Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 52.djvu/141

 Lalor Sheil's ‘Evadne, or the Statue’ (acted at Covent Garden in 1829). The story of Lorenzo de' Medici constitutes the plot of Alfred de Musset's ‘Lorenzaccio.’ 8. ‘Love's Cruelty’ (tragedy), licensed 14 Nov. 1631; revived in 1667, when Pepys saw it, and printed in the same year. 9. ‘The Changes, or Love in a Maze,’ comedy, licensed 10 Jan. 1632, and printed in the same year. Pepys saw it five times after its revival in 1662. 10. ‘Hyde Park,’ comedy, licensed 20 April 1632, printed 1637; revived after the Restoration, when Pepys saw it, with the horses on the stage, 11 July 1668. 11. ‘A Contention for Honour and Riches,’ a masque, entered on the ‘Stationers' Register’ in 1632, and printed 1633. This masque, which is founded on the ‘Decameron’ (v. 8), was reprinted in a revised and enlarged form by Shirley in 1659, under the title of ‘Honoria and Mammon.’ 12. ‘The Ball,’ comedy, licensed 16 Nov. 1632 as by Chapman and Shirley, and printed 1639. There is no reason for supposing that Chapman had a material share in the composition of this comedy. Sir Henry Herbert found fault with the introduction of actual court personages into this play, and the passages in question were probably omitted before publication; Mr. Fleay thinks that they were replaced by other passages written by Chapman; he also points out that a passage in ‘The Lady of Pleasure’ (act i. sc. 1), in which Shirley confesses that the author of ‘The Ball’ was ‘bribed’ to suppress certain vivacities in it, implies that he contemplated a second part of that comedy. 13. ‘The Arcadia,’ pastoral, printed 1614. It was never licensed for performance, but seems (see act iii. sc. 1) to have been first acted in honour of the king's birthday (19 Nov.). This clue has led Mr. Fleay to the conclusion that the play was produced in 1632; Carew, he thinks, wrote the lyrics in it. Genest (iv. 396) states that Shirley's ‘Arcadia’ was reprinted about the time of the production of Macnamara Morgan's ‘Philoclea’ (January 1754), which, however, professes to be independent of it. 14. ‘The Beauties,’ licensed 21 Jan. 1633, but renamed ‘The Bird in a Cage,’ in order to point the reference to Prynne, then in prison, to whom the farcical comedy so named is dedicated (there can hardly be a doubt that this theory of Mr. Fleay's is correct; no ‘Bird in a Cage’ was ever licensed; and in this play, act iii. sc. 3, the court beauties resolve to play an interlude and to ‘engage the person of the princess in the action.’ See also act i. sc. 1). ‘The Bird in a Cage’ was revived on the stage in 1786 (, vi. 399). 15. ‘The Young Admiral,’ romantic comedy, licensed 3 July 1633, being specially commended by Sir Henry Herbert in his office-book as ‘free from oaths, prophaneness, or obsceanes,’ and fit to serve ‘for a patterne to other poetts, not only for the bettring of maners and language, but for the improvement of the quality,’ i.e. the actors, ‘which hath received some brushings of late.’ It was acted on the following 19 Nov. (the king's birthday) and printed in 1637. It was acted before Charles II on 20 Nov. 1662 (, Diary, s.d.). 16. ‘The Gamester,’ comedy, licensed 11 Nov. 1633, and acted 6 Feb. 1634. Herbert says that it was made by Shirley ‘out of a plot of the king's,’ given to the poet by Herbert, and that the king ‘said it was the best play he had seen for seven year’ (the plot seems in part based on a novel by Celio Malespini, or on one by the Queen of Navarre, i. 8). Posterity would seem to have been much of Charles's mind, for this clever, though in other respects far from faultless, comedy has been repeatedly adapted for the stage by later writers. Among these are Charles Johnson (‘The Wife's Relief, or the Husband's Cure,’ 1711), Garrick (‘The Gamesters,’ with a notable prologue, 1758 and 1773), and John Poole (‘The Wife's Stratagem,’ 1827). 17. ‘The Triumph of Peace,’ masque, performed at Whitehall 3 Feb., and repeated in Merchant Taylors' Hall 11 Feb. 1634; printed in the same year in three editions, besides an anagrammatical list of masquers separately published. 18. ‘The Example,’ comedy, licensed 1634, printed 1637; revised after the Restoration (see, i. 340). 19. ‘The Opportunity,’ comedy, licensed 29 Nov. 1634, entered in ‘Stationers' Register’ April 1639, printed 1640. This comedy of ‘errors’ was revived after the Restoration (, u.s. p. 339). One of Kirkman's drolls (1673), ‘A Prince in Conceit,’ was taken from this play. 20. ‘The Coronation,’ comedy, licensed 6 Feb. 1635, was printed as by Fletcher in 1640, but was explicitly claimed by Shirley as his own, and as ‘falsely ascribed to Jo. Fletcher’ in a list of his pieces appended to ‘The Cardinal,’ when printed among ‘Six New Plays’ in 1653. It was, however, included in the second (1679) folio of Beaumont and Fletcher, and in several subsequent editions of their works. Fletcher's hand may possibly have contributed an occasional touch to an early sketch of this work (he died in 1625), but there is no evidence on which Shirley can be denied the credit of its many beauties of diction. Mr. Fleay points out that the first line of