A CRITICAL OLD-SPELLING EDITION OF RICHARD BROME'S THE ENGLISH MOOR Sara Jayne Steen A Dissertation Submitted to the Graduate College of Bowling Green State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY December 1978 11 Sara Jayne Steen, 1978. ITT ABSTRACT Critical attention paid to Richard Brome has increased greatly in recent years as scholars have recognized him to be more than a disciple of Ben Jonson, to be a skillful playwright whose satiric love comedies bridge the gap between the comedies of Jonson and those of Etherege and Wycherly. Despite the existence of a manuscript of The English Moor presented by Brome to his patron William Seymour, scholars have had available to them only the text of the play as printed in the 1659 Five New Plages (reprinted 1873 and 1966). The text of the manuscript, a manuscript that may be in Brome's hand, differs substantially from the previously printed text. This edition provides the text of the manuscript, including a hitherto unprinted Brome prologue and song. Introductory materials for this edition include: a brief biography of the playwright, a critical discussion of the play and its sources, descriptions of the printed texts and the manuscript, and a statement of editorial policy. The text is given in a semi-diplomatic transcription, with notes on the manuscript and a list of the few emendations that have been made, generally because of the exigencies of typescript and margins, provided in a section titled Emendations and Manuscript Notes. Because the 1659 text is a relevant form of the text, thirty-one copies of The English Moor in Five New Plages were collated. The variants among these copies are included in the Collation for this edition, in which also are recorded all variants, both substantive and accidental, between the 1659 text and the manuscript text. Historical and explanatory notes are contained in a final section of the edition. IV ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would like to thank the Dean and Chapter of Lichfield Cathedral for granting me access to, and publication rights for, the manuscript of The English Moor; Prebendary E.C.C. Hill, librarian at Lichfield Cathedral Library, for his generous assistance; and Godfrey P. Hives and Lewis Raybould, vergers of Lichfield Cathedral, for their kindness during my stay there. Financial assistance for materials and travel has been provided by F. L. Saelzler, the Research Services Office of Bowling Green State University, and the Bowling Green Graduate Student Senate. Thanks also are owed to librarians at numerous institutions in England and the United States for their cooperation. V TABLE OF CONTENTS Page INTRODUCTION...................................................... vi A Brief Biographyo f the Playwright ........................... vi Date of Composition........................................... x Source....................................................... xii ♦ The Play.................................................... xiii Printed Texts.............................................. xvii Manuscript................................................... xix This Edition. ................................................ xxv Notes.................................................... xxxiii TEXT............................................................... 1 Act I......................................................... 7 Act II........................................................ 29 Act III...................................................... 54 Act IV.........................................................74 Act V....................................................... 105 EMENDATIONS AND MANUSCRIPT NOTES ................................ 127 COLLATION......................................................... 131 EXPLANATORY NOTES................................................. 212 LIST OF WORKS CITED 239 INTRODUCTION vi A Brief Biography of the Playwright^ Our knowledge of Richard Brome, one of the most popular Caroline playwrights, begins with the Stage-Keeper's line from the Induction to Ben Jonson's Bartholomew Fair (1614): "I am looking, lest the Poet 2 heare me, or his man, Master Broome, behind the Arras." Brome, then, was Jonson's "man" in 1614 and probably had been associated with the famous playwright long enough for his name to have meaning to regular playgoers. Of the years preceding and immediately following, there is little 4 information. His birth date generally is given as 1590, which would have made him about twenty-four at the time of Bartholomew Fair and fits what is known of his later career. His plays indicate a man of some education but not great erudition. In Epigram CI, "Inviting a Friend to Supper," Jonson wrote: "my man / Shall reade a piece of VIRGIL, TACITVS, / LIVIE, or of some better booke to vs,"^ which led Ronald Bayne to conjecture that Brome had a grammer school education and was "not so much a valet as a secretary and amanuensis."6 However, 7 the "man" of the undated epigram easily could have been someone else; g and