in metrical form, notably one ascribed to 'M^r Attowel', whom we should, I think, identify with the sixteenth-century George, rather than the seventeenth-century Hugh, of that name.[1] Another, Rowland's Godson, seems to be the surviving member of a well-known cycle.[2]
Nor was the jig the only form of afterpiece which had its savour in an Elizabethan play-house. Tarlton again, and after Tarlton Wilson, won reputation in the handling of 'themes', which appear to have been improvisations in verse, strung together on some motive supplied by a member of the audience.[3] It has been suggested that complete plays were also sometimes given by the method of improvised dialogue on a concerted plot which was followed in the Italian commedie dell' arte.[4] This must remain very doubtful. The Italian practice and the stock characters, pantaloon, zany, and harlequin, of the commedie dell' arte were certainly known in England; but we have the clear evidence of The Case is Altered that by 1597 at any rate they had not been naturalized.[5] If improvisation
- ↑ A. Clark, Shirburn Ballads, 244 (cf. S. R. list, supra, s. a. 1595), 'M^r Attowel's Jigge: betweene Francis, a Gentleman; Richard, a farmer; and their wives'. It is in four scenes, sung respectively to the tunes of 'Walsingham', 'The Jewishe Dance', 'Buggle-boe', and 'Goe from my windo'. In Roxburghe Ballads, i. 201; ii. 101, are 'Clod's Carroll, a proper new jigg', and 'A mery new Jigge'. Collier's 'Jigge of a Horse Loade of Fooles' (New Facts, 18; cf. Halliwell, Tarlton, xx) is probably a fake.
- ↑ Clark, 354, from Bodl. Rawlinson Poet. MS. 185 (c. 1590), 'A proper new ballett, intituled Rowland's god-sonne'. It is to the tune of 'Loth to departe'. Nashe, Summer's Last Will and Testament, 76, mentions this jig. Two parts of a 'Rowlandes godson moralised' were entered in S. R. on 18 and 29 April 1592. Rowland is not a character, and numerous German allusions to and adaptations of a jig beginning 'Oh neighbour Rowland' (Herz, 134) have probably some other original. A 'Roland and the Sexton' is in the S. R. list, supra. A verse dialogue in Alleyn Papers, 8, mentions 'bonny Rowland' and is probably a jig of his cycle; another (p. 29) does not read to me like a jig.
- ↑ Cf. ch. xv (Tarlton, Wilson) and Nashe, Pierce Penilesse (Works, i. 244),
'the queint Comaedians of our time, That when their Play is doone, do
fal to ryme'. Armin's (q.v.) Quips Upon Questions (1600) are probably
themes, or based upon the conception of themes. A theme is introduced
in Histriomastix, ii. 293. The Lord sets it:
Your poetts and your pottes
Are knit in true-love knots,and a sixteen-line 'song extempore' by Posthaste follows. The verses on 'theames' in Gascoigne's Posies (ed. Cunliffe, 62) are not, I think, improvisations.
- ↑ Smith, Commedia dell' Arte, 175; cf. M. J. Wolff, Shakespeare und die Commedia dell' arte (Sh.-Jahrbuch, xlvi. 1).
- ↑ C. is A. II. vii. 36, of the players in Utopia (England), 'Sebastian. And how are their plaies? as ours are? extemporall? Valentine. O no! all premeditated things'. The references of Whetstone, Heptameron (1582), Sp. Tragedy, IV. i. 163, Middleton, Spanish Gypsy, IV. ii. 38, are specifically
