A Select Collection of Old English Plays Volume Xi Part 22

AMENDS FOR LADIES.

_EDITIONS._

_Amends for Ladies. A Comedie. As it was acted at the Blacke-Fryers, both by the Princes Servants, and the Lady Elizabeths. By Nat. Field.

London: Printed by G. Eld, for Math. Walbancke, and are to be sold at his Shop at the new Gate of Grayes Inne, or at the old._ 1618. 4.

_Amends for Ladies. With the merry prankes of Moll Cut-Purse, Or, the humour of roaring: A Comedy full of honest mirth and wit. As it was Acted at the Blacke-Fryers both by the Princes Servants and the Lady Elizabeths. By Nath. Field. London, Printed by Io. Okes, for Math.

Walbancke, and are to be sold at his Shop at Grayes-Inne Gate._ 1639. 4.

INTRODUCTION.

This excellent old comedy seems to have been deservedly popular on its performance by two different companies at the Black Friars Theatre before 1618, and it was twice printed. It is not easy to decide whether the comic or the serious scenes are the best; although the first are not without some of the coa.r.s.eness which belonged to the manners of the age.

The language is generally well-chosen. Some pa.s.sages are of the higher order of poetry, and from them we may judge that Field was capable of writing other parts of "The Fatal Dowry" than those which Mr Gifford, in his just admiration of Ma.s.singer, was willing to a.s.sign to him. The characters are numerous, varied, and well-distinguished.

The object of the play was to vindicate the female s.e.x, attacked in "Woman is a Weatherc.o.c.k;" and it is accomplished amply and happily in the persons of the Maid, Wife, and Widow. The plot is threefold, applying to each of them, but the incidents are interwoven with ingenuity, and concluded without confusion. In several of our old plays, husbands become, or endeavour to become, the instruments of the dishonour of their wives. Middleton was too fond of incidents of this odious kind, which are to be found in his "Chaste Maid in Cheapside,"

1630, and in "Anything for a Quiet Life," 1662;[69] but in both cases the purpose of the husband was to profit by his own disgrace. In Field's "Amends for Ladies," the husband only resorts to this expedient to put his wife's fidelity to the test. This portion of the play was borrowed, in several of its preliminary circ.u.mstances, from the novel of the "Curioso Impertinente" in "Don Quixote;" but it would not have accorded with Field's design of making amends to the fair s.e.x that Subtle should have met with the same success as Lothario. The attempt of Bold in disguise upon the Widow was taken from an incident apparently well known about the date when the play was written, and referred to in it. The original of that part of the comedy which relates to Ingen and the Lady Honour has not been found, and perhaps it was the invention of the poet.

The two editions of this play in 1618 and 1639 do not materially vary, although the difference between the t.i.tle-pages might lead to the supposition that "the merry pranks of Moll Cut-purse" and the "humour of roaring" were new in the latter copy. It seldom happens that faith is to be put in attractive changes of t.i.tle-pages. Middleton and Rowley's "Fair Quarrel" is, indeed, an instance to the contrary; for the edition of 1622 contains a good deal of curious matter connected with the manners of the times, promised in "the fore-front of the book," and not found in the copy of 1617. In "Amends for Ladies," Moll Cut-purse only appears in one scene. The variations between the impressions are errors of the press, some of which are important of their kind, and such as rendered a careful collation absolutely necessary.

It may here, perhaps, be worth while to place in one view the scanty and scattered information regarding Mary Frith (_alias_ Moll Cut-purse), the Roaring Girl. She was a woman who commonly dressed like a man, and challenged several male opponents, bearing, during her life, the character of a bully, a thief, a bawd, a receiver of stolen goods, &c.[70] She appears to have been the daughter of a shoemaker, born in 1584, dead in 1659, and buried in what is now called St Bride's Church.

In February 1611-12, she did penance at Paul's Cross, but the letter mentioning this fact, which is in the British Museum, does not state for what offence. Among other daring exploits, she robbed, or a.s.sisted in robbing, General Fairfax on Hounslow Heath, for which she was sent to Newgate, but afterwards liberated without trial. The immediate cause of her death was a dropsy, and she seems then to have been possessed of property. She lived in her own house in Fleet Street, next the Globe Tavern, and left 20 that the conduit might run wine on the expected return of Charles II. Besides the comedy by Middleton and Dekker [printed in the works of Middleton], John Day wrote "a book of the mad pranks of Merry Moll of the Bankside." It was entered at Stationers' Hall in 1610, and perhaps the play of which she is the heroine was founded upon it. Another account of her life was printed in 1662, shortly after her decease. She is supposed to be alluded to by Shakespeare in "Twelfth Night," act i. sc. 3, and obtained such "bad eminence," in point of notoriety, that it is not surprising (according to the evidence of the authors of "The Witch of Edmonton," act v. sc.

1), that some of the dogs at Paris Garden, used in baiting bulls and bears, were named after her.

FOOTNOTES:

[69] [Although the printed copies bear the date here given, the plays in question were written many years before, Middleton having probably died in 1626.]

[70] She is the "honest Moll" alluded to by City-wit in R. Brome's "Court Beggar," act ii. sc. 1, to whom he is to go for the recovery of his purse, after he had had his pocket picked while looking at the news in the window of "the _Coranto_ shop." He afterwards states that she "deals in private for the recovery of such goods."

DRAMATIS PERSONae.[71]

COUNT, _father of Lord Feesimple_.

LORD FEESIMPLE.

LORD PROUDLY.

SIR JOHN LOVE-ALL, _called Husband_.

SUBTLE, _his friend_.

INGEN, _in love with Lady Honour_.

FRANK, _his younger brother_.

BOLD, _in love with Lady Bright_.

WELLTRIED, _his friend_.

SELDOM, _a citizen_.

Wh.o.r.eBANG, } BOTS, } } _Roarers_.

TEARCHAPS, } SPILLBLOOD,}

PITTS, } }_Serjeants_.

DONNER,}

_Page, Drawer, &c._

LADY HONOUR ,} {_Maid_, LADY PERFECT,} _called_ {_Wife_.

LADY BRIGHT, } {_Widow_.

GRACE SELDOM.

MOLL CUT-PURSE.

[71] Neither of the old editions has a list of characters prefixed.

AMENDS FOR LADIES.

ACT I., SCENE 1.

_Enter the_ LADY HONOUR, _the_ LADY PERFECT, _the_ LADY BRIGHT.

MAID.[72] A wife the happiest state? It cannot be.

WIFE. Yes, such a wife as I, that have a man As if myself had made him: such a one As I may justly say, I am the rib Belonging to his breast. Widow and maid, Your lives compared to mine are miserable, Though wealth and beauty meet in each of you.

Poor virgin, all thy sport is thought of love And meditation of a man; the time And circ.u.mstance, ere thou canst fix thy thoughts On one thy fancy will approve.