Folger Shakespeare Library
CELM

Thomas Heywood

1574?–1641

Introduction

Manuscripts and the Canon

Both on internal and external evidence the manuscript plays known as The Captives (*HyT 4) and The Escapes of Jupiter (*HyT 6) can be assigned to Thomas Heywood and are clearly in the author's hand. The same hand has been identified with Hand B in the celebrated Booke of Sir Thomas Moore (*HyT 12). The only other known examples of Heywood's handwriting are three signatures on a legal document (*HyT 14).

Manuscript copies are preserved of two other plays which have been tentatively attributed to Heywood: namely Dick of Devonshire (HyT 5), and the more recently discovered Tom a Lincoln (HyT 13), which might possibly be an Inns of Court play by one or more members. Two other notable manuscripts are copies of what is apparently Heywood's verse translation of Ovid (HyT 2-3.8), the first of which was submitted to the licenser in 1623 and may conceivably have belonged to Heywood himself.

Since Heywood claimed that there were 120 plays in which he had either an entire hand, or at the least a maine finger (The English Traueller, 1633, sig. A3r), Heywood's dramatic canon is hardly well established. It is discussed in Bentley, Jacobean & Caroline Stage, IV, 553-86, and V, 1318-20, and most of his plays are printed in Dramatic Works (1874). Some of his non-dramatic works have not been reprinted since the seventeenth century. For the canon, see Arthur Melville Clark, A Bibliography of Thomas Heywood, Proceedings and Papers of the Oxford Bibliographical Society, I (1922-6), 97-153. For the possibility that the play The Seven Champions of Christendom may have been written by Heywood, see Paul Merchant, Thomas Heywood's Hand in The Seven Champions of Christendom, The Library, 5th Ser. 33 (1978), 226-30. That article includes a facsimile of a manuscript list of Heywood's plays inscribed by Ferdinando Marsham in a printed exemplum of The Iron Age (1632) now at Yale.

A poem on the death of Queen Elizabeth, probably by Thomas Dekker, is ascribed to Heywood in one manuscript copy (DkT 3), evidently because it was reprinted in his Life and Death of Queene Elizabeth (1639). Another poem on Queen Elizabeth, beginning Chast Virgin, Royal Queen, Belov'd and fear'd, is also ascribed to Mr Thomas Haywood in one source (HyT 0.5) but probably with no greater authority.

Abbreviations

Dramatic Works
The Dramatic Works of Thomas Heywood, [ed. R.H. Shepherd], 6 vols (1874; reprinted New York, 1964).

Verse

'Chast Virgin, Royal Queen, Belov'd and fear'd'

Unpublished? Of uncertain authorship.

HyT 0.5

Copy, headed Mr Thomas Haywood on Queen Elizabeth.

A quarto verse miscellany, in probably a single mixed hand varying over a period, entitled in another hand Recueil Choisi De Pieces fugitives En Vers Anglois, 214 pages, in modern calf.

c.1713

Afterwards owned by Charles de Beaumont, the Chevalière d'Éon (1728-1810). Later owned by Sir Thomas Phillipps (1792-1872): Phillipps MS 9500. In the Shakespearian Library of Marsden J. Perry (1850-1935), industrialist, banker, and art and book collector, of Providence, Rhode Island. American Art Association, New York, 11-12 March 1936.

Of Lucrece ('If to thy bed the adulterer welcome came')

First published in Pleasant Dialogves and Dramma's (London, 1637), p. 268.

HyT 1

Copy, headed Of Lucrece.

A quarto verse miscellany (originally in two separate volumes), including eleven poems by Donne, chiefly in two hands, probably associated with the University of Oxford, 98 leaves, one of the original vellum covers now incorporated in modern red morocco.

Mid-17th century

Inscribed (f. 1r) Stephen Wellden and Abraham Bassano and (f. 98r) Elizabeth Weldon. Later owned by William John Thoms (1803-85), writer, antiquary and librarian. Sotheby's, 11 February 1887 (Thoms sale), lot 1092. Also owned by James Orchard Halliwell-Phillipps (1820-89). Formerly Folger MS 452.4.

Cited in IELM, I.i (1980), as the Welden MS: DnJ Δ 49.

Ovid's De Arte Amandi or, The Art of Love ('If there be any in this multitude')

First published, anonymously, as Loues Schoole [?1600]. Edited from an early printed text (British Library, C.39.a.37) by M.L. Stapleton, as Thomas Heywood's Art of Love: The First Complete English Translation of Ovid's Ars Am atoria (Ann Arbor, Michigan, 2000).

