first venture in dedication, was not a very early work, for Day admits that 'I boast not that gaudie spring of credit and youthfull florish of opinion as some other filde in the same rancke with me'. Moreover, it describes (p. 50) an 'antemaske', and this term, so far as we know,
first came into use about 1608 (cf. ch. vi). The Bees therefore must be later still. On the other hand, it can hardly be later than about 1616, when died Philip Henslowe, whom it is impossible to resist seeing with Fleay, i. 115, in the Fenerator or Usuring Bee (p. 63). Like Henslowe he is a 'broaker' and 'takes up' clothes; and
Most of the timber that his state repairs, He hew's out o' the bones of foundred players: They feed on Poets braines, he eats their breath.
Now of the twelve Characters of the Bees, five (2, 3, 7, 8, 9) are reproduced, in many parts verbatim, subject to an alteration of names, in The Wonder of a Kingdom, printed as Dekker's (q.v.) in 1636, but probably identical with Come See a Wonder, licensed by Herbert as Day's in 1623. Two others (4, 5) are similarly reproduced in The Noble Soldier, printed in 1634 under the initials 'S. R.', probably indicating Samuel Rowley, but possibly also containing work by Dekker. The precise relation of Day to these plays is indeterminate, but the scenes more obviously 'belong' to the Bees than to the plays, and if the Bees was written but not printed in 1608-16, the chances are that Day used it as a quarry of material when he was called upon to work, as reviser or collaborator, on the plays. Meanwhile, Austin, if he was the Southwark and Lincoln's Inn writer of that name (D. N. B.), died in 1634, and when the Bees was ultimately printed in 1641 a new dedicatee had to be found.
Lost and Doubtful Plays
For the Admiral's, 1598-1603.
Day appears to have sold the company an old play 1 The Conquest of Brute in July 1598, and to have subsequently written or collaborated in the following plays:
1599-1600: Cox of Collumpton, with Haughton; Thomas Merry, or Beech's Tragedy, with Haughton; The Seven Wise Masters, with Chettle, Dekker, and Haughton; Cupid and Psyche, with Chettle and Dekker; 1 Blind Beggar of Bethnal Green, with Chettle; and the unfinished Spanish Moor's Tragedy, with Dekker and Haughton.
1600-1: 2 Blind Beggar of Bethnal Green, with Haughton; Six Yeomen of the West, with Haughton.
1601-2: The Conquest of the West Indies, with Haughton and Smith; 3 Blind Beggar of Bethnal Green, with Haughton; Friar Rush and The Proud Woman of Antwerp, with Chettle and Haughton; The Bristol Tragedy; and the unfinished 2 Tom Dough, with Haughton.
1602-3: Merry as May Be, with Hathway and Smith; The Boss of Billingsgate, with Hathway and another.
For Worcester's men.
1602-3: 1 and 2 The Black Dog of Newgate, with Hathway, Smith,
