suppose that the manuscript play of 'Farry Queen' in Warburton's
list (3 Library, ii. 232) had any connexion with Spenser's comedies. ROD. STAFFORD. Probably the 'Rod. Staff.' who collaborated with Robert Wilmot (q.v.) in the Inner Temple play of Gismond of Salerne. WILLIAM STANLEY, EARL OF DERBY (1561-1642). Derby seems to have had players from 1594 to 1618, who presumably acted the comedies which he was said to be 'penning' in June 1599 (cf. ch. xiii), but none of these can be identified, although the company's anonymous Trial of Chivalry (1605) needs an author. A fantastic theory that his plays were for the Chamberlain's, and that he wrote them under the name of William Shakespeare, was promulgated by J. Greenstreet in The Genealogist, n.s. vii. 205; viii. 8, 137), and has been elaborately developed by A. Lefranc in Sous le Masque de 'William Shakespeare' (1919) and later papers in Le Flambeau and elsewhere. A Midsummer Night's Dream was not impossibly written for his wedding on 26 Jan. 1595 (cf. App. A and Shakespeare Homage, 154). JOHN STEPHENS (> 1611-1617 <). A Gloucester man, who entered Lincoln's Inn in 1611, but is only known by his slight literary performances, of which the most important are his Essayes of 1615 (cf. App. C, No. lx).
Cynthia's Revenge > 1613
1613. Cinthias Revenge: or Maenanders Extasie. Written by John Stephens, Gent. For Roger Barnes. [There are two variant t.ps. of which one omits the author's name. Epistle to Io. Dickinson, signed 'I. S.'; Epistle to the Reader; Argument; Commendatory Verses, signed 'F. C.', 'B. I.', 'G. Rogers', 'Tho. Danet'.]
Dissertation: P. Simpson, The Authorship and Original Issue of C. R. (1907, M. L. R. ii. 348).
The epistle to the reader says that the author's name is 'purposly concealed . . . from the impression', which accounts for the change of title-page. Stephens claims the authorship in the second edition of his Essayes (1615). Kirkman (Greg, Masques, lxii) was misled into assigning it to 'John Swallow', by a too literal interpretation of F. C.'s lines:
One Swallow makes no Summer, most men say,
But who disproues that Prouerbe, made this Play.
JOHN STUDLEY (c. 1545-c. 1590).
Translator of Seneca (q.v.).
ROBERT TAILOR (c. 1613).
Tailor also published settings to Sacred Hymns (1615) and wrote commendatory verses to John Taylor's The Nipping or Snipping of Abuses (1614).