HyT 2

Copy, in a probably professional hand, with corrections, iii + 61 quarto leaves, in contemporary calf.

Subscribed (f. 61v) with the printing licence ffinis 8. June. 1623. Imprimatur, signed in a different hand Geo: Cottington.

1623

This MS discussed in S. Musgrove, Some Manuscripts of Heywood's Art of Love, The Library, 5th Ser. 1 (1946-7), 106-12.

HyT 3

Copy, largely in a neat secretary hand, with corrections; imperfect, lacking the first 56 lines and here beginning More eares of ripe corne growes not in the feildes.

This MS discussed in S. Musgrove, Some Manuscripts of Heywood's Art of Love, The Library, 5th Ser. 1 (1946-7), 106-12.

An oblong octavo volume of amatory poems, in at least three hands, 119 leaves, in contemporary calf gilt (rebacked, traces of clasps).

Early 17th century

Inscribed names: Matt Postlethwayt His Book August ye 1st 1697, Henerie Price, and Eyaly Johnes.

HyT 3.5

Copy of Books I and II only, in a professional secretary hand, untitled except for the heading The Prome, on 32 quarto leaves. Early 17th century.

This MS discussed in S. Musgrove, Some Manuscripts of Heywood's Art of Love, The Library, 5th Ser. 1 (1946-7), 106-12.

A folio composite volume of miscellaneous tracts, in various hands, 335 leaves, in modern half morocco gilt.

HyT 3.8

Copy, in a professional secretary hand, on c.244 oblong octavo pages, in contemporary calf gilt.

Early 17th century

Once owned by the Faunce-Delaune family of Sharsted Court, Sittingbourne, Kent. Sotheby's, 21 July 1988, lot 17, to Quaritch.

Facsimile example of the last page in Sotheby's sale catalogue.

Dramatic works

Calisto or The Escapes of Jupiter

See HyT 6.

The Captives, or The Lost Recovered

First published in A Collection of Old English Plays, ed. A.H. Bullen, IV (London, 1885), 99-127. Edited by Arthur Brown, Malone Society (Oxford, 1953).

*HyT 4
Autograph

Autograph, with revisions, untitled, prepared for use as a prompt-book by another hand. [1624].

Edited from this MS by editors. Discussed in Greg, Dramatic Documents, I, 284-8, with a facsimile example, II, plate 7; in Bentley, Jacobean & Caroline Stage, IV, 560-2; in Grace Ioppolo, The foule sheet and ye fayr: Henslowe, Daborne, Heywood and the Nature of Foul-Paper and Fair-Copy Dramatic Manuscripts, EMS, 11 (2002), 132-53, with a facsimile of f. 52r; and in Grace Ioppolo, Dramatists and their Manuscripts in the Age of Shakespeare, Jonson, Middleton and Heywood (London & New York), pp. 94-9, 115, with facsimile examples. Facsimile pages also in the Malone Society edition; in Greg, English Literary Autographs, plate XXII(a); in Petti, English Literary Hands, No. 55; and in DLB, vol. 62, Elizabethan Dramatists, ed. Fredson Bowers (Detroit, 1987), p. 121.

A folio composite volume of plays.

c.1620s-1640s

From the library of Lord Charlemont.

The British Library: Egerton MSS (Egerton MS 1994 ff. 52r-73r)
Dick of Devonshire

First published in A Collection of Old English Plays, ed. A.H. Bullen, II (London, 1883), 1-99. Edited by James G. and Mary R. McManaway, Malone Society (Oxford, 1955).

HyT 5

Copy of a play probably written or revised by Heywood, in the secretary hand of a professional scribe also responsible for ChG 12.5, MiT 6, and a verse miscellany in the British Library, Add. MS 33998. [1626?].

Edited from this MS by editors. Discussed in Greg, Dramatic Documents, I, 329-32; in Bentley, Jacobean & Caroline Stage, V, 1318-20; and in James G. McManaway, Latin Title-Page Mottoes as a Clue to Dramatic Authorship, The Library, 4th Ser. 26 (1945-6), 28-36, reedited in McManaway, Studies in Shakespeare, Bibliography and Theater (New York, 1969), 55-66. Facsimile pages in the Malone Society edition and in McManaway article.

A folio composite volume of plays.

c.1620s-1640s

From the library of Lord Charlemont.

The British Library: Egerton MSS (Egerton MS 1994 ff. 30r-51r)
The Escapes of Jupiter

This play is made up of scenes from The Golden Age (London, 1611; Dramatic Works, III, 1-79) and The Silver Age (London, 1613; Dramatic Works, III, 81-164). Edited by Henry D. Janzen, Malone Society, 1976 (Oxford, 1978).

