mad Man, that the folio supplies, has generally been taken as evidence for revision. Since, however, Professor Baldwin Maxwell has shown[14] that the reference to Fisher's Folly (V,3) is an allusion, not to the pamphlet published in 1624, but to Jasper Fisher's London mansion, erected during the reign of Elizabeth, one of the chief reasons why, in Oliphant's words (p. 444), "the play is not to be looked upon as of a single date," has disappeared. Professor Maxwell gives evidence for dating The Nice Valour c. 1615/1616, and it is with Middleton's work at this period that the play has its closest affinities. Shamont's idealization of the Duke's sister, in The Nice Valour, is reminiscent of the Lord Cardinal's exaggerated regard for the widowed Duchess of Milan's vow of constancy, in More Dissemblers Besides Women; "her goodnesse is my pride," says Shamont of the Lady (II,1); "I make her constancy / The holy mistress of my contemplation," says the Cardinal of the Duchess (I,2). When Shamont overhears his brother conversing with the Lady, he denounces him for the sacrilege: "Has Honour so few daughters, never fewer, / And must thou aime thy treacherie at the best?" (IV,1). When the Duchess confesses to the Cardinal that she has come, after seven years, to love again, his first wrath is directed
The Cupid of The Nice Valour, unlike the Lady of The Noble Gentleman, is pregnant, and this, as much as anything else, accounts for the very different tone that characterizes the proceedings here. The Cupid is accompanied by her two brothers who, concerned for her shame, are anxious to have her married, lest she "be a mother before shee's known a Bride" (V,1). The efforts to bring the Passionate Madman to his senses thus take on a particular urgency; he must acknowledge the lady as his wife, and quickly (a marriage ceremony has already been performed). The very dubious humor of the sub-plot consists,
The possibility of Fletcher's share in The Nice Valour should be raised. Certainly there are individual lines in the play that have a Fletcherian ring: "Has a good stroake at Tennis, and a stiffe one" (I,1); "Which makes an excellent husband, and a fond one" (II,1); "This is my feares construction, and a deep one" (IV,1); "that's my suit, / To part from Court for ever, my last suit. / And as you profess bounty, grant me that, Sir" (IV,1); "The chusing of these fellowes now will puzzle me, / Horribly puzzle me" (IV,1); "This is a brave Coward, / A jolly threatening Coward" (IV,1); "To performe one good office, nay a deare one" (V,2); "Beare witnesse heaven, this man destroyes his brother / When he may save him, his least breath may save him" (V,2); "It brings me hither still; by maine force hither" (V,3). The structure of the first three of these lines is especially typical of Fletcher (cf. e.g., "a close ward, and a sure one" [The Loyal Subject, III,2]; "she is a right good Princes, and a just one" [Women Pleased, I,1]; "This is a new way of begging, and a neat one" [The Pilgrim, I,2]; "I long to be a Husband, and a good one" [Rule a Wife, I,1]; cf. also below, p. 101).
But these lines are embedded in a text that, taken as a whole, is not Fletcher's. Whether or not it is Middleton's is beyond final proof. I think that it is; and so I have designated as his all those scenes which reveal no traces of Fletcher. Scenes which display seemingly Fletcherian lines in a non-Fletcherian context I have designated as the work of both dramatists. Beyond this, it seems unwise to attempt any differentiation in the shares of the two authors, just as it seems unwise to speculate how it was that Middleton came to be associated with Fletcher in a single play, whether as reviser or collaborator. However it was, Middleton's hand in the extant text is decidedly the predominant one; and the play as we have it in every way bears his stamp. The most telling argument in favor of this is that The Nice Valour, which is surely one of the oddities of the Beaumont and Fletcher canon, with its anomalous mixture of elements satiric and romantic, makes most sense when it is viewed by the light of the tragi-comedies Middleton was writing during the second decade of the seventeenth century—the decade from which, in its extant state at least, The Nice Valour apparently dates.
- The Maid in the Mill
- Fletcher: I; III, 2-3; V,2a (to entrance of Antonio).
- Rowley: II; III,1; IV; V,1,2b (from entrance of Antonio to end).
