Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 26.djvu/346

 belong ‘The English Traveller,’ which in the development of its main plot is almost as pathetic as ‘A Woman Killed with Kindness,’ and three comedies of adventure, through which blows a salt breeze of the sea, ‘The Fair Maid of the West,’ the recently recovered ‘Captives,’ and ‘Fortune by Land and Sea’ (in which Heywood was assisted by William Rowley). ‘The Wise Woman of Hogsdon,’ probably a late piece, is a comedy of very low life, but by far the most skilfully constructed of Heywood's dramas. A distinct group is formed by the very successful ‘Four Ages,’ which reproduces in a dramatic form, not without an occasional touch of burlesque, the best-known stories of Greek mythology down to the siege of Troy, and the ‘Rape of Lucrece,’ likewise very popular, but largely so, it is to be feared, because of the comic songs of the ‘merry Lord Valerius.’ ‘Love's Mistress,’ through which Apuleius and Midas carry on a running critical comment in the Jonsonian manner, was aided by the inventions of Inigo Jones; the long series of city pageants was rendered remarkable by the ingenuity of Gerard Christmas [q. v.] (Heywood's love of pageants is also illustrated by passages in his ‘England's Elizabeth.’) Most of Heywood's works in print bore his favourite motto, ‘Aut prodesse solent aut delectare.’ In many of them the author makes use of chorus and dumb show; the earlier may usually be distinguished by the abundant use of rhyme (see the Epilogue to The Royal King and Loyal Subject). Some of them contain pleasing and musical songs (, pp. xvi, xxii); but as a rule the lyrics in Heywood's dramas are commonplace. Like all the Elizabethans he indulged himself in the construction of out-of-the-way phrases and vocables, but his genius did not lie in the direction of style. On the other hand, it is true that, as might be expected from a dramatist of his experience, ‘his criticism is often quite as valuable as his dramatic poetry’ (ib. p. x). Tieck, who translated one of the most pleasing, and not least characteristic, of his dramas, well describes him as ‘a man of facile and felicitous endowment, who wrote many plays, and among them several that are excellent.’ Few contemporary tributes to him remain; he is praised by Shakerley Marmion (ante); his friend Samuel King congratulates the author of ‘The Wise Woman of Hogsdon’ on a fame needing no ‘apology,’ and the ‘Apology for Actors’ itself evokes the sympathy of John Webster, of some of Heywood's fellow-actors, and of John Taylor the Water-poet. Dryden, in ‘Mac Flecknoe,’ thinking apparently of Heywood's translations as much as of his plays, refers to him slightingly. It was his power of creating powerful effects with everyday materials which excuses Charles Lamb's paradoxical description of him as ‘a prose Shakspere.’

The following is a list of Heywood's published and unpublished productions, so far as ascertainable. The lists in the ‘Biographia Dramatica’ and in vol. vi. of ‘Old Plays’ need revision: A. : 1. ‘The Four Prentices of London, with the Conquest of Jerusalem,’ 1615, but produced ‘some fifteen or sixteen years’ earlier; also 1632. 2 and 3. ‘Edward IV.’ Two parts, 1600, 1605; also two early editions without dates. Edited for the Shakespeare Society by Barron Field, 1842. 4 and 5. ‘If you know not me, you know nobody; or, the Troubles of Queen Elizabeth.’ First part 1605, 1606, 1608, 1613, 1632; second part 1606, 1609, 1623, 1633 (Prologue and Epilogue for the revival at the Cockpit are for part i. only). Edited for the Shakespeare Society by J. P. Collier, 1851. 6. ‘The Royal King and the Loyal Subject,’ 1637, but first acted at a much earlier date (see Epilogue). Edited for ‘Old Plays,’ vol. vi. 1816, and for the Shakespeare Society by J. P. Collier, 1850. 7. ‘A Woman Killed with Kindness.’ Acted 1603, printed 1607, 1617. Edited for the Shakespeare Society from the third (the earliest extant) edition by J. P. Collier, 1850. Acted by the Dramatic Students' Society in London, 1887 (see their acting edition). 8. ‘The Fair Maid of the Exchange,’ 1607, 1625, 1635, 1637. Edited for the Shakespeare Society by Barron Field, 1837. 9. ‘The Rape of Lucrece,’ 1608, 1630, 1638; acted at the Red Bull from the last named edition. 10. ‘The Golden Age,’ 1611. 11. ‘The Silver Age.’ Acted before the court at Greenwich early in 1612; 1613. This and the preceding were edited for the Shakespeare Society by J. P. Collier, 1851. 12. ‘The Brazen Age,’ 1613. 13 and 14. ‘The Fair Maid of the West; or, A Girl with Gold,’ two parts. Acted 1617, printed 1631. Edited for the Shakespeare Society by J. P. Collier, 1850. 15. ‘The Captives; or, The Lost Recovered;’ entered in Sir Henry Herbert's manuscript ‘Office Book,’ 1624, as a new play for the Cockpit company; edited from a manuscript in the British Museum by Mr. A. H. Bullen, and printed in his ‘Old English Plays’ (vol. iv.), 1885. 16 and 17. ‘The Iron Age,’ two parts; 1632. 18. ‘The English Traveller.’ Acted at the Fortune (see act iv.) and the Cockpit, printed 1633. Edited for vol. vi. of ‘Old Plays,’ 1816. 19. ‘A Maidenhead well Lost,’ 1634. 20. ‘Love's Mistress; or, the Queen's Masque.’ Acted at the Court and the Phœ-