Discussed in W.W. Greg, The Escapes of Jupiter, Palaestra, 148 (1925), reprinted in Greg, Collected Papers (Oxford, 1966), pp. 156-83. Also discussed in Greg, Dramatic Documents, I, 318-21; in Bentley, Jacobean & Caroline Stage, III, 567; and in Henry D. Janzen, A Note on the Authorship of The Escapes of Jupiter, ELN, 10 (1972-3), 270-3.

*HyT 6
Autograph

Autograph, the first act entitled Calisto; the play entitled at the end in another hand The Escapes of Iupiter; c. 1625?.

Facsimile example of the first page in DLB, vol. 62, Elizabethan Dramatists, ed. Fredson Bowers (Detroit, 1987), p. 119. Facsimile of f. 79r in Henry D. Janzen, Preparing a Diplomatic Edition: Heywood's The Escapes of Jupiter, in Play-Texts in Old Spelling, ed. G.B. Shand with Raymond C. Shady (AMS Press, 1984), pp. 73-9. Facsimiles of ff. 74a (upper portion), 82a (upper portion), and 87b (lower portion) in the Malone Society edition.

A folio composite volume of plays.

c.1620s-1640s

From the library of Lord Charlemont.

The British Library: Egerton MSS (Egerton MS 1994 ff. 74r-95r)
The Fayre Mayde of the Exchange

First published in London, 1607. Edited by Peter Davison, Malone Society, 1962 (Oxford, 1963).

HyT 6.5

A proof-sheet for the 3rd edition (1637).

The outer forme of sheet G (sigs G1r, 2v, 3r, 4v), with MS proof corrections, in an exemplum of this quarto edition.

c.1637

Discussed in Peter H. Davison, The Fair Maid of the Exchange, The Library, 5th Ser. 13 (1958), 119-20; and in James Hammersmith, Early Proofing: The Evidence of Extant Proof-Sheets, AEB, 7 (1983), 188-215 (pp. 200-1). Recorded in Jan Moore, p. 71.

The Foure Prentises of London

First published in London, 1632.

HyT 6.8

MS spelling corrections, in the margins of several pages (including sigs G4r, H2v, I3r-I4r, and L1r) in an exemplum of the first edition of the play (1632), a quarto in modern red morocco gilt.

Booklabel of Jerome Kern (1885-1945), musical theatre and film composer.

John Wolfson, New York ([Four Prentises])
The Golden Age and The Silver Age

See HyT 6.

How a Man may chuse a Good Wife from a Bad

First published in London, 1602.

HyT 7

Extracts.

The greater part of a quarto commonplace book of extracts, compiled by Edward Pudsey (1573-1613), iii + 104 leaves, in 19th-century green morocco gilt.

Four leaves of this commonplace book are in the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust, ER 82/1/21.

c.1604-9

Owned in 1615-16 by one Bassett and in the 1880s by Richard Savage. At the Neligan sale, 2 August 1888, lot 1098. Bought by James Orchard Halliwell-Phillipps (1820-89), and his sale 4 July 1889, lot 1257.

All the Shakespearian texts except Othello were edited from this MS in Richard Savage's Shakespearean Extracts (1887). The MS also edited in Juliet Mary Gowan, An Edition of Edward Pudsey's Commonplace Book (c.1600-1615) (unpublished M. Phil., University of London, 1967). It was then found that the miscellany lacked several of its original leaves, including extracts from six plays by Shakespeare. These leaves were rediscovered in 1977 among Savage's papers at the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust, ER 82/1/21, and the Othello extracts identified by Gowan. The MS also discussed in J. Rees, Shakespeare and Edward Pudsey's Booke, 1600, N&Q, 237 (September 1992), 330-1; in Juliet Gowan, One Man in His Time: The Notebook of Edward Pudsey, Bodleian Library Record, 22 (2009), 94–101; in Fred Schurink, Manuscript Commonplace Books, Literature, and Reading in Early Modern England, HLQ, 73/3 (2010), 453-69 (pp. 465-9), with a facsimile of f. 31r on p. 467; and in Tom Lockwood, At Mr Marston’s Request: Edward Pudsey and the Inns of Court, N&Q, 63 (September 2016), 450-3.

Bodleian Library, Eng. poet. MSS, a through d (MS Eng. poet. d. 3 f. 86r)
The Iron Age (Part I)

First published in London, 1632. Dramatic Works, III, 257-345.