In his Office-Book under date of 29 August 1623, Herbert records the licensing of "a new Comedy, Called, The Maid in the Mill; written by Fletcher, and Rowley" (Herbert, p. 25), and the attribution has
It is the greatly reduced occurrence of ye that serves most clearly to distinguish Rowley's share of the play from Fletcher's. The fact that hath is found 6 times in the Rowley portion affords another contrasting feature in the shares of the two dramatists. Attention has been drawn (above, p. 84) to the two occurrences of 'm for them in Rowley's share of V,2—a contraction that appears 30 times in his A Woman Never Vext, and once in his All's Lost by Lust.
The 1647 folio text of the play appears to derive from a manuscript prepared by the scribe Ralph Crane. Evidence of this is afforded by the preservation of the Fletcherian ye, by the division of the text into scenes, and by the use of parentheses for enclosing proper names or forms of address in the vocative. Examples of this last practice can quite literally be found on every page of the first folio text. A few illustrations will suffice: "I have done (sweet Lady)" [1b]; "am I not able (Cosen)" [3b]; "Well (my Lord)" [5b]; "You had the better luck (Sister)" [6a]; "no more (sweet Beauty)" [9a]; "no grace (Gentlemen?)" [12a]; "I hear you (Sir)" [16a]; "pardon (my Soveraigne)" [21b].
- The Laws of Candy
- Ford: I-V.
Oliphant (pp. 476 ff.), following the lead of Mr. William Wells, attributed almost the whole of The Laws of Candy to Ford, reserving only the concluding dialogue of I,2 as Fletcher's. Certainly there is nothing in the play of Beaumont's or Massinger's, whose names have been associated with it; and I find nothing particularly Fletcherian about the end of I,2. On the other hand, the play has a number of affinities with Ford's unaided work, and in the state of our present knowledge, it seems best to regard The Laws of Candy as wholly his.
Not the least of the resemblances which exist between this play and Ford's seven acknowledged ones is the linguistic pattern which, it is not too much to say, they share in common. Linguistic evidence for his unaided plays is given in tabular form at the end of this section of the present study. From there it will be seen that his use of ye varies
A feature of Ford's rhetoric is his use of the phrases "for instance" and "in a word" to effect a transition within, or to summarize the import of, one of his long verse cadences. The following from The Broken Heart (I,2) is typical.
All praise to one man's fortune, which is strengthened
By many hands: for instance, here is Prophilus,
A gentleman—I cannot flatter truth—
Of much desert; and, though in other rank,
Both Hemophil and Groneas were not missing
To wish their country's peace; for, in a word,
All there did strive their best, and 'twas our duty.
- I gave life To quicken courage, to inflame revenge, To heighten resolution; in a word To out-doe action: (I,2)
- This gentleman, (as humble as you see him) Is even this Kingdomes treasure; In a word, 'Tis his chiefe glory that he is not wiser Then honest, (III,1)
- Then in a word, my Lord, your visitations Shall find all due respect: (III,2)
- Loves courtship is familiar, and for instance, See what a change it hath begot in me . . . . (IV,1)
There is a tendency in the play for the characters to punctuate their speech with multiple auxiliary verbs. Thus the heroine, when asked by a rejected suitor if it is indeed possible that she should combine such beauty with such cruelty, is made to reply: "I can, I doe, I will" (II,1). This represents the practice in its baldest form; elsewhere it can serve as the basis for a more elaborate statement, as here:
Must, and does owe to you, his friends, and countrey. (II,1)
I cannot for my promise past;
Must not, (and pardon though I say) you shall not;
And honesty least of all,
The least part of your bounties, or that freedome
Which Heauen hath with a plenty made you rich in,
Would argue me vnciuell, which is more,
Base-bred, and which is most of all, vnthankefull.
Ford's fondness for directing his characters to bring properties onto the stage is worth noting in connection with the following stage direction from The Laws of Candy (III,3): "Enter Hyparcha (placing two chaires)." In The Broken Heart occurs this stage direction (IV,1; sig. I2):
Fernando, and D'auolos; Colona placeth the lights on a
Table, and sets downe a Chesse-board.
- The Fair Maid of the Inn
- Fletcher and Ford: IV,1.
- Ford: III.
- Massinger: I; V,3a (to entrance of the Host).
- Webster: II; IV,2; V,1-2, 3b (from entrance of the Host to end).
