CHRISTOPHER WREN (1591-1658).
Author of the academic Physiponomachia (cf. App. K). ROBERT YARINGTON (c. 1601?). Nothing is known of Yarington, but this is hardly sufficient reason for denying him the ascription of the title-page.
Two Lamentable Tragedies. 1594 < > 1601
1601. Two Lamentable Tragedies. The one, of the murder of Maister Beech a Chaundler in Thames-streete, and his boye, done by Thomas Merry. The other of a young childe murthered in a Wood by two Ruffins, with the consent of his Vnckle. By Rob. Yarington. For Mathew Lawe. [Running-title, 'Two Tragedies in One.' Induction.]
Editions by A. H. Bullen (1885, O. E. P. iv) and J. S. Farmer (1913, S. F. T.).—Dissertation: R. A. Law, Y.'s T. L. T. (1910, M. L. R. v. 167).
This deals in alternate scenes with (a) the murder of Beech by Merry on 23 Aug. 1594, and (b) a version, with an Italian setting, of the Babes in the Wood, on which a ballad, with a Norfolk setting, was licensed in 1595. Greg, Henslowe, ii. 208, following a hint of Fleay, ii. 285, connects the play with Henslowe's entries of payments, on behalf of the Admiral's, (i) of £5 in Nov. and Dec. 1599 to Day and Haughton for Thomas Merry or Beech's Tragedy, (ii) of 10s. in Nov. 1599 and 10s. in Sept. 1601 to Chettle for The Orphan's Tragedy, and (iii) of £2 to Day in Jan. 1600 for an Italian tragedy. He supposes that (ii) and (iii) were the same play, that it was finished, and that in 1601 Chettle combined it with (i), possibly dropping out Day's contributions to both pieces. Yarington he dismisses as a scribe. In the alternate scenes of the extant version he discerns distinct hands, presumably those of Haughton and Chettle respectively. Law does not think that there are necessarily two hands at all, finds imitation of Leire (1594) in scenes belonging to both plots, and reinstates Yarington. Oliphant (M. P. viii. 435) boldly conjectures that 'Rob. Yarington' might be a misreading of 'W^m Haughton'. Bullen thought that this play, Arden of Feversham, and A Warning for Fair Women might all be by the same hand.
CHRISTOPHER YELVERTON (c. 1535-1612).
Yelverton entered Gray's Inn in 1552. He is mentioned as a poet in Jasper Heywood's verses before Thomas Newton's translation (1560) of Seneca's Thyestes, and wrote an epilogue to the Gray's Inn Jocasta of Gascoigne (q.v.) and Kinwelmershe in 1566. He also helped to devise the dumb-shows for the Gray's Inn Misfortunes of Arthur of Thomas Hughes (q.v.) on 28 Feb. 1588. He became a Justice of the Queen's Bench on 2 Feb. 1602 and was knighted on 23 July 1603.