later references by Brome to himself as an "old serving-creature" 9 and by others to his early lowly status suggest that he held, at least when he began with Jonson, a more menial role. Whatever his duties, Brome was intelligent enough to use the opportunity provided by his employment with Jonson to learn about the theatrical world and, eventually, to enter it. In 1623, A Fault in VIT Friendship (lost), written by "Young Johnson and Broome," was licensed for Prince Charles's company.1*1 The identity of "Young Johnson" is unknown. A "Richard Broome" was listed among the Queen of Bohemia's Players in a 1628 warrant,11 which has been interpreted to mean that 12 he was an actor, but it seems equally possible that he had been writing in some capacity for them and that his name was included as a 13 form of protection. On 9 February 1629, The Lovesick Maid (lost) was licensed for the King's Men. The play was "acted with extraordinary applause," so much that the company presented two pounds to the 14 licenser. By this time, Brome was almost certainly no longer in Jonson's employ. Nor, for a short time, was he in Jonson's favor. The older playwright, stung by the failure of The New Inn only a few weeks before the success of Brome's The Lovesick Maid in the same theater, wrote in an early version of "Ode to Himself" that "Broomes sweeping(s) doe as well /Thear as his Masters Meale."1^ He reconsidered, how­ ever, for the reference to Brome was dropped when he published the poem in 1631; and the commendatory verses prefixed to Brome's The Northern Lass (1632) are warmly dedicated "To my old Faithfull Seruant: and (by his continu'd Vertue) my louing Friend: the Author of this Work, M. RICH. BROME." The verses praise Brome's skill: Now, you are got into a nearer roome, Of Fellowship, professing my old Arts. And you doe doe them well, with good applause, Which you haue iustly gained from the Stage. If Brome was hurt by Jonson's sneer, which had circulated, his loyalty Vili to Jonson seems not to have wavered: his references to Jonson are uniformly grateful and admiring. In the years after The Lovesick Maid, Brome became well-known as a dramatist, and his plays were in demand. He wrote for the fashionable Blackfriars, for the Red Bull, whose company was highly reputed at the time, and beginning in 1635, for Salisbury Court. A Requests Proceeding Bill of Complaint by Salisbury Court against Brome and his response to it, both filed in 1640, provide first-hand knowledge of Brome and of the 17 relationship between a Caroline playhouse and its playwright. According to these documents, after Brome's The Sparagus Garden had played at Salisbury Court in 1635 and, Brome noted, made a profit of over a thousand pounds, he signed a three-year contract to write three plays yearly in return for fifteen shillings weekly and receipt of one day's profit from each play. All was well until the plague intervened, closing the theaters 12 May 1636. Playwrights and companies alike suffered; Brome's salary was discontinued. And "put to his shifts in that hard sadd and dangerous tyme of the sicknes boeth for 18 himselfe and his famyly," Brome went in August to William Beeston of the Cockpit. Beeston lent him six pounds, for which Brome agreed to write a play (The Antipodes'). Salisbury Court's management, disturbed by the possible defection of their playwright, then paid Brome ten pounds—after he turned over a new play—and promised to give Beeston satisfaction. Again, however, Salisbury Court fell behind in payment, and, because Brome had turned once more to Beeston, took the case to Sir Henry Herbert, Master of the Revels. Herbert awarded Brome six IX shillings weekly and five pounds for every new play brought to the company until the plague abated enough for the theaters to reopen, which they did 2 October 1637. Brome's plays must have been extremely profitable for Salisbury Court, because, despite continued arguments, they offered him a new contract in 1638. Verbally, at least, he agreed. The seven-year contract called for Brome to write three plays yearly, in addition to making up the plays he was in arrears from the previous contract, and to be paid twenty shillings weekly, plus one day's profit from each play. He was not to publish plays without the consent of the company. By 1639, however, he was writing for Beeston. He explained that he had been badly treated at Salisbury Court, had never signed the second agreement, and had gone with Beeston's company, "as hee hopeth 19 was and is lawful! for him so to doe." Salisbury Court claimed to have been paying him; he denied, it. In any case, Salisbury Court protested his loss and filed the Bill of Proceedings. The disposition of the case is unknown, but Brome continued to write for Beeston at the Cockpit. The years after the closing of the theaters in 1642, during which he was deprived of his livelihood, must have been difficult ones for Brome. They are nearly bare of records. He may have written "Juno in 2C Arcadia," an entertainment, for the Queen's arrival at Oxford in 1643.