Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 31.djvu/355

  of the several Acts of Parliament relating to the Assessed Taxes,’ 8vo, London, 1799 (Postscript, 1801).

 KYD or KID, THOMAS (1557?–1595?), dramatist, appears to be identical with Thomas Kydd, the son of Francis Kydd, a London scrivener, who entered Merchant Taylors' School on 26 Oct. 1565 (, Merchant Taylors' School Reg. i. 9). John Kyd, apparently the dramatist's brother, was admitted a freeman of the Stationers' Company on 18 Feb. 1583-4 (, Transcripts, ii.591). John published some pamphlets of news and popular narratives of exciting crimes, but very few of his publications are extant. He died late in 1592. Mention is made of his widow in the Stationers' Registers on 5 March 1592-3 (ib. i. 565, ii. 621).

The dramatist was well educated. He could write a rough sort of Latin verse, which he was fond of introducing into his plays, and be knew Italian and French sufficiently well to translate from both. He also gained a slight acquaintance with Spanish. He was probably brought up to his father's profession of scrivener or notary. But he soon abandoned that employment for literature, and thenceforward suffered much privation. Kyd's career doubtless suggested to Nashe (in his preface to Menaphon, 1589) his description of those who, leaving 'the trade of movement whereto they were born,' busy themselves with endeavours of art, pose as English Senecas, attempt Italian translations or twopenny pamphlets, and 'botch up a blank verse with ifs and ands' Of all these offences Kyd was guilty, although his blank-verse is undeserving of such summary condemnation, and marks an advance on earlier efforts. When Nashe proceeds to point out that Seneca's famished English followers imitate 'the Kidde in Aesop, he is apparently punning on the dramatist's name.

Kid's earliest published book was a rendering from the Italian of 'The Householders Philosophie, first written in Italian by that excellent orator and poet, Torqualo Tasso, and now translated by T. K.,' London, 1588 (An imperfect copy is in the British Museum.) It is signed at the end after Kyd's mannor, with his initials beneath a Latin pentameter, and is dedicated to 'Maister Thomas Reade.' In 1592 Kyd wrote for his brother, the publisher, a pamphlet describing a recent murder. The title ran, 'The Truethe of the most wicked and secret Murthering of John Brewen, Goldsmith, of London, committed by his owne wife.' This was licensed for the press on 22 Aug. 1592. A unique copy is at Lambeth, and it was reprinted in J. P. Collier's 'Illustrations of Early English Popular Literature' in 1S63. Murderous topics were always congenial to the dramatist, and it is quite possible that he was also the author of the 'True Reporte of the Poisoninge of Thomas Elliot, Tailor, of London,' which his brother published at the same date.

But it was as a writer of tragedies which clothed blood-curdling incident in 'the swelling bombast of bragging blank-verse' (to use Nashe's phrase) that had made his reputation. Two plays from his pen, with Hieronimo or Jeronimo, marshal of Spain, for their hero, achieved exceptional popularity. They are the best extant specimens of that 'tragedy of blood' in which Elizabethan playgoers chiefly delighted before Shakespeare revolutionised public taste. The one dealing with the earlier events in the career of Jeronimo or Hieronimo was not published till 1605, when it appeared anonymously in the only edition known with the title 'The First Part of Ieronimo. With the Warres of Portugall and the Life and Death of Don Andrea.' (London, for Thomas Pauyer). The other piece, dealing with the murder of the hero's son Horatio, and the hero's consequent madness and death, was licensed for the press to Abel Jeffes in October 1592, under the title of 'The Spanish Tragedy of one Horatio and Bellimperia' (Horatio's lady-love), but the earliest extant copy is a second and revised edition of 1594 (British Museum), which bears the title, 'The Spanish Tragedie, containing the lamentable end of Don Horatio and Belimperia, with the pitiful death of old Hieronimo. Newly corrected and amended of such grosse faults as passed in the first impression' (London by Edward Allde). A later edition, printed by William White, is dated 1599. All impressions appeared anonymously, but the authorship is established by Thomas Heywood's incidental mention of 'M. Kid' as the writer of 'The Spanish Tragedy' in his 'Apology for Actors,' 1612 (Shaksp. Soc. 45), and there is adequate internal evidence for assigning 'The First Part of Jeronymo' to the same pen.

The date of the production of these pieces is only ascertained from two contemptuous references made by Ben Jonson to their stubborn hold on popular favour. In 1600, in the induction to 'Cynthia's Bevels,' Jonson assigns above a dozen years to the age of 'the old Hieronimo as it was first acted;' and