PR 2719 |.N3 Z7 Copy 1 I UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA THE DRAMATIC WORKS OF THOMAS NABBES BY CHARLOTTE MOORE A THESIS PRESENTED TO THE FACULTY OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL IN ■ PARTIAL FULFILMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Part I George Banta Publishing Co. Menasha, Wisconsin 1918 UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA THE DRAMATIC WORKS OF THOMAS NABBES BY CHARLOTTE MOORE it A THESIS PRESENTED TO THE FACULTY OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL IN PARTIAL FULFILMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Part I 2^1ic QIallpginte |Jrrs» Giorge Banta Publishing Company Menasha, Wisconsin 1918 ^fh Gift University SEP 23 Ultf CONTENTS Page Preface v I. Biographical Data 1 II. Nabbes and his Critics 7 III. A Review of: 1. The Comedies 12 2. The Masques 17 3. The Tragedy of The Unfortunate Mother 22 IV. The Tragedy, Hannibal and Scipio 24 V. The Question concerning "A Former Play" 32 VI. The Original Sources and Influences 40 VII. Nabbes' Hannibal and Scipio compared with other English and Foreign Plays on the Subject of the Second Punic War.... 45 Transcript of the Bodleian Fragment 53 Bibliography 59 PREFACE The Collected Poems and Plays of Thomas N abbes, edited by A. H. Bullen, and published in 1887, is the first and only attempt to bring the work of this dramatist into a form easily accessible to the student of the old drama. The introduction to this edition supplemented by Sir Sidney Lee's sketch in The Dictionary of National Biography, has furnished the point of departure for the biographical comment which opens the present study of Nabbes as a dramatist and the author of the tragedy, Hannibal and Scipio. As far as practicable, the sources used by the biographers named, and by others of the scant commentators upon Nabbes, have been carefully reexamined. In the review of the indivi- dual plays, Bullen's edition has been used for the comedies, the masques and the tragedy of The Unfortunate Mother. For the more detailed study of the tragedy, Hannibal and Scipio, the Quarto text, 1637, has been used. 1 The method is indicated in general, at each stage of the investigation, which has aimed to distinguish as clearly as possible between the modi- cum of the really authoritative and the purely inferential concerning Nabbes and his work. The aim has been not so much to draw conclu- sions as to find probable grounds for possible conclusions. Grateful acknowledgement is due to the professors of the depart- ment of English in the University of Pennsylvania, to whose lectures there is traceable either direct or indirect influence, in this study. Spe- cial acknowledgement is made to Professor F. E. Schelling under whose direction the study was undertaken and to whose criticism it was sub- mitted. Among those of other departments acknowledgement is due to Professor Walton B. McDaniel of the department of Latin. Among librarians, those of the circulating department of the Uni- versity of Pennsylvania, those of Columbia University and the librarian of the University of Chicago, are remembered for special courtesies. The librarian of the Bodleian, Oxford, has generously granted a trans- cript of the manuscript fragment used in the study of Hannibal and Scipio, and reprinted at the close. The Rector of Exeter College kindly sent copies of the record of the matriculation of Nabbes in that College. C. M. May 21, 1915. 1 Hunter's Ms. Chorus Vatican in Brit. Mus. Addit. Ms. 24487, ff. 334. I Biographical Data So far as known, the name, Thomas Nabbes, is found in but one ori- ginal record, that of the Register of Commoners at Exeter College, Oxford, where he was matriculated on the third of May 1601 at the age of sixteen. 1 The same entry is given by The Oxford Historical Society, but the name is spelled doubtfully as Nabbes (Nabbs). 2 From the meagreness of record it may be inferred that the Oxford residence of Nabbes was briefer than might be assumed from the wide and accurate first-hand knowledge of the classics and of the modern languages displayed in his literary work. 3 How far this attainment and its influence upon his work are due to academic training, is not clear, though much of it was doubtless the result of his mental bent stimulated by the prevailing literary taste of his time. The Worcestershire birth of Nabbes indicated by his matriculation, is possibly supported by several of his minor poems. An Encomium on the London Steeple at Worcester carries with it a sense of intimacy with the cathedral and its environment. The wish expressed at the close of the poem, to find here a final resting place, is suggestive, though not proof, of strong attachment to the cathedral and village. Oh might I begge that when my soule goes forth Of this foule earth to climb above thy head And that the rest be reckoned with the dead. 4 Two other poems have been noted by the two brief biographers of Nabbes, as indicative of Worcestershire residence. 