Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 31.djvu/356

Kyd writing in 1814, in the induction to his 'Bartholomew Fair,' he declares that those who still commend 'Jeronymo, or Andronicus,' represent the popular opinion of 'five-and-twenty or thirty years' back. The pieces, it may therefore be stated with certainty, first saw the light between 1584 and 1589. There is nothing to show which of the two plays should claim precedence in point of time. In Henslowe's 'Diary' (p. 21), mention is first made under date 23 Feb. 1691-2 of the performance of the 'Spanes Comodye — Donne Oracoe,' doubtless an ignorant description of 'The Spanish Tragedy.' This play was far more popular than its companion, and it is quite possible that after its success was assured 'The First Part of Jeronimo' was prepared, in order to satisfy public curiosity respecting the hero's earlier life. Throughout 1592 Henslowe confusedly records performances of 'Don Oracoe,' 'The Comodey of Jeronymo,' and 'Jeronymo,' the first two titles being applied indifferently to 'The Spanish Tragedy,' and the third title to 'The First Part.' Contrary to expectation, 'The First Part' seems to have been usually played on the night succeeding that on which 'The Spanish Tragedy' was represented. Dekker, in his 'Satiromastix,' insinuated that Ben Jonson was the creator of the hero's role, but according to the list of Burbage's chief characters supplied in the 'Elegy' on his death, the part was first played by that actor, and was one of his most popular assumptions.

The title page of a new edition of 'The Spanish Tragedy' in 1602 described it as enlarged, 'with new additions of the Painter's part and others, ba it hatb of late been divers acted.' The new scenes exhibit with masterly power the development of Hieronimo's madness, and their authorship is a matter of high literary interest. Despite the abuse lavished on 'the old Hieronimo' by Ben Jonson, and despite the superior intensity of the added scenes to anything in Jonson's extant work, there is some reason for making him responsible for them. Charles Lamb, who quoted the added scenes—'the salt of the old play'—in his 'Specimens of English Dramatic Poets,' detected in them the agency of some more potent spirit than Jonson, and suggested Webster. Coleridge wrote that 'the parts pointed out in Hieronimo as Ben Jonson's bear no traces of his style, but they are very like Shakespeare's' (Table Talk, p. 191). On the other band Henslowe supplies strong external testimony in Jonson's favour. On 25 Sept. 1601 he lent Jonson 2l. 'upon his writinge of his adicions in Oeronymo, and on 24 June 1602 he advanced 10l. to the same writer 'in earneste of a boocke called Richard Crockbacke, and for new adicions for Jeronymo' (, Diary, pp. 202, 213). Later editions of the revised play in 1610, 16ll, 1623, and 1633.

Many external proofs of the popularity of 'Jeronimo' are accessible. Between 1599 and 1638 at least seven editions appeared of a ballad founded on the play and entitled 'The Spanish Tragedy, contnining the lamentable murders of Horatio and Bellimperia: with the pitiful death of old Hieronimo. To the tune of Queen Dido. In two parts ... printed at London for H. Gosson.' A curious woodcut adorns the publication (Roxburghe Ballads, ii. 404 sq.) Before 1600 a portion of the play was adapted to the German stage by Jacob Ayrnr, in his 'Tragodia von dem Griegischen Keyser zu Constantinopel und seiner Tochter Pelimberia, mit dem gehengten Horatio' (Opus Theatricum, i. 177 ;, Altdeutsches Theater, i. 200; , Shakespeare in Germany, p. lxv). In 1608 A. van den Berghen published at Amsterdam a Dutch version, 'Don Jeronimo Maerschalck van Spanien, Treurspiel,' which was republished in 1683. At home Richard Brathwaite stated, in his 'English Gentlewoman' in 1631, that a lady 'of good rank' declined the consolations of religion on her deathbed, and died exclaiming 'Hieronimo, Hieronimo, O let me see Hieronimo acted!' Prynne, when penning his 'Histriomastix' in 1637, found in this story a convenient text for moralising. Two of Hieronimo's expressions — 'What outcry calls me from my naked bed!' his exclamation on being roused to learn the news of his son's death, and the warning which he whispers to himself when he thinks he has offended the king, 'Beware Hieronimo, go by, go by'—were long used as expletives in Elizabetban slang. Kit Sly quotes the latter in the vernacular form, 'Go by, Jeronimy,' in Shakespeare's 'Taming of the Shrew' (cf., Shoemaker's Holiday, 1600); while as late as 1640 Thomas Rawlins, in his 'Rebellion,' introduces derisively, 'Who calls Jeronimo from his naked bed?' and many parodies of Kyd's grandiloquence. Ben Jonson was nerer weary of ridiculing both the bombastic style of Kyd's masterpiece and the vulgar taste which applauded it. In his 'Every Man in his Humour' and his 'Poetaster' a number of 'its fine speeches' are quoted with bitter sarcasm.

The sole play to which Kyd set his name was a translation of a French tragedy by Robert Garnier. On 26 Jan. 1593–4 'a booke called Cornelia, Thomas Kydde being the author,' was licensed for publication. It appeared in 1594 anonymously, but a dedication to the Countess of Sussex is signed