A Select Collection of Old English Plays Volume Xi Part 1

A Select Collection of Old English Plays.

VOL 11.

by W. Carew Hazlitt.

A WOMAN IS A WEATHERc.o.c.k.

_EDITION._

_A Woman is a Weather-c.o.c.ke. A New Comedy. As it was acted before the King in White-Hall. And diuers times Priuately at the White-Friers, by the Children of her Maiesties Reuels. Written by Nat: Field._ Si natura negat, faciat indagnatio [sic] versum.

_Printed at London, for Iohn Budge, and are to be sold at the great South doore of Paules, and at Brittaines Bursse._ 1612.

4.

The old copy is very carelessly printed, and nearly all the corruptions and mistakes were retained in the former edition (1828).

[MR COLLIER'S PREFACE.]

Considering the celebrity that Nathaniel Field has acquired in consequence of his connection with Ma.s.singer in writing "The Fatal Dowry," it is singular that the two plays in which he was unaided by any contemporary dramatist should not yet have been reprinted, if only to a.s.sist the formation of a judgment as to the probable degree of Ma.s.singer's obligation. "A Woman is a Weatherc.o.c.k" and its sequel, "Amends for Ladies," are the productions of no ordinary poet. In comic scenes Field excels Ma.s.singer, who was not remarkable for his success in this department of the drama; and in those of a serious character he may be frequently placed on a footing of equality.[1]

Reed was of opinion that Field the actor was not the same person who joined Ma.s.singer in "The Fatal Dowry," and who wrote the two plays above mentioned; but the discovery of Henslowe's MSS. shows that they were intimately connected in authors.h.i.+p and misfortune. The joint letter of Nathaniel Field, Rob. Daborne, and Philip Ma.s.singer to Henslowe, soliciting a small loan to relieve them from temporary imprisonment, has been so often republished (see Malone's Shakespeare, by Boswell, iii.

337) that it is unnecessary to repeat it here.[2] Field, who penned the whole body of the letter, speaks in it of himself, both as an author and as an actor. It is without date, and Malone conjectured that it was written between 1612 and 1615. But from the Dedication to "A Woman is a Weatherc.o.c.k," we should conclude that in 1612 Field was not distressed for money. He there tells "any woman that hath been no weatherc.o.c.k" that he "cared not for forty s.h.i.+llings," the sum then usually given by the person to whom the play was inscribed. This a.s.sertion, perhaps, was only a vain boast, while the fact might be, either that he could not get anybody to patronise "so fameless a pen," or that, although he might not just at that moment be in want of "forty s.h.i.+llings," he might stand in need of it very soon afterwards, according to the customary irregular mode of living of persons of his pursuits and profession.

It might be inferred from a pa.s.sage in the address "to the Reader," that "A Woman is a Weatherc.o.c.k"[3] was written some time before it was printed; and from the dedication of the same play, we learn that Field's "Amends for Ladies," if not then also finished, was fully contemplated by the author under that t.i.tle. An allusion to the Gunpowder Treason of 1605 is made in the first act of "A Woman is a Weatherc.o.c.k;" but it could not have been produced so early.

Nathaniel Field was originally one of the Children of Queen Elizabeth's Chapel. Malone tells us that he played in "Cynthia's Revels" in 1601; but we have it on the authority of Ben Jonson himself, in the folio of 1616, that that "comical satire" was acted in 1600. In 1601 Field performed in "The Poetaster," and in 1608 he appeared in "Epicaene,"

which purports to have been represented by the "Children of her Majesty's Revels," for so those of Queen Elizabeth's Chapel were then called. In 1600 Field was, perhaps, one of the younger children, for in 1609 all the names of the company but his own were changed, many no doubt having outgrown their situations. He was, therefore, evidently a very young man when he published his "Woman is a Weatherc.o.c.k" in 1612.

Only one edition of it is known, but "Amends for Ladies" was twice published by the same stationer, viz., in 1618 and 1639. Mr Gifford conjectured very reasonably that Field had a.s.sisted Ma.s.singer in writing "The Fatal Dowry" before 1623.[4] He belonged to the Blackfriars company, and Fleckno speaks of him as a performer of great distinction.[5] According to the portrait in Dulwich College, he had rather a feminine look, and early in his career undertook female parts, which he afterwards abandoned, and obtained much celebrity as the hero of Chapman's "Bussy d'Ambois," originally brought out in 1607. In a prologue to the edition of 1641, Field is spoken of as the player "whose action _first_ did give it name." It has also been supposed that he was dead in 1641, because in the same prologue, it is a.s.serted "Field is gone," but the expression is equivocal. The probability seems to be that he quitted the profession early, and in the address to "A Woman is a Weatherc.o.c.k," he gives a hint that he will only be heard of in it "for a year or two, and no more."[6]