Massinger's share in the play has been recognized since the time of Boyle. Ford's presence was first suggested by Wells, Webster's by Sykes. The latter's division of the play is accepted by F. L. Lucas, who includes The Fair Maid of the Inn in volume four of his edition of Webster. Here it remains simply to show the extent to which the linguistic evidence corroborates the shares that have been claimed for Massinger, Webster, and Ford, and to draw attention to such evidence as exists for the presence of Fletcher.
Three distinct linguistic patterns are discernible in the 1647 folio text of the play. The first of these, evident through Act I and the first 297 lines of V,3, displays no ye's, no such contracted forms as i'th', o'th', or 's for his, and but single occurrences (in I,3) of h'as and 'em. The second pattern, to be traced through Act II, the second scene of Act IV, the first two scenes and the last 38 lines of the final scene of Act V, displays but a single ye, a decided preference for the expanded them to the contracted 'em (32 occurrences of them as against 8 of 'em in this section of the play), and all the occurrences of i'th', o'th', and 's for his that the play affords. The third pattern, which extends from III,1 through IV,1, displays an occasional ye and an occasional 'em (7 of each), and 7 occurrences of contractions in 'ee (d'ee and
Although the play, as it stands, is substantially the work of Massinger, Webster, and Ford, there is, I think, no doubt that traces of Fletcher are to be discerned in at least one scene (IV,1). No line could be more typically Fletcherian than Bianca's "Ile pray for yee / That you may have a vertuous wife, a faire one," with its schematic pattern of article-adjective-noun-article-a second adjective-"one," a recurrent rhetorical formula in Fletcher's unaided work (cf. e.g., "A dainty Wench, a right one," [Monsieur Thomas, I,1]; "a pretty Ring, a right one" [The Pilgrim, III,4]; "a Turkish man of War, a stout one" [A Wife for a Month, V,1]). As this accounts for one of the scene's 4 ye's, the following passage, also possessed of a Fletcherian ring, accounts for another:
How much you have abated of that goodnesse
Which once raign'd in ye, they appear'd so lovely
That such as freindship led to observation
Courted the great example.
I have not credited Ford with a share in Webster's II,1 of The Fair Maid, there being no linguistic evidence for doing so; but the fact that one passage therein echoes fairly closely a passage of similar import from III,2 of The Laws of Candy raises the possibility, given Ford's connection with both plays, that his work is present in that scene as well as in those that I have indicated. At one point in each play, a young man is sent to effect a reconciliation with an irascible older man who refuses to be placated, and in his wrath comes near to killing, or maiming, the emissary. In each case he desists from the same consideration of hospitable behavior, but not before he has made the emissary
But that thou art under my owne roofe, and know'st
I dare not any way infringe the Lawes