HyT 8

A proofsheet with corrector's marks on sigs. F1v and F3v, in an exemplum of the quarto printed edition of 1632.

c.1632

This item discussed, with a facsimile, in Arthur Brown, A Proof-Sheet in Thomas Heywood's The Iron Age, The Library, 5th Ser. 10 (1955), 275-8.

Boston Public Library (G. 3972. 13)
A Maidenhood Well Lost

First published in London, 1634.

HyT 8.5

Extracts.

An octavo commonplace book of extracts from various authors, some under headings, compiled by William Sancroft (1617-93), Archbishop of Canterbury, written from both ends, iv + 558 pages (the majority blank), in contemporary vellum.

Late 17th century
Bodleian Library, Sancroft MSS (MS Sancroft 29 pp. 68-9)
The Rape of Lucrece

First published in London, 1608. Dramatic Works, V, 161-257. Edited by Allan Holaday (Urbana, 1950).

HyT 9

An exemplum of the edition of 1609 with the text of the missing leaf sig. H1 supplied in MS.

17th century?
Victoria and Albert Museum (Dyce MS 4719 (Pressmark Dyce 26 Box 18/5))
The Rape of Lucrece. Song ('Now what is love I will thee tell')

Dramatic Works, V, 180. Holaday, lines 568-79.

See RaW 434-7.

The Rape of Lucrece. Song ('The Gentry to the Kings head')

Dramatic Works, V, 190. Holaday, lines 1148-71.

HyT 10

Copy of a sixteen-line version of the tavern song, in a musical setting by John Wilson.

Edited from this MS in John P. Cutts, Thomas Heywood's The Gentry to the King's Head in The Rape of Lucrece and John Wilson's setting, N&Q, 206 (October 1961), 384-7.

Portion of a folio songbook compiled by John Playford (1623-86?).

c.1660
Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris, Département de la Musique (MS Conservatoire Rés. 2489 pp. 294-5 [f. 23r-v])
The Rape of Lucrece. The Cries of Rome ('Thus go the cries in Romes faire towne')

Dramatic Works, V, 254-6.

HyT 11

Copy of one of the two songs which were added to Heywood's play by the stranger that lately acted Valerius his part, in a scrapbook.

Scrapbook of MS verse.

Late 17th century

Bought by Joseph Haslewood (1769-1833) from an old Catholic family named Hawkins seated at Boughton, near Canterbury, Kent. Later Phillipps MS 8923.

The Royall King and the Loyall Subject

First published in London, 1637.

HyT 11.5

Extracts.

A large folio notebook and miscellany, 376 pages, in contemporary calf with metal clasps.

Entitled A Volume of Figures Set by Mr Lilly from Aprill 1647 to Sept: 1648, comprising for the most part a formal collection of horoscopes.

Mid-17th century
Bodleian Library, Ashmole Collection (MS Ashmole 420 ff. 11v-12v)
Sir Thomas More

First published in London, 1844, ed. Alexander Dyce, Shakespeare Society. Edited by W.W. Greg, Malone Society (Oxford, 1911).

*HyT 12
Autograph

A short scene on f. 7r, and additions on f. 11r, in a hand generally known as Hand B and identified as probably that of Thomas Heywood.

A folio composite MS, thirteen remaining leaves, originally bound with Harley MS 7367, in a vellum wrapper (recycled from a 15th-century Latin breviary) inscribed The Booke of Sir Thomas Moore, now disbound, comprising a play largely in the hand of Anthony Munday (1560-1633), playwright, with additions and contributions in five other hands.

c.mid-1590s

The play edited from this MS by all editors. Reproduced in facsimile by John S. Farmer, Tudor Facsimile Texts (London, 1910).

Discussions of the various hands in the MS, generally with facsimile examples, include those in Greg's Malone Society edition; in Greg, Dramatic Documents, I, 224-5, and II, Plate 2; in R.C. Bald, The Booke of Sir Thomas Moore and its Problems, SS, 2 (1949), 44-65; in Peter W.M. Blayney, The Booke of Sir Thomas Moore Re-Examined, SP, 69 (1972), 167-91; in Croft, Autograph Poetry, I, 23; in Michael L. Hays, Shakespeare's Hand in Sir Thomas More: Some Aspects of the Paleographic Argument, SSt, 8 (1975), 241-53; in Paul Ramsey, Shakespeare and Sir Thomas More Revisited: or, A Mounty on the Trail, PBSA, 70 (1976), 333-46; in Giles E. Dawson, Theobald, table/babbled, and Sir Thomas More, TLS (22 April 1977), p. 484; in Petti, English Literary Hands, No. 36; in Giles E. Dawson, Shakespeare's Handwriting, Shakespeare Survey, 42 (1990), 119-28; in Grace Ioppolo, Dramatists and their Manuscripts in the Age of Shakespeare, Jonson, Middleton and Heywood (London & New York, 2006), pp. 100-9; and elsewhere.