5 Bullen finds evidence in these of a more than ordinary conviviality of temperament for Nabbes. Of these poems, that Upon Excellent Strong Beere which he drank at the Towne of Wich in Worcestershire where Salt is made might pass as a 1 "Nabbes, Thomas; plebs. of Worcs. (Worcestershire). Matriculated 3rd May, 1621, Age 16," Register of Commoners, Exeter College, Oxford. 2 The Oxford Hist. Soc. V. II, pt. 11, p. 387. 3 See also Nabbes' continuation of Knowlle's History of the Turks where frequent quotation is made from a wide range of the classics, and from modern foreign literature. 4 For minor poems in this connection, see Bullen, V. I, pp. 238, 242, 246. 5 See introduction to Bullen's Collected Works of Thomas Nabbes, 2 Vols. (Odl Eng. Plays) London 1887. Sidney's Lee's Thomas Nabbes in The Dictionary of National Biography. The sketch in the Encyclopedia Britanica follows Bullen and Lee. 2 THE DRAMATIC WORKS OF THOMAS NABBES tourist's wine song for which he had popular examples among poets of a sobriety consistent even with Puritan ideals of the day. The second poem, Upon losing of his way in a Forrest parting from his company to go home towards the evening, is possibly more definite for the convivial temperament inferred by Bullen. The author relates that the darkness added to the uncertainty of forest paths and his equally uncertain steps, obliged him to ask hospitality for the night, at the house of a smith, to whom he commends himself as a "Servant of my Lords." This inference from his poems of convivial tendencies might find some support from the poet's verses, Upon Mr. Henry Welby whose total abstinence extending to the regimen of a strict vegetarian, gained for him the eccentric title, The Phoenix of these late times. The praise which Nabbes confers upon the gentleman as A scholler of all Sorts in some degree, Philosopher, Historian and Divine; All but a poet, for he drank no wine. might argue the author's confidence in a source of inspiration, at that time rarely neglected by either philosopher or divine. It is the local basis of these poems however, which gives Bullen's conclusion that "Nabbes liked good liquor," 6 a precedence over an opposite inference of strict temperance for Nabbes, to be gathered from his constant em- phasis upon self-control in the entire conduct of life, exhibited in his plays, and especially in his Hannibal and Scipio. It is perhaps safe to conclude that the episode of the poem mentioned, in which Nabbes says — "A pleasant juyce (perry) was brought, made us beguile Time with more words than matter," probably was for himself at least, an isolated event, and all the more proved so by its celebration in the author's verse. 7 As a staple of Western Worcestershire, perry would reasonably be celebrated in a poem connected with that locality, just as the beer of Wich was celebrated in the poem on that place, and as the Worcester Cathedral was the theme of the poem connected with the town of Worcester. • It is equally as hazardous to conclude definitely individual traits for Nabbes, from the characters of his plays. That he was constant to lofty dramatic ideals, and that he was a man of excellent motives, no reader of his plays can doubt. Whether his personal characteristics were those of Sam, his "deserving gentleman of the Inns of Court," 6 Bullen, V. I, p. 271. 7 Upon Losing of his way in a Forrest, etc. Bullen, V. I p. 242. THE DRAMATIC WORKS OF THOMAS NABBES 3 or whether Changelove of the same play, portrays more nearly its author's habitual moods, there can at least be no doubt that his Sam, and his Scipio Africanus express his approved principles of conduct, and that in ideal at least, he never declined below the better moments of his Changelove who holds that, Society is the use Of man's best ornaments, speech and discourse Are reason's messengers, that carry errands From one soule to another. I confesse I love good company. 8 Except the date of his matriculation at Oxford, all dates and events associated with Nabbes by his brief biographical sketches, are wholly conjectural from his works. Even his short poems described above seem to be merely reminiscent of Worcestershire. As shown by its connection, An Encomium on the leaden Steeple was written after the benefactor of the cathedral, Dr. William Juxon, had been made Bishop of London, and at least six years after the date 1630, assigned by bio- graphers as the beginning of Nabbes' London life." 9 The date 1630 is itself wholly conjectural from the supposition that Covent Garden, which was acted in 1632, was the author's first play. 10 From 1632-41, the poet's name appears not infrequently among those of playwrights and other poets, sometimes in connection with commendatory verses prefixed to certain editions of poets of