Of hospitality, thou should'st repent
Thy bold and rude intrusion.
Thou tak'st me in an ill Planet, and hast cause
To curse thy Father; for I doe protest,
If I had met thee in any part o'th world,
But under my own roofe, I would have killd thee.
ye | y' | 'ee | hath | doth | 'em | 'um | 'm | them | i'th' | a'th' | o'th' | h'as | h'ad | sh'as | sh'ad | 'tas | 'tad | 's his | ha' | a' he | ||
Middleton | ||||||||||||||||||||||
MT | 5 | 17 | 3 | 1 | 45[**] | 7 | 28 | 9[***] | 1 | 4 | 2 | 3 | 1 | 33 | 3 | |||||||
Phoen. | 4 | 20 | 3 | 1 | 38[**] | 11 | 10[†] | 5 | 1 | 12 | 1 | 3 | 1 | 1 | 17 | |||||||
MWM | 2 | 14 | 2 | 1 | 66 | 7 | 34 | 8 | 7 | 5 | 7 | 1 | 6 | 5 | ||||||||
TCOO | 1 | 13 | 1 | 3 | 1 | 34 | 1 | 7 | 16 | 3 | 4 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 6 | ||||||
YFG | 6 | 25 | 1 | 4 | 1 | 58 | 19 | 11 | 7 | 8 | 4 | 2 | 1 | 9 | 5 | |||||||
CMC | 7 | 1 | 14 | 4 | 17 | 26 | 9[††] | 1[†††] | 2[††] | 6 | 14 | |||||||||||
NWNH | 8 | 42 | 5 | 1 | 42 | 20 | 24 | 14 | 8 | 1 | 4 | 2 | 6 | |||||||||
MDBW | 21 | 1 | 36 | 6 | 14 | 5 | 5 | 1 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 6 | ||||||||||
Witch | 1 | 15 | 14 | 4 | 36 | 8 | 18 | 5 | 5 | 7 | 2 | 2 | 4 | |||||||||
Widow | 3 | 35 | 63 | 6 | 18 | 10 | 10 | 2 | 4 | 3 | 9 | 26 | 1 | |||||||||
Heng. | 33 | 2 | 62 | 13 | 17 | 8 | 3 | 3 | ||||||||||||||
WBW | 2 | 51 | 43 | 10 | 23 | 10 | 9 | 7 | 2 | 7 | ||||||||||||
GC | 9 | 4 | 38 | 5 | 5 | 3 | 5 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 2 | |||||||||||
ITM | 2 | 2 | 7 | 1 | 3[†] | 1 | 4 | 1 | 1 | 3 | ||||||||||||
THI | 5 | 1 | 2 | |||||||||||||||||||
THV | 1 | 3 | 1 | 1 | 1 | |||||||||||||||||
TI | 1 | 1 | 5 | 2 | 1 | 1 | ||||||||||||||||
Hon. | 4 | 4 | 7 | 5 | 2 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 2 | |||||||||||||
Rowley | ||||||||||||||||||||||
WNV | 10 | 12 | 15 | 1 | 30 | 45 | 4 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 6 | |||||||||||
SG | 34 | 1 | 26 | 4 | 23 | 33 | 11 | 3 | 8 | 2 | ||||||||||||
ALL | 4 | 8 | 1 | 8 | 2 | 5 | 8 | 1 | 17 | 3 | 2[‡‡] | 4 | 1 | |||||||||
MM | 111 | 20 | 7 | 2 | 3 | 30 | 34 | 14 | 5 | 1 | 11 | 15 | ||||||||||
Ford | ||||||||||||||||||||||
LM | 52 | 8 | 25 | 36 | 9 | 11 | 12 | 2 | 1[‡‡] | 1 | 4 | 6 | ||||||||||
BH | 11 | 11 | 42 | 36 | 14 | 12 | 12 | 4 | 1 | 1 | 25 | |||||||||||
LS | 25 | 4 | 12 | 22 | 9 | 17 | 16 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 6 | ||||||||||
TP | 11 | 8 | 30 | 45 | 10 | 3 | 21 | 1 | 1 | 2 | ||||||||||||
PW | 20 | 8 | 27 | 38 | 13 | 12 | 35 | 4 | 1 | 28 | ||||||||||||
FCN | 65 | 11 | 8 | 29 | 3 | 13 | 22 | 4 | 7 [‡‡‡‡] | 1 | 3 | 1 | 31 | |||||||||
LT | 43 | 4 | 11 | 29 | 6 | 10 | 19 | 5 | 1 | 1 | 14 |
ye | y' | 'ee | you | hath | doth | 'em | 'um | them | i'th' | a'th' | o'th' | h'as | h'ad | sh'as | sh'ad | 's his | ha' | |
I,i: | 3 | 41 | 3 | 1 | 2[*] | 1[**] | 1 | 1 | 3 | |||||||||
-,ii: | 51 | 1 | 6 | 5 | 1 | |||||||||||||
Total: I | 3 | 92 | 1 | 9 | 5 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 3 | |||||||
II,i: | 12 | 2 | 1[*] | 3 | ||||||||||||||
--,ii: | 1 | 70 | 1 | 4 | ||||||||||||||