Facsimiles of f. 9r also in English Poetical Autographs, ed. Desmond Flower and A.N.L. Munby (London, 1938), No. 6; in Hilton Kelliher and Sally Brown, English Literary Manuscripts (British Library, 1986), No. 11, p. 23; in Elizabethan Dramatists, ed. Fredson Bowers, DLB, 62 (Detroit, 1987), p. 407; in William Shakespeare: A Documentary Volume, ed. Catherine Loomis, DLB, 263 (Detroit, 2002), p. 33; in Chris Fletcher et al., 1000 Years of English Literature: A Treasury of Literary Manuscripts (British Library, 2003), p. 55; and elsewhere.

Tom a Lincoln

Doubtfully attributed to Heywood by P.J. Croft. Possibly written, at least in part, by Morgan Evans as an Inns of Court entertainment. Edited by G.R. Proudfoot, Malone Society (Oxford, 1992).

HyT 13

Copy, in probably five secretary hands, subscribed Quae pfecta manent, strenuo pfecta labore Metra quid exornat lima, litura, labor / Morganus Evans: i.e. composed or partly copied by Morgan Evans, of Trefeglwys, Montgomeryshire, member of the Inner Temple, imperfect at the beginning and lacking a title.

Edited from this MS in Proudfoot, with facsimile examples. Also discussed in Richard Proudfoot, Richard Johnson's Tom a' Lincoln Dramatized: A Jacobean Play in British Library MS. Add. 61745, in New Ways of Looking at Old Texts, ed. W. Speed Hill (Binghamton, 1993), pp. 75-101.

A quarto miscellany, including a play, legal notes and verses with Welsh connections, in several secretary and italic hands, ii + 64 leaves, in contemporary limp vellum, within modern half-morocco.

c.1611-19

Formerly among the family archives of Sir John Coke (1563-1644), Secretary of State, later owned by the Marquess of Lothian, of Melbourne Hall, Derbyshire. Sotheby's, 20 November 1973, lot 72, with facsimile examples in the sale catalogue.

Documents

Document(s)
*HyT 14
Autograph

Heywood's deposition in a law-suit between Baskerville and Worth, signed by him three times, 3 October 1623.

1623

Facsimiles of two signatures in Greg, English Literary Autographs, Plate XCVIII (f-h).

National Archives, Kew (Chancery Depositions 500 (9, 103))

Miscellaneous Extracts from Works by Heywood

Extracts
HyT 15

Extracts from A Woman Killed with Kindness.

A quarto commonplace book of extracts illustrating specified topics, largely in a single cursive hand, entitled Miscellanea Tragica Theatrical Index of Sentimts. & Descriptions Vol. 7, 244 pages (including blanks, plus a seven-page index and further blanks), in quarter crushed morocco on marbled boards.

Inscribed W. Harte 1726: i.e. by Walter Harte (1709-41), compiler of the MS, which also has his bookplate.

c.1726
HyT 16

Extracts from plays, including If You Know not Me, You Know No Bodie; or, The Troubles of Queene Elizabeth (1605) and The Rape of Lucrece (1609).

A large untitled folio anthology of quotations chiefly from Elizabethan and Stuart plays, alphabetically arranged under subject headings, in a single mixed hand, in double columns, 900 pages (lacking pp. 1-4, 379-80, 667-8, 715-20 and 785-8), including (pp. 893-7) an alphabetical index of some 351 titles of plays, in modern boards.

This is the longest known extant version of the unpublished anthology Hesperides or The Muses Garden, by John Evans, entered in the Stationers' Register on 16 August 1655 and subsequently advertised c.1660, among works he purposed to print, by Humphrey Moseley. Another version of this work, in the same hand, dissected by James Orchard Halliwell-Phillipps (1820-89), is now distributed between Shakespeare Birthplace Trust, Halliwell-Phillipps, Notes upon the Works of Shakespeare, Folger, MS V.a.75, Folger, MS V.a.79, and Folger, MS V.a.80.

c.1656-66

Formerly MS 469.2.

This MS identified in IELM, II.i (1980), p. 450. Discussed, as the master draft, with a facsimile of p. 7 on p. 381, in Hao Tianhu, Hesperides, or the Muses' Garden and its Manuscript History, The Library, 7th Ser. 10/4 (December 2009), 372-404 (the full index printed as Catalogue A on pp. 385-94).

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