the day, as well as in other memorial tribute. The circumstances as well as the date of Nabbes' death are unknown. The brief note in Chamber's Encyclopedia of English Literature gives 1645 as approximately the date of his death, but there is evidently no reliable source for this date. 11 As an author Nabbes disappears in 1641. Whether like Shirley, he found retreat amid rural scenes, or whether as Bullen conjectures, he may have fallen in battle for his King, it is impossible to say. 12 The latter conjecture is pleasing in so far as it suggests such martial adventure as that in which his "true friend" and fellow playwright, Shackerley Marmion, lost his life. A more prosaic but more probable conjecture 8 Tottenham Court, Act V, 3, p. 172. Bullen, V. I. 9 See the date of the poem (1637) affixed to the title page, by the author, (Bullen V. II, p. 242). 10 For the date 1630 see Lee, Dictionary National Biography, XI, Thomas Nabbes. 11 Allibone's Critical Dictionary, Eng. Lit. VII, Philadelphia, 1880, also gives date 1645. 12 Bullin's Introd. p. xii, V. I. 4 THE DRAMATIC WORKS OF THOMAS NABBES would accept 1641 as approximately the date of Nabbes' death. If we may trust tradition, he died in London, and was buried in the Temple Church, in the near neighborhood of which he must have had residence. Bullen cites Baker's Companion to the Play House, 1764, as giving Coex- ter's opinion that, "This is the Thomas Nabbes who lies buried in the Temple Church, under the organ, on the inner side." 13 As to the absence of his name in the burial register of the church, Bullen quotes Canon Angier's opinion that the omission is referable to the poet's humble station, an explanation evidently inadequate. Baker's quoted reference to the burial place of a Thomas Nabbes in the Temple Church however accords with an inference regarding the London residence of Nabbes, to be derived from certain characters of his Tottenham Court, and especially from his dedication of The Bride. The latter comedy acted in 1638 is addressed by the author, "to the Generality of His noble friends, Gentlemen of the several Honorable Houses of the Inns of Court. " A hint of employment on the part of the Inns is given at the close of the dedication. After commending The Bride to their acceptance and protection, he adds; "And the honor that you doe me thereby will add to those many engagements that bind me always to declare myself your most thankful servant, Thomas Nabbes." Tottenham Court acted in 1633, has among its principal characters, two gentlemen of the Inns of Court. The inference is reason- able that Nabbes had residence in the Inns of Court. Whether like Beaumont and Wycherley and Tom Moore, he was a student at law, or like Johnson, Goldsmith, Cowper, Lamb and others, he was a lodger merely, or whether he held a clerk's or a secretary's position, it is not clear. The tone of the dedication as well as the apparent respect in which Nabbes was held by contemporary writers, would at least favor the view that he possessed the qualities essential to a cultured man of that day. His favorite studies, Greek and Latin literature besides general literature and history, were those required for entrance as a law student at the Inns of Court. 14 Whether he resided at the Inner Temple, the proverbial residence of the less wealthy, would depend upon whether Nabbes' depreciation of his means may be considered sincere or whether it was merely the seventeenth century author's conventional flaunt at his fortune. The character of Nabbes' dramatic work classes it with 13 Baker's Companion to the Play House, V. II, Thomas Nabbes. Coexter's Manuscript notes were used by Cibber in his Lives of the Poets. "Walter Thornbury's "Old and New London," V. I; 13-16, pp. 173-179. Lon- don (no date). THE DRAMATIC WORKS OF THOMAS NABBES 5 that of members of the Inns of Court. His critics are agreed upon his excellence as a writer of masques. It is quite possible from his phrase "those many engagements," that he composed entertainments for the Inns, upon occasions not on record. The brief poems of Nabbes complimenting the work of his fellow playwrights and poets, are of the kind incident to the most informal intercourse of their gild. 15 These define in general the literary envi- ronment of Nabbes. Among those whom he addresses as friends are: Schackerly Morman and Sir John Suckling, both gentlemen of depleted fortunes; Robert Chamberlain, the author of Nocturnal Lucubrations, 1638; John Tatham, the dramatist and the composer of the Lord Mayor's pageants; Thomas Jordan, Tatham's successor as city poet, and the author of Poetical Varieties, 1640; also Thomas Beedome of the Poems Divine and Human, 1641. Among complimentary verses addressed to Nabbes are those of Richard Brome, "To his deare friend, the author upon his Microcosmus. 