--,iii: | 13 | |||||||||||||||||
--,iv: | 1 | 30 | ||||||||||||||||
Total: II | 2 | 125 | 1 | 6 | 1 | 3 | ||||||||||||
III,i: | 2 | 104 | 11 | 5 | 1 | 1 | 17 | |||||||||||
Total: III | 2 | 104 | 11 | 5 | 1 | 1 | 17 | |||||||||||
IV,i: | 1 | 1 | 89 | 8 | 7[*] | 3[**] | 2 | 3 | 9 | |||||||||
--,ii: | 18 | 1 | 1[*] | 3 | ||||||||||||||
--,iii: | 1 | 1 | 20 | 1 | 1[**] | |||||||||||||
Total: IV | 2 | 2 | 127 | 10 | 8 | 4 | 2 | 3 | 12 | |||||||||
V,i: | 102 | 2 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 1 | ||||||||||||
--,ii: | 1 | 93 | 5 | 1 | 2 | |||||||||||||
Total: V | 1 | 195 | 7 | 2 | 2 | 3 | 1 | |||||||||||
TOTAL: | 4 | 7 | 1 | 643 | 2 | 43 | 7 | 4 | 19 | 5 | 4 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 3 | 35 |
ye | y' | you | hath | doth | 'em | them | i'th' | o'th' | h'as | h'ad | sh'as | sh'ad | 'tas | 'tad | 's his | ha' | |
I,i: | 4 | 44 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 3 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 4 | ||||||
Total: I | 4 | 44 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 3 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 4 | ||||||
II,i: | 1 | 6 | 58 | 9 | 2 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | ||||||
Total: II | 1 | 6 | 58 | 9 | 2 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | ||||||
III,i: | 1 | 10 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 1 | |||||||||||
--,ii: | 2 | 24 | 5 | 3 | 4[*] | 1 | 2 | ||||||||||
--,iii: | 7 | 1 | 1 | ||||||||||||||
--,iv: | 1 | 2 | 1 | 3 | |||||||||||||
Total: III | 4 | 43 | 6 | 5 | 4 | 2 | 1 | 3 | 6 | ||||||||
IV,i: | 1 | 3 | 84 | 9 | 2 | 3 | 2 | 3 | 1 | 4 | |||||||
Total: IV | 1 | 3 | 84 | 9 | 2 | 3 | 2 | 3 | 1 | 4 | |||||||
V,i: | 6 | 1 | 1 | 3 | 5 | ||||||||||||
--,ii: | 11 | 1 | 1 | ||||||||||||||
--,iii: | 1 | 31 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 2 | ||||||||||
Total: V | 1 | 48 | 3 | 2 | 5 | 1 | 8 | ||||||||||
TOTAL: | 2 | 18 | 277 | 29 | 5 | 12 | 11 | 13 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 7 | 23 |
ye | y' | you | hath | doth | 'em | 'm | them | i'th' | o'th' | h'as | 's his | ha' | |
I,i: | 23 | 13 | 2 | 1 | |||||||||
-,ii: | 10 | 11 | 7 | 1 | |||||||||
-,iii: | 29 | 30 | 4 | 1 | 2 | 1 | |||||||
Total: I | 62 | 54 | 13 | 2 | 1 | 2 | 1 | ||||||
II,i: | 1 | 49 | 1 | 1 | 3[*] | 1 | |||||||
--,ii: | 1 | 2 | 77 | 1 | 3 | 1 | 1 | 1 | |||||
Total: II | 2 | 2 | 126 | 1 | 4 | 1 | 1 | 4 | 1 | 1 | |||
III,i: | 17 | 2 | 2 | ||||||||||
--,ii: | 19 | 26 | 1 | 5 | 1 | 1 | |||||||
--,iii: | 60 | 56 | 5 | 2 | 3 | 3 | |||||||
Total: III | 79 | 99 | 2 | 8 | 2 | 8 | 3 | 1 | 1 | ||||
IV,i: | 1 | 79 | 5 | 1 | 2 | ||||||||
--,ii: | 11 | 1 | 8 | 1 | |||||||||
--,iii: | 6 | 2 | 1 | ||||||||||
Total: IV | 1 | 96 | 1 | 15 | 2 | 3 | |||||||
V,i: | 1 | 1 | 12 | 1 | |||||||||
--,ii (a): | 34 | 39 | 1 | 1 | 4 | ||||||||
--,ii (b): | 1 | 74 | 2 | 3 | 2 | 1 | |||||||
Total: V | 35 | 2 | 125 | 2 | 4 | 2 | 2 | 4 | 1 | ||||
TOTAL: | 179 | 4 | 500 | 6 | 44 | 2 | 7 | 14 | 12 | 4 | 3 | 1 |
ye | you | hath | doth | 'em | them | i'th' | o'th' | h'as | |
