Page:Lives of Poets-Laureate.djvu/128

114 This sudden gale of success acted as a refreshing stimulantto his sanguine temperament, and during the period in question he poured forth a series of plays, which (though there is some difficulty in ascertaining the dates of each) seem to have appeared in the following order of succession:


 * "The Colonel."
 * "The Just Italian."
 * "The Wits."
 * "Love and Honour."
 * "News from Plymouth."
 * "The Unfortunate Lovers."
 * "The Fair Favourite."
 * "The Spanish Lovers."

"The Just Italian" is a witty, bustling production, and exhibits great skill in contrivance, but on its first appearance was only saved from condemnation by the expressed approbation of the Earl of Dorset. "The Wits," dedicated "to the chiefly-beloved of all, that ingenious and noble Endymion Porter, of his Majesty's Bedchamber," had likewise a narrow escape on the first night of representation, though it afterwards had a successful run.

Sir Henry Herbert, who was Master of the Revels at this time, and possessed the privilege of licensing plays, was occasionally, like the Lord Chamberlain in modern times, troubled with qualms of conscience, occasioned by the delicate nature of his duties.

"This morning," he writes, "being the 9th Jan., 1633, the Kinge was pleased to call mee into his withdrawinge chamber, to the windowe, wher he went over all that I had croste in Davenant’s play-booke, and allowing of faith and slight to bee asseverations only, and no oathes, markt them to stande, and some other few things, but in the greater part allowed of my reformations. This was done upon a complaint of Mr. Endymion Porter’s, in December.