1607 as the date of the first edition. Gildon, Jacob, and Baker give only a bare list of Day's plays, and it is likely enough that they confused the date of the ‘Bees’ with that of the ‘Three English Brothers,’ just as Jacob confuses the two works in another particular, making Rowley and Wilkins to have had a hand in the ‘Bees,’ and leaving Day wholly responsible for the ‘Three English Brothers.’ Though the 1607 quarto, if it ever existed, has vanished, there is fortunately extant an early manuscript copy (Lansdowne MS. 725), which differs considerably from the printed copy. The title of the manuscript is ‘An olde Manuscript conteyning the Parliament of Bees, found In a Hollow Tree In a garden at Hibla, in a strandge Languadge, And now faithfully Translated into Easie English Verse by
John Daye,
Cantabrig.
Ovidius mihi flavus Apollo
Pocula Castaliis plena ministret aquis.’
The manuscript gives the masque in its unrevised state, preserving many passages that were afterwards cancelled. Day revised his masque with the utmost care, making many abridgments, additions, and alterations. The labour was well spent, for the quaint old whimsical masque, in which all the characters are bees, is now polished to the last touch. ‘The very air,’ says Lamb, ‘seems replete with humming and buzzing melodies. Surely bees were never so be-rhymed before.’ There is no evidence to show whether the masque was acted. It is to be noticed that some of the ‘characters’ (or colloquies) in the ‘Parliament of Bees’ are found with slight alterations in Dekker's ‘Wonder of a Kingdom,’ licensed for the press in 1631 and printed in 1636, and others in ‘The Noble Soldier,’ published in 1634 as a work of S[amuel] R[owley] (though there is good reason for believing that it was largely written by Dekker). The explanation seems to be that Day had contributed to these two plays and merely reclaimed his own property. There is also extant an allegorical prose tract by Day, first printed in the collected edition of his ‘Works,’ 1881, from Sloane MS. 3150. It is entitled ‘Peregrinatio Scholastica or Learneinges Pillgrimage Containeinge the straundge Adventurs and various entertainements he founde in his traveiles towards the shrine of Latria. Meliora speramus: Composde and devided into Morall Tractates.’ From the dedicatory epistle to William Austin, Esq., it would appear to have been written late in life, for the author begs that his work ‘may not finde the lesse wellcome in regard I boast not that gaudie spring of credit and youthfull florish of opinion as some other filde in the same rancke with me;’ adding, ‘The day may come when Nos quoque floruimus may be there motto as well as myne.’ It was suggested by Bolton Corney (Notes and Queries, 3rd series, ix. 387) that Day was the author of ‘The Returne from Pernassus,’ but the arguments that he adduced were of little value. It has also been suggested, by Mr. Edmund Gosse, that ‘The Maid's Metamorphosis,’ a pastoral comedy printed in 1600, may have been written by Day. Among the ‘Alleyn Papers’ are preserved some lines, in Day's handwriting, which belong to some lost historical play. Day's works were collected by the present writer in 1881 (seven parts, fcp. 4to) for private circulation.
[Introduction to Works of John Day, 1881; Henslowe's Diary; Alleyn Papers, 23–5; Warner's Catalogue of the Dulwich Collection, 21–3.]
DAY, JOHN (1566–1628), divine, son of John Day [q. v.], the printer, was born ‘near or over Aldersgate,’ London, in 1566. He became a commoner of St. Alban Hall, Oxford, in 1582, and was elected a fellow of Oriel College in 1588, being then a bachelor of arts. He afterwards took the degrees of M.A. and B.D., entered into holy orders, and gained the reputation of being ‘the most frequent and noted preacher in the university.’ In the beginning of the reign of James I he travelled for three years on the continent, where his attachment to the doctrines of Calvinism was strengthened. After his return he was appointed in January 1608–9 vicar of St. Mary's, Oxford, but missing the provostship of his college on the resignation of William Lewis in 1621, he left his fellowship and vicarage in the following year, and was presented by Sir William Soame to the rectory of Little Thurlow, Suffolk, where he died on 10 Jan. 1627–8. He was buried in his church, where a monument to his memory, with a Latin epitaph, was placed by his brother Lionel ‘bene sexagenarius,’ who describes himself as the sole survivor of twenty-six brothers and sisters. Wood says that Day ‘was a person of great reading, and was admirably well vers'd in the fathers, schoolmen, and councils. He was also a plain man, a primitive christian, and wholly composed, as 'twere, to do good in his function.’
He published several detached English sermons and ‘Conciones ad Clerum,’ and also wrote: 1. ‘Commentarii in octo libros Aristotelis de Auscultatione Physica,’ 1589. Manuscript in Dr. Rawlinson's collection in the Bodleian Library. 2. ‘Day's Dyall, or
