Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 1.djvu/87

12 S. I. JAN. 29, 1916.]

NOTES AND QUERIES.

81

S: 'The Spanish Moor's Tragedy' or 'Lust's Dominion,' 81 Allen and Ferrers, 84 Huntingdonshire Civil War Tracts, 86 The Gordon Riots: shot Marks- Christopher Oarleill and Sir Francis Walsingham, 87 "Betty" in 1756: William Toldervy Babbi Hirsch and Prussian Tyranny, 88.

QUERIES : Descendants of the Rev. John Cameron, 1653-1719, 88 "The vicious circle" George Inn, Borough Rebellion at Eton Author of Quotation Wanted Richard Wilson 'Observations on the Defence of Great Britain' Australian Flowers and Birds, 90 "Colly my cow !" James Gordon, Keeper of the Middle Temple Library Btth Corporation (Seal : Du Barry's Rapier Queen Anne's Three Realms Marquess of Car- narvona Coffin-shaped Garden Bed, 91.

REPLIES : The Effect of Opening a Coffin, 91 Hebrew Dietetics Parish Register?, 93 Bi -graphical Informa- tion Wanted : Thomas Li.sle- Free Folk-Lore : the Elder Employment of Wild Beasts in Warfare British Army : Mascots, 94 Baptism, 1644 Baron Westbury : Mock Epitaph Oil-Painting William Letheuilier, 95-Perse vere ye. &c. Moira Coals Lord Milner's Pedigree Nelson Memorial Rings Gunfire and Rain Duchesses who have married Commoners, 96 Clockmakers : Cam- pigne Memory at the Moment of Death The Bury, Ches-ham, Bucks "Fat, fair, and forty," 97 - Dr. Johnson on Fishing Archbishop Bancroft Arthur Hughes, Painter The Two Ryhopes co. Durham Sixteenth- Century Dutch Print Col. John Hayes St. Leger, 98.

NOTES ON BOOKS :' Disguise Plots in Elizabethan Drama' 'Cathay and the Way Thither' Vol. I. ' Archaeological Excavation ' ' The Edinburgh Review ' 'The Quarterly Review.'

Notices to Correspondents.

4 THE SPANISH MOOR'S TRAGEDY' OR 'LUST'S DOMINION.'

HENSLOWE'S diary records in February, 1599/1600, a payment to Thomas Dekker, William. Haughton, and John Day in respect of a book called ' The Spaneshe Mores Tragedie.' No play of that name has come down to ois. There is, however, an extant tragedy of which a Spanish Moor is the central figure, published in 1657 under the title of ' Lust's Dominion, or the Lascivious Queen,'* and attributed on the title-page to " Cristofer Marloe, Gent." This play is certainly not Marlowe's. Is it ' The Spanish Moor's Tragedy ' of Dekker, Haughton, and Day, as Collier suggests ?

References are to this edition.
 * Reprinted in Hazlitt's * Dodsley,' vol. xiv.

So far there has been no definite evidence either way. Fleay (an untrustworthy guide in these matters) and Swinburne accept Collier's identification; Sir Adolphus Ward and Mr. A. H. Bullen on the other hand reject it. The two latter are followed by Miss Mary L. Hunt, Dekker' s most recent bio- grapher, who, in her excellent monograph on the dramatist ('Thomas Dekker,' Co- lumbia University Press, 1911, p. 63), con- fidently expresses her disbelief in Dekker' s collaboration in the extant play.

"It is [she says] not only wholly unlike the known work of Dekker, but it is also for the most part unlike that of his collaborators. . . .The Queen and Eleazar were conceived by a more ' robust ' mind than that of Dekker, who never drew either a convincing villain or a bad woman of imposing presence, or told in his plays a story of successful lust. Nor can I see any evidence in characterization or in phrasing that he retouched this drama, least of all the opening scene, which Swinburne so positively claims for him."

Nevertheless Miss Hunt is wrong and Swinburne is right. Although 'Lust's Dominion' is unlike most of Dekker's work, a comparison of it with his early ventures in the domain of tragedy, and especially with ' Old Fortunatus,' will at once place its identity with ' The Spanish Moor's Tragedy ' beyond a doubt. That of all Dekker's plays it should be * Old Fortuna- tus ' that, in its style and diction, is most closely connected with 'Lust's Dominion' is natural, since the latter play (taking it to be 'The Spanish Moor's Tragedy') was written immediately after Dekker had finished working on ' Old Fortunatus.' This " pleasant comedy " as it now stands is Dekker's recast of an older drama. His revision, begun and completed in November, 1599, must have been of the most extensive nature, for he was paid 61. for it, as much as was often paid for a new play ; and in the following month he received another 31. for still further alterations and additions, t The revised version was entered in the Stationers' Register (as ' Old Fortunatus in his newe lyverie') on Feb. 20, 1600, just seven days after the payment to Dekker and his collaborators on account of 'The Spanish Moor's Tragedy' recorded by Henslowe.

The first act, clearly written by one hand, is wholly Dekker' s. Before I had read a dozen lines of the first scene I became convinced that they were his. I suspect that the passage that convinced me, convinced Swinburne, for it bears the unmistakable

t See Dr. W. W. Greg's edition of ' Henslowe's Diary, 'Part II., 179.