"Amends for Ladies" will be found, on the whole, a superior performance to "A Woman is a Weatherc.o.c.k," and if the order of merit only had been consulted, it ought to have been first reprinted in this collection.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Mr Gifford, with that zeal for the author under his hands which always distinguished him (and without a single reference to Field's una.s.sisted comedies which, in fact, have remained unnoticed by everybody), attributes to Field, in "The Fatal Dowry," all that he thinks unworthy his notion of Ma.s.singer. We are to recollect, however, that Field continued one of the Children of the Revels as late as 1609, and that when "A Woman is a Weatherc.o.c.k" was printed in 1612, he must have been scarcely of age.

[2] Two other letters from Field to Henslowe are printed for the first time in Malone's Shakespeare, by Boswell, xxi. 395 and 404. One is subscribed "Your loving and obedient son," and the other "Your loving son," and both request advances of money; the first on a play, in the writing of which Field was engaged with Robert Daborne, and the second, in consequence of Field having been "taken on an execution of 30." They have no dates, but others with which they are found are in 1613.

[3] It is tolerably clear that the drama was written in 1609. See the allusion to the war in Cleveland, as then going on, at p. 28.

[4] Mr Gifford also states (Ma.s.singer, i. 67), that he joined Heminge and Condell in the publication of the folio Shakespeare of 1623.

[5] Ben Jonson, in his "Bartholomew Fair," act v. sc. 3, couples him with Burbage, and speaks of him as the "best actor" of the day. This play was produced in 1614.

[6] Taylor the Water-poet, in his "Wit and Mirth," introduces a supposed anecdote of "Master Field the player," which is only a pun upon the word _post_, and that not made by Field. Taylor had it, probably, from some earlier collection of jokes, and the compiler of Hugh Peters' Jests, 1660, had it from Taylor, and told it of his hero.

TO ANY WOMAN THAT HATH BEEN NO WEATHERc.o.c.k.

I did determine not to have dedicated my play to anybody, because forty s.h.i.+llings I care not for![7] and above few or none will bestow on these matters, especially falling from so fameless a pen as mine is yet. And now I look up, and find to whom my dedication is, I fear I am as good as my determination: notwithstanding, I leave a liberty to any lady or woman, that dares say she hath been no weatherc.o.c.k, to a.s.sume the t.i.tle of patroness to this my book. If she have been constant, and be so, all I will expect from her for my pains is that she will continue so but till my next play be printed, wherein she shall see what amends I have made to her and all the s.e.x,[8] and so I end my epistle without a Latin sentence.

N.F.

FOOTNOTES:

[7] Malone, in his "History of the Stage," quotes this pa.s.sage to show that such was, in Field's day, the ordinary price of the dedication of a play. Malone's Shakespeare, by Boswell, iii. 164.

[8] Referring to his "Amends for Ladies," first printed in 1618, and afterwards in 1639.

TO THE READER.

Reader, the saleman swears you'll take it very ill, if I say not something to you too. In troth, you are a stranger to me: why should I write to you? you never writ to me, nor I think will not answer my epistle. I send a comedy to you here, as good as I could then make; nor slight my presentation, because it is a play; for I tell thee, reader, if thou be'st ignorant, a play is not so idle a thing as thou art, but a mirror of men's lives and actions; nor, be it perfect or imperfect, true or false, is the vice or virtue of the maker. This is yet, as well as I can, _qualis ego vel Cluvienus_. Thou must needs have some other language than thy mother-tongue, for thou think'st it impossible for me to write a play, that did not use a word of Latin, though he had enough in him. I have been vexed with vile plays myself a great while, hearing many; now I thought to be even with some, and they should hear mine too.

Fare thee well: if thou hast anything to say to me, thou know'st where to hear of me for a year or two, and no more, I a.s.sure thee.

N.F.

TO HIS LOVED SON,[9] NAT. FIELD, AND HIS WEATHERc.o.c.k WOMAN.

To many forms, as well as many ways, Thy active muse turns like thy acted woman: In which disprais'd inconstancy turns praise; Th' addition being, and grace of Homer's seaman, In this life's rough seas toss'd, yet still the same: So turns thy wit, inconstancy to stay, And stay t' inconstancy. And as swift Fame Grows as she goes, in Fame so thrive thy play, And thus to standing turn thy woman's fall: Wit, turn'd to everything, proves stay in all.

GEORGE CHAPMAN.

[9] It was not unusual for elder poets to call the younger their _sons_. Ben Jonson allowed this t.i.tle to Randolph, Howell, and others.

Field also subscribes himself to old Henslowe the manager, "your loving _son_."

DRAMATIS PERSONae