Page:The Review of English Studies Vol 1.djvu/101

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THE RIGHTS OF BEESTON AND D’AVENANT
87

time.[1] Besides these, however, a few plays are omitted because of their having been given over to D’Avenant, along with The Mad Lover, The Maid of the Mill and The Honest Man’s Fortune. Quite naturally, that dramatist’s own Unfortunate Lovers, The Fair Favourite, The Distresses, Love and Honour, and News from Plymouth passed into his own hands (in December, 1660), as did one or two other dramas undoubtedly belonging to the King’s men but not mentioned in their 1641 list. Carlell’s The Passionate Lovers, like Massinger’s The City Madam, seem simply to have disappeared, possibly because these dramas were not considered worth reviving on the stage.

The 1669 list, however, compensates for its omissions by adding a number of other dramas, practically all of which must have belonged to the pre-Commonwealth King’s company. Of the “Beaumont and Fletcher” plays, we find The False One and The Fair Maid of the Inn (both printed in 1647), The Laws of Candy and The Sea Voyage, which had been entered in the Stationer’s Register under the date September 4, 1646, as well as The Elder Brother, The Faithful Shepherdess, A King and No King, The Maid’s Tragedy, Philaster, Rollo, The Scornful Lady, Thierry and Theodoret, and Rule a Wife and Have a Wife, which were omitted from the 1641 list, no doubt, because they had been already printed. The other additions include plays of Cartwright (The Royal Slave), Shirley (The Sisters, The Cardinall), Massinger (The Unnatural Combat, The Duke of Milan, The Emperor of the East, The Fatal Dowry, The Roman Actor), Suckling (Aglaura), Carlell (Arviragus and Philicia, The Deserving Favourite, Osmond the Great Turk), Newcastle (The Variety), Berkeley (The Lost Lady), Chapman (Bussy d’Ambois, The Widow’s Tears), and Brome (The Northern Lass). All of these, with the exception of The Variety (printed 1649), and Osmond (printed 1657), had been published before 1641, and all, with the exception of Bussy d’Ambois (an original Paul’s play),[2] The Faithful Shepherdess (originally Queen’s Revels),[3] Osmond (Queen’s), and The Widow’s Tears (Black and Whitefriars), seem to have been brought out originally by the King’s men.

  1. It may be noted here that possibly one other drama is common to the two. The Bridegroom and the Madman (1641) is no doubt to be identified with The Nice Valour, or The Passionate Madman (1669), another of the Beaumont and Fletcher group.
  2. But given later by the King's men (Adams, Henry Herbert, 55 and 76; cf. Murry, J. T., English Dramatic Companies, i. 177).
  3. Revived by King’s men in 1633 (Adams, op. cit. 20).