16 Brome had risen from the rank of servant to Ben Jonson, to the place of leading playwright in the reign of Charles the first. Fortune's wheel almost measured its round in these friends of Nabbes, as they met upon the common ground of poets with an occa- sional play, and of dramatists with occasional poems. Nabbes appar- ently had as strong an affinity with the poets of the group as with the playwrights, and so fraternized with both. The association of Nabbes with those of the older dramatists who then survived, is even more purely a matter of inference from his works; but external circumstances also favor the possibility of a personal ac- quaintance with Ben Jonson who was still the center of an admiring circle of poets and playwrights recognized by him as his "sons" in the art. The Apollo Room, which had superseded the Mermaid of earlier days, was at the Devil's Tavern, not far from the Temple Church. Of the Mermaid group, there remained Chapman, Dekker, Marston, Webster, Massinger Ford and Shirley, and of these, the two latter with Webster were yet strong in their best work. Nabbes' London associates in gen- eral indicate his literary status among his fellow writers. One of his Job's comforters after The Unfortunate Mother had been refused by the actors, declares that tragedy to have rivalled Davenant's popular Albo- vine. He assures Nabbes that The Unfortunate Mother was well-plotted and well-written, he bids him remember its illustrious companion in 15 See close of Vol. I, Bullen. 16 Prefixed to Microcosmus, V. II (Bullen) p. 162. 6 THE DRAMATIC WORKS OF THOMAS NABBES failure, Jonson's The New Inn. 17 Another assures him that the play would have proved good, had it only been acted. 18 Another compliments his "muse that doth so sweetly sing." 19 There is a sort of naivete in the author's act of dedicating this rejected child of his muse to a stranger, the "Right worshipfull Richard Braithwaite, Esquire. 20 The solace of friends however biassed, might have sufficed, had the author's disap- pointment arisen merely from wounded vanity; but this appeal to a critic of accredited taste upon whose favor friendship could have no claim, is apparently not in the spirit of the ordinary seeker of patronage. Nabbes usually dedicated his plays to his friends: Covent Garden to " his admired friend, The Rightworthy of His Honours, Sir John Suckling, Knight;" Tottenham Court, to "The Worshipfull William Mills, Esquire ... as a publick declaration of the gratitude I owe you. " The Spring's Glory is dedicated to "Master William Balle, the young son of his friend, Peter Balle. The Bride, as noted above, was dedicated "To the Gener- ality of His noble friends ... of the Inns of Court." On the whole Nabbes' dedications appear to have been written hardly with a view to advancement as a playwright ; they have rather the tone of an author who made playwriting an avocation of pride and delight. The only apparent exception to this is the author's complaint in his address to the ghosts of Hannibal and Scipio, of some lack of pay for the writing of that play. 21 The brief list of Nabbes' plays, the single performance of those which were acted, and the two excellent masques that were not acted, the light, thoughtless compliments of his friends who generally reiterate the author's own aims and ideals, all belong to the range of an amateur. Microcosmus is the only play of Nabbes, which bears upon its title page such evidence of public approval as "Presented with general liking." Prefixed to this as published in 1637, are verses by Richard Brome and an unidentified Will CuFaude. 22 Brome compliments the author upon his philosophy, learning and wit that make the play a means of "profit and delight." The second writer compliments the "poetic rage" that would "make a schoole of virtue of a common stage." Both writers 17 See Complimentary Verses signed C. G., p. 89, with Bullen's note on Carew- Hazlitt's opinion that Charles Gerber wrote these lines. 18 Signed E. B. which Bullen thinks the initials for Edward Beedome, poet and patron of poets, p. 89, V. II. 19 Signed R. W. for which no name has been found. See p. 89, V. II, Bullen. 20 See p. 85, V. II, Bullen. 21 The Ghosts of Hannibal and Scipio to the author B. V. II. 22 See Bullen V. I, pp. 162-3. Of "Will CuFaude" nothing has been found. Horace, Ars Poetica, I. 333 "Aut prodesse volunt aut delectare Poetae." THE DRAMATIC WORKS OF THOMAS NABBES 7 apparently echo the Horatian motto borne by the title page of Micro- cosmus, "Debent et prodesse et delectare Poetae, " a sentence briefly summarizing the dramatic creed of Nabbes. In his prologues, Nabbes often contrasts himself with his latter day playwrights, in that his plays gave a serious turn to light subjects treated upon the contemporary stage. 23 As usual with conscientious writers his excellent aims were acknowledged; but his work was not overrated by a public intent upon amusement rather than upon ethical values. It