Page:The Elizabethan stage (Volume 4).pdf/389

 Fortunia (March 1615). See s.v. Susenbrotus.

Herodes. ''Camb. Univ. MS''. Mm. I. 24, with dedication by William Goldingham, B.A. 1567 and Fellow of Trinity Hall 1571, to 'D. Thomae Sackuilo, Equiti aurato, Domino de Buckhurst.' Sackville became Lord Buckhurst 1567 and K.G. 1588.

Hispanus (March 1597). ''Bodl. Douce MS''. 234, f. 15^v. This was 'in diem comitialem anno domini 1596', and the actor-list is composed of members of St. John's, Cambridge (Boas, 398). The MS. has the note 'Summus histrio-*didascalus Mr. Pratt' and a possible indication of authorship in the mutilated name 'orrell', which may stand for Roger Morrell, Fellow of St. John's.

Hymenaeus (March 1579). St. John's Cambridge MS. S. 45; Caius Cambridge MS. 62.

Edition by G. C. Moore Smith (1908).

The actor-list agrees closely with that of Legge's Ricardus III, and points to St. John's, Cambridge, in 1579 (Boas, 393). The source is Boccaccio's Decamerone, which suggests the possible authorship of A. Fraunce (q.v.), who used the Decamerone for his contemporary Victoria.

Ignoramus (8 March 1615). By G. Ruggle (q.v.).

Labyrinthus (March 1603?). By W. Hawkesworth (q.v.).

Laelia (1 March 1595). Lambeth MS. 838.

Edition by G. C. Moore Smith (1910).—Dissertation: G. C. Moore Smith, The Cambridge Play 'Laelia' (1911, M. L. R. vi. 382).

The production is assigned by Fuller, ''Hist. of Cambridge'' (ed. Nichols), 217, to a visit by the Earl of Essex to Cambridge as Chancellor of the University in 1597-8. Moore Smith has, however, shown that it almost certainly belongs to an earlier visit, and took place at Queens' College on 1 March 1595. The chief evidence is the reference in Rowland Whyte's account of the Device by Essex or Bacon (q.v.) for 17 Nov. 1595 to 'Giraldy' and 'Pedantiq', as played at Cambridge. These may fairly be taken to be the Gerardus and the pedant Petrus of Laelia. The actors of these two parts are identified with George Meriton and George Mountaine, Fellows of Queens', by John Weever, Epigrammes (1599), iv. 19.

Your entertaine (nor can I passe away) Of Essex with farre-famed Laelia; Nor fore the Queen your service on Queens day.

Conceivably this may also attribute authorship of the play and the device. The play is an adaptation of the Italian Gl' Ingannati (c. 1531)