Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 8.djvu/229

 i2s.vm.MABCH6,i92i.] NOTES AND QUERIES. 183^ 5s., and had other trees squared and sawn for repairs at the Vicar's House and Chapel and the making of a pinfold. John Bretch- girdle's residence was overhauled the cen- tral chimney was rebuilt, the roof retiled, wood-work renewed, and the ground-floor clayed and sanded at an outlay of 61. 15s. 5d. It was perhaps during the "reparations" that the Vicar took the lease of a small house in Church Street, at a rent of Ss. per annum. The pinfold was erected in Tinkers' Lane on land belonging to the Almshouse, and a rent of Sd. a year was henceforth paid to the inmates. The Protestantising of the Chapel was in hand and "images" had been "defaced " when the energetic Chamber- lain's term of office ended in October. Not coming under episcopal supervision, the Gild Chapel had been left in statu quo, probably through the influence of the Cloptons and William Bott at New Place. John Shakespeare did not spare it. When the frescoes were discovered under the whitewash in 1804, some were found nearly in a perfect state, but in the chancel "many parts, especially the crosses, had been evidently mutilated by some sharp instru- ment through the ill-directed zeal of our early Reformers. The lower compartment was one of those intentionally mutilated a cross, an altar and a crucifix." The Cham- berlain may not have handled the instrument but he had the directing of it. Fortunately he did not vent his zeal upon the figures as on the symbols. He claimed in his old age that he had some of his son's humour, and it would be difficiut to believe that the poet's father failed to appreciate the little horned and winged devil in one of the frescoes wielding a very sharp instrument on the heads of the "damned. By having him whitewashed John Shakespeare preserved him for our enjoyment, but we are sorry that his son never saw him. On Oct. 6, 1563, when Geprge Whateley was sworn Bailiff and Roger Sadler Head Alderman, new Chamberlains were ap- pointed in the persons of William Tyler and William Smith the haberdasher. John Shakespeare, however, was requested to continue the work he had begun and he served as acting Chamberlain for the next twelvemonth. He concluded the reforma- tion of the Chapel, taking down the rood- loft, and providing seats for the minister and the clerk, a piilpit and a communion- board. The officiating minister here was not Bretchgirdle nor his curate, but the School- master, William Smart, who was in holy orders. The assistant schoolmaster, we must note, was no longer William Gilbert alias Higges, but one Allen, whom John Shakespeare paid 41 "for teaching the children. ' ' G ilbert found work as a scrivener and in other capacities in Stratford. EDGAR I. FRIPP. (To be continued.) NATHANIEL FIELD'S AVORK IN THE "BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER "PL AYS., (See ante, p. 141, 164.) II. 'THE QUEEN OF CORINTH ' (Acts III. and IV.). This play is by three authors, Massinger,- Fletcher and Field, Massinger's part being Acts I. and V., Fletcher's Act II., and Field's Acts III. and IV. All the critics who have discussed its authorship recognize that it contains work that cannot be either Mas- singer's or Fletcher's. Macaulay ( ' Camb. Hist. Eng. Lit.,' vol. vi.), and Boyle (New Shaks. Soc. Trans., 1880-6, p. 609) attribute it to Massinger, Fletcher, and a third author whom they do not identify, though Boyle, who gives III. and IV. to the unknown author, suggests Field as a possible candi- date. Fleay at one time favoured Middle- ton's claim, but later, in his ' Biographical Chronicle of the English Drama,' he cor- rectly assigned these acts to Field. Though it will involve some repetition, I propose to include with the other indica- tions of Field's hand in this play references to its connexions with the first two of the "Four Plays in One" already noted, in order to show that the marks of Field are sufficiently numerous throughout Acts III. and IV. to justify the assumption that they are entirely his. Act III. In sc. i. we have : (i) .... the lion should not Tremble to hear the bellowing of the bull. paralleled in ' The Triumph of Honour. ' (ii.) Theanor, the vicious son of the queen of Corinth says of Euphanes, whom the Queen favours and protects : . . . .like a young pine He grows up planted under a fair oak. Con pare II. i. of * The Fatal DowTy ' where Ch&ialois, distributing his father's effects among those who have done him service,