I,i: | 5 | 2 | 3 | 1 | |||||
-,ii: | 4 | 47 | 7 | 1 | 8 | ||||
Total: I | 4 | 52 | 9 | 4 | 9 | ||||
II,i: | 1 | 126 | 4 | 2 | 4 | 1 | |||
Total: II | 1 | 126 | 4 | 2 | 4 | 1 | |||
III,i: | 4 | 19 | 1 | 5 | |||||
--,ii: | 5 | 40 | 1 | 1 | 7 | ||||
--,iii: | 34 | 1 | 2 | 7 | 6 | ||||
Total: III | 9 | 93 | 3 | 2 | 8 | 18 | |||
IV,i: | 6 | 49 | 7 | 2 | 1 | 1 | |||
--,ii: | 5 | 10 | 1 | 1 | |||||
Total: IV | 11 | 59 | 8 | 2 | 2 | 1 | |||
V,i: | 12 | 71 | 15 | 1 | 3 | ||||
Total: V | 12 | 71 | 15 | 1 | 3 | ||||
TOTAL: | 37 | 401 | 39 | 9 | 10 | 36 | 1 | 1 |
ye | y' | 'ee | you | hath | doth | 'em | them | i'th' | o'th' | h'as | 's his | 'a he | |
I,i: | 80 | 5 | |||||||||||
-,ii: | 8 | 1 | 1 | ||||||||||
-,iii: | 11 | 1 | 1 | 1 | |||||||||
Total: I | 99 | 1 | 1 | 7 | 1 | ||||||||
II,i: | 43 | 1 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 2 | |||||||
--,ii: | 19 | 4 | 5 | 2 | 2 | ||||||||
--,iii: | 1 | 1 | 1 | ||||||||||
--,iv: | 18 | 3 | 1 | ||||||||||
Total: II | 81 | 1 | 4 | 11 | 5 | 4 | 3 | ||||||
III,i: | 2 | 3 | 16 | 3 | 6 | 4 | |||||||
--,ii: | 1 | 29 | 1 | 1 | 1 | ||||||||
Total: III | 3 | 3 | 45 | 4 | 7 | 5 | |||||||
IV,i: | 4 | 4 | 4 | 27 | 1 | 2 | 1 | ||||||
--,ii: | 1 | 113 | 4 | 4 | 14 | 10 | 1 | 3 | |||||
Total: IV | 5 | 4 | 4 | 140 | 5 | 4 | 16 | 10 | 1 | 3 | 1 | ||
V,i: | 17 | 1 | 1 | 2 | |||||||||
--,ii: | 8 | 3 | 1 | 1 | |||||||||
--,iii (a) | 32 | 5 | 6 | ||||||||||
--,iii (b) | 8 | 1 | 3 | ||||||||||
Total: V | 65 | 7 | 13 | 3 | 1 | ||||||||
TOTAL: | 8 | 4 | 7 | 430 | 18 | 16 | 52 | 18 | 4 | 2 | 7 | 1 |
Notes
F. G. Fleay first noted Shirley's connection with the play in his "Annals of the Careers of James and Henry Shirley," Anglia, VIII (1885), 408. Cf. A. H. Bullen, Works of Thomas Middleton (1885), I, xl and IV, 374; and Allan H. Stevenson, "Shirley's Years in Ireland," RES, XX (1944), 19.
In the unaided plays of Fletcher, a'th' is found 17 times (twice in The Mad Lover, once in The Island Princess, 10 times in the Lambarde Manuscript of The Woman's Prize, where the form would seem to be scribal, since it does not occur in the folio text of the play, even as the 4 appearances of the form in Knight's transcript of Bonduca have no equivalent in the folio). A'th' does not occur in any of the unaided plays of Massinger. It is found in none of the Fletcher-Massinger collaborations. In the plays connected with Beaumont, the appearance of the form becomes noticeable: twice in Cupid's Revenge, 10 times in A King and no King, twice in The Scornful Lady, once in Thierry and Theodore, twice in The Woman Hater. There is a single occurrence of a'th' in Wit Without Money; and the form appears twice in the manuscript—but not in the folio text—of The Honest Man's Fortune, again the work of the scribe Edward Knight.
Neither, it would appear, did the scribe Ralph Crane, since o'th', not a'th', is the form of the contraction used in his manuscript of The Witch.
Of the 7 occurrences of o'th' in A Mad World, 6 occur in the contraction vpo'th; doubtless, in combination with upon, Middleton employed the o and not the a spelling.
The NED explains a for on as a worn-down proclitic form of the Old English Preposition an (I, p. 2); a for of as "worn down from of, f being dropped before a cons[onant], and the toneless o sunk into the neutral ß, which being the ordinary sound of toneless a, . . . was here also written a" (I, p. 3).
For Beaumont's use of ha', see SB, XI (1958), 88 ff. For Field's use of the form, see SB, XII (1959), 92 ff. For the occurrence of ha' in the Fletcher-Massinger collaborations, see SB, XII (1959), 92, footnote 6.
Dewar M. Robb, in his "The Canon of William Rowley's Plays," (MLR, XLV [1950], 129-41), observing that A Match at Midnigh was accepted as Rowley's till the time of Fleay, states that "no sufficient evidence has yet been adduced to deprive him of its authorship" (p. 140). But elsewhere (p. 133, footnote 9) he comments that it is "perhaps significant" that Rowley's commonest exclamation, "Tush!" does not appear frequently in this play.
It is surely significant that the 'm contraction, which appears steadily through sigs. A2-F3 (just before the end of Act III) is used only once (IV,1; sig. G4) thereafter. In what follows (Acts IV and V; sigs. G3-I3) occur 9 of the play's 10 occurrences of ye. This may either point to a difference in compositorial practices, or it may bear out Fleay's suggestion (Chronicles of the English Drama, II, 102) that the last two acts of A Woman Never Vex were borrowed from an older play.
Fletcher seems to have used the 'um spelling too. For a full discussion of the whole vexed matter of 'em/'um and its occurrence in the canon, see SB, XI (1958), 97-98, and the linguistic tables at the end of that section of the present study (pp. 100-106).
Pauline G. Wiggin, An Inquiry into the Authorship of the Middleton-Rowley Plays (1897), pp. 39-40; C. W. Stork, William Rowley (1910), p. 41; Dewar M. Robb, op. cit., p. 138.
The other occurrence of 'tas in the quarto text, it should be noted, is found (sig. D3) in one of Simplicity's prose speeches, which Miss Wiggin regards as Middleton's, but which Stork and Robb would assign to Rowley.
For evidence for the dating of Middleton's plays, see R. C. Bald, "The Chronology of Middleton's Plays," MLR, XXXII (1937), 33-43.
For the occurrence of contractions in 'ee elsewhere in the plays of the canon, see SB, XII (1959), 92-93.
Abbreviations. (References to the quarto, octavo, or manuscript text upon which all statistics in the present study have been based are given in parentheses after each title.) ALL, All's Lost by Lust (Q 1633); BH, The Broken Heart (Q 1633); CMC, A Chaste Maid in Cheapside (Q 1630); FCN, The Fancies Chaste and Noble (Q 1638); GC, A Game at Chess (edited from the manuscript in the Library of Trinity College, Cambridge by R. C. Bald, 1929); Heng., Hengist, King of Kent: or the Mayor of Queenborough (edited from the manuscript in the Folger Shakespeare Library by R. C. Bald, 1938); Hon., Honourable Entertainments (a reprint of the 1621 octavo, prepared by R. C. Bald, The Malone Society, 1953); ITM, The Inner Temple Masque (Q 1619); LM, The Lover's Melancholy (Q 1629); LS, Love's Sacrifice (Q 1633); LT, The Lady's Trial (Q 1639); MDBW, More Dissemblers Besides Women (Q 1657); MM, A Match at Midnight (Q 1633); MT, Michaelmas Term (Q 1607); MWM, A Mad World, My Master (Q 1608); NWNH, No Wit, No Help Like a Woman's (O 1657); Phoen., The Phoenix (Q 1607); PW, Perkin Warbeck (Q 1634); SG, A Shoemaker A Gentleman (Q 1638); TCOO, A Trick to Catch the Old One (Q 1608); THI, The Triumphs of Honor and Industry (Q 1617); THV, The Triumphs of Honor and Virtue (Q 1622); TI, The Triumphs of Integrity (Q 1623); TP, 'Tis Pity She's a Whore (Q 1633); Widow, The Widow (Q 1652); Witch, The Witch (Bodleian Library, MS. Malone 12, edited by W. W. Greg and F. P. Wilson, The Malone Society, 1948); WBW, Women Beware Women (O 1657); WNV, A Woman Never Vex (Q 1632); YFG, Your Five Gallants (Q n.d.).
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