Burbage, and Henry Cundell, xxvj's viijd a peece to buy them ringes.’
His chief fame rests on the publication by himself and Condell in 1623 of the first collected edition of Shakespeare. He signs first the dedication to the brothers William, earl of Pembroke, and Philip, earl of Montgomery, and the address ‘to the great variety of readers’ [see under Condell, Henry, d. 1627]. From this time he is supposed to have ceased to act, though his name appears in 1625 as a member of the company. He was, with Cuthbert Burbage and others, an overseer of the will of his friend Condell, and received for the service 5l. to buy a piece of plate. He died 10 Oct. 1630 at his house in Aldermanbury, Malone suspects of the plague, and was buried on the 12th. His will, which is given in full by Malone and by Collier, was signed on the 11th. In this he speaks of the several parts which he has by lease in the playhouses of the Globe and Blackfriars.
John Hemminge, gent., of St. Michael, Cornhill, obtained a license (5 March 1587–8) to marry, at St. Mary's, Aldermanbury, Rebecca Knell, widow, relict of William Knell, gent., late of St. Mary's, Aldermanbury (Chester, London Marriage Licences). Mrs. Knell was widow of William Knell, the comedian mentioned with applause by Thomas Heywood (Apology for Actors, p. 43, ed. Shakespeare Society). His wife having died and been buried in St. Mary's, Aldermanbury, 2 Sept. 1619, he left his property, charged with certain bequests, among his descendants. During their thirty-two years' joint residence in the parish of St. Mary's, Aldermanbury, Heming and his wife had a large family. The parish registers supply entries of the baptism of eight daughters and five sons between 1 Nov. 1590 and 21 June 1611, and of the burial of two of these daughters and one of the sons as infants. Besides these children a daughter Margaret is mentioned in his will, and Malone mentions another, Beatrice, while Synnerton, an infant, whom Collier declares to have been the last child, was buried 8 June 1613. The son, William Heming, who was left sole executor, is separately noticed.
[John Payne Collier's Annals of the Stage, 1879, supplies full but often untrustworthy particulars concerning Heming. See further Malone's Historical Account of the English Stage, 1800; Chalmers's Supplement; Variorum Shakespeare, vol. iii.; Halliwell-Phillipps's Outlines of the Life of Shakespeare, and Cunningham's Accounts of the Revels at Court give further information. Mr. Fleay's paper on the ‘Actor Lists,’ Royal Historical Society's Transactions, 1881, ix. 44–81; Warner's Cat. of Dulwich MSS.; Genest's Account of the English Stage; and Baker, Reed, and Jones's Biographia Dramatica, may also be consulted.]
HEMING or HEMMINGE, WILLIAM (fl. 1632), dramatist, ninth child of John Heming [q. v.] the comedian, was baptised on 3 Oct. 1602 at St. Mary's, Aldermanbury. He was educated at Westminster School, whence in 1621 he was elected a king's scholar at Christ Church, Oxford. He did not matriculate till 1624, but graduated B.A. in 1625, and M.A. in 1628. In 1630 he acted as executor to his father's will, whence it is inferred that he was the eldest surviving son. The date of his death cannot be precisely fixed. In the dedication of his ‘Fatal Contract’ (1653) to the Earl and Countess of Northampton, it is stated that the work was composed by ‘a worthy gentleman at hours of his recess from happier employments.’ He must have died before this time, but we do not know what were his ‘happier employments.’ His extant works are: 1. ‘The Fatal Contract, a French Tragedy,’ London, 1653, 4to, which according to the dedication ‘had suffered very much by private transcripts, where it passed through many hands as a curiosity of wit and language.’ In the reign of Charles II it was revived, and changed but not improved by Elkanah Settle, under the title of ‘Love and Revenge.’ In 1687 it was reprinted from the text of 1653, but with a new title, ‘The Eunuch.’ Amid much extravagance, it shows some power. 2. ‘The Jewes Tragedy, or their fatal and final overthrow by Vespasian and Titus his son, agreeable to the authentick and famous History of Josephus,’ London, 1662, 4to. Wood adds that Heming ‘left behind him greater monuments of his worth and ability’ than these plays. A comedy by Heming called ‘The Coursinge of the Hare, or the Mad Cap,’ was acted at the Fortune Theatre, 1632–1633, but is no longer extant, and is said to have been among those destroyed by Warburton's cook (Malone, Shakespeare, iii. 198).
[Baker's Biog. Dramatica; Wood's Athenæ, iii. 277; Alumni Westmon. p. 91.]
HEMINGFORD or HEMINGBURGH, WALTER de (fl. 1300), also called Walter de Gisburn, chronicler, was an Austin canon, and afterwards sub-prior of St. Mary's, Gisburn, Yorkshire. There is no doubt that Hemingburgh is the correct form of the name; it is the one given in Lansdowne MS. 239, which is one of the earliest and best copies of the chronicle, in the Register of Archbishop Corbridge, and in a volume of sermons presented by him to his priory church (MS. Reg. 3 A xiii.) Leland likewise always speaks of him as Hemingburgh, and several
