actions, being indeed the flagge to our theater, was not meerely falcification, for I had divers Chorus to bee spoken by men of good birth, schollers by profession, protesting that the businesse was meerely abused by the comming of some beagles upon mee that were none of the intended kennell: I meane baylifes, who, siezing mee before the first entrance, spoke an Epilogue instead of a Prologue. This changed the play into the hunting of the fox, which, that the world may know for a verity, I heere promise the next tearme, with the true history of my life, to bee publiquely presented, to insert, in place of musicke for the actes, all those intendments prepared for that daies enterteinment.'
Later on he says, 'I presented you with a dumbe show', and jests on
getting 'so much mony for six verses', which, I suppose, means that
the performance was intended to be a spoken one, but was broken
off during the prologue. Apparently the new entertainment contemplated
by Vennar in 1614 was in fact given, not by him but by
William Fennor, to whom John Taylor writes in his A Cast Over Water
(1615):
Thou brag'st what fame thou got'st upon the stage.
Indeed, thou set'st the people in a rage
In playing England's Joy, that every man
Did judge it worse than that was done at Swan.
Upon S. George's day last, sir, you gave
To eight Knights of the Garter (like a knave),
Eight manuscripts (or Books) all fairelie writ,
Informing them, they were your mother wit:
And you compil'd them; then were you regarded,
And for another's wit was well rewarded.
All this is true, and this I dare maintaine,
The matter came from out a learned braine:
And poor old Vennor that plaine dealing man,
Who acted England's Joy first at the Swan,
Paid eight crowns for the writing of these things.
Besides the covers, and the silken strings.
Robin Goodfellow, in Jonson's Love Restored (1612), calls the absence of a mask 'a fine trick, a piece of England's Joy', and three characters in the Masque of Augurs (1622) are said to be 'three of those gentlewomen that should have acted in that famous matter of England's Joy in six hundred and three'—apparently a slip of Jonson's as to the exact date. Other allusions to the 'gullery' are in Saville, Entertainment of King James at Theobalds (1603); R. Brathwaite, The Poet's Palfrey (Strappado for the Devil, ed. J. W. Ebsworth, 160); J. Suckling, The Goblins (ed. Hazlitt, ii. 52); W. Davenant, Siege of Rhodes, Pt. ii, prol. It may be added that Vennar's cozenage was perhaps suggested by traditional stories of similar tricks. One is ascribed to one Qualitees in Merry Tales, Wittie Questions and Quick Answeres, cxxxiii (1567, Hazlitt, Jest Books, i. 145). In this bills were set up 'vpon postes aboute London' for 'an antycke plaie' at Northumberland Place and 'all they that shoulde playe therin were gentilmen'. Another is the subject of one of the Jests of George Peele (Bullen, ii. 389). W. Fennor, The Compters Commonwealth (1617),
