ciety, and by Professor Arber in his ‘English Garner.’ The title ran: ‘Kemps Nine Daies Wonder Performed in a Daunce from London to Norwich. … Written by himselfe to satisfie his friends, London. Printed by E. A. for Nicholas Ling … 1600.’ A woodcut on the title-page shows Kemp in an elaborate costume, with bells about his knees, dancing to the accompaniment of a drum and tabor, which a man is playing at his side. The dedication is respectfully addressed to Anne Fitton, maid of honour to the queen. In an epilogue Kemp announced that he was shortly ‘to set forward as merily as I may; whither I myselfe know not,’ and he begged ‘Ballad-makers and their coherents’ to abstain from disseminating lying statements about him.
It seems certain that Kemp kept his word and exhibited his dancing powers on the continent. In Weelkes's ‘Ayres’ (1608) mention is made of Kemp's skipping into France. A ballad entitled ‘An excellent new Medley,’ dated about 1600, refers to his returning from Rome. William Rowley, in his ‘Search for Money’ (1609), mentions consecutively among recent ‘mad voyages,’ ‘the travel to Rome with the return in certain daies’ and ‘the wild morrise to Norrige,’ and it is possible that Kemp had accomplished both. In his edition of the ‘Coventry Mysteries’ for the Shakespeare Society, 1841, J. O. Halliwell inserted in the notes, p. 410, some Latin sentences stating that Kemp made a journey through Germany as well as Italy, and met at Rome Anthony Shirley, the Persian traveller. The words were drawn, according to Halliwell, from fol. 401 of the Sloane MS. 392, and were said to appear there with the date 2 Sept. 1601. But the Sloane MS. 392 is a treatise on logic written in both Latin and German by John Durie (1596–1680) [q. v.], and consists of only 121 folios. Halliwell's quotation with his misleading reference has been repeated by Mr. Collier and Mr. Fleay, but its source eludes discovery. In ‘The Travels of the three English Brothers,’ 1607, 4to, a play by John Day and others, dealing with the foreign adventures of the brothers Shirley, Anthony Shirley is, however, represented as meeting Kemp with his boy at Venice. Kemp comes on the stage under his own name, and takes part, with an Italian harlequin and his wife, in a coarse ‘extemporal merriment.’ In the ‘Return from Parnassus’ the students ask Kemp ‘how doth the Emperour of Germany,’ and welcome him ‘from dancing the morrice ouer the Alpes.’ His dancing exploits were soon emulated by John Taylor the Water-poet and by Tom Coryate. The latter includes in the eccentric preface to his ‘Crudities’ some verses by Strangwaies in which Kemp's dance is mentioned.
On returning to England Kemp reappeared on the stage, but he was no longer a member of the lord chamberlain's company. He had joined by 1602 the Earl of Worcester's players, who were performing in that year at the Rose Theatre managed by Philip Henslowe. Henslowe's account-books show a loan of 20s. to Kemp (10 March 1602), ‘for his necessary uses,’ and three payments in the following autumn for his clothes. Like other actors of the time, Kemp doubtless lived in Southwark, and he may possibly be the William Kemp residing in Samson's Rents between 1595 and 1599, and in Langley's New Rents in 1602. ‘William Kempe, a man,’ was buried in the church of St. Saviour, Southwark, on 2 Nov. 1603, but there is nothing to show his identity with the actor. The name is a common one in parish registers of the day. Dekker, in his ‘Guls Hornebook,’ speaks of the actor as dead in 1609, and Heywood, in his ‘Apology for Actors’ (1612), says of Kemp and other recent comic players that, ‘though they be dead, their deserts yet live in the remembrance of many.’ Richard Braithwaite includes in his ‘Remains after Death,’ 1618, an epitaph on Kemp.
Another William Kemp (1555–1628) was son of Robert Kemp of Spains Hall, Finchingfield, Essex, by Elizabeth, daughter of Sir Clement Heigham [q. v.] He married Philippa, daughter of Francis Gunter, and dying without issue, was buried in the church of Spains Hall on 10 June 1628, aged 73 (Morant, Essex, ii. 363). The inscription on his monument states that for speaking some hasty words he performed the penance of maintaining complete silence for seven years. The incident is the subject of a Latin poem ‘In obitum Gulielmi Kempi Armigeri Philomusi,’ published in James Duport's ‘Musæ Subsecivæ,’ Cambridge, 1676 (pp. 485–5). Hunter notices that ‘Philomusus,’ the title bestowed by Duport on the penitent, is the name given to the scholar with whom the actor Kemp holds converse in the ‘Return from Parnassus,’ and that the Kemps of Spains Hall were nearly related with the Colts of Melford, Suffolk, with whom the actor stayed for three days on his dance to Norwich. But the coincidences are merely curious, and hardly justify any theory of close relationship between the dancer and the owner of Spains Hall.
[Kemp's Nine Daies Wonder (Camd. Soc.), ed. Alexander Dyce; Hunter's Chorus Vatum in Brit. Mus. (Addit. MS. 24487 ff. 207 sq.);
