I date the Court production on the Shrove-Tuesday before the S. R. entry, on which day Oxford's boys, whom I regard as made up of Chapel and Paul's boys, played under Lyly (cf. App. B). Fleay, ii. 40, Bond, ii. 367, and Feuillerat, 573, prefer Shrove-Tuesday (27 Feb.) 1582.
Galathea. 1584 < > 88
S. R. 1585, Apr. 1. 'A Commoedie of Titirus and Galathea' (no fee recorded). Gabriel Cawood (Arber, ii. 440). 1591, Oct. 4 (Bp. of London). 'Three Comedies plaied before her maiestie by the Children of Paules thone called Endimion, thother Galathea and thother Midas.' Widow Broome (Arber, ii. 596). 1592. Gallathea. As it was playde before the Queenes Maiestie at Greenewiche, on Newyeeres day at Night. By the Chyldren of Paules. John Charlwood for Joan Broome. [Prologue and Epilogue.] The only performance by Paul's, on a 1 Jan. at Greenwich, which can be referred to in the t.p. is that of 1588 (cf. App. B), and in III. iii. 41 is an allusion to the approaching year octogesimus octavus, which would of course begin on 25 March 1588. Fleay, ii. 40, and Feuillerat, 575, accept this date. Bond, ii. 425, prefers 1586 or 1587, regardless of the fact that the New Year plays in these years were by the Queen's men. A phrase in V. iii. 86 proves it later than Sapho and Phao. But if, as seems probable, the 1585 entry in the Stationers' Register was of this play, the original production must have been at least as early as 1584-5, and that of 1588 a revival.
Endymion. 1588
S. R. 1591, Oct. 4. Vide supra s.v. Galathea.
1591. Endimion, The Man in the Moone. Playd before the Queenes Maiestie at Greenewich on Candlemas Day at night, by the Chyldren of Paules. John Charlwood for Joan Broome. [Epistle by the Printer to the Reader; Prologue and Epilogue.]
Editions by C. W. Dilke (1814, O. E. P. ii), G. P. Baker (1894) and W. A. Neilson (1911, C. E. D.).—Dissertations: N. J. Halpin, Oberon's Vision in M. N. D. Illustrated by a Comparison with L.'s E. (1843, Sh. Soc.); J. E. Spingarn, The Date of L.'s E. (1894, Athenaeum, ii. 172, 204); P. W. Long, The Purport of L.'s E. (1909, M. L. A. xxiv. 1), L.'s E., an Addendum (1911, M. P. viii. 599).
The prologue and epilogue were evidently for the Court. The epistle describes this as the first of certain comedies which had come into the printer's hands 'since the plays in Pauls were dissolved'. Baker, lxxxiii, suggested a date of composition in the autumn of 1579, while Spingarn, Bond, iii. 11, and Feuillerat, 577, take the Candlemas of the t.p. to be that of 1586, but the only available Candlemas performance by the Paul's boys is that of 1588 (cf. App. B). With Long I find no conviction in the attempts of Halpin, Baker, Bond, and Feuillerat to trace Elizabeth's politics and amours in the play. If Lyly had meant half of what they suggest, he would have ruined his career in her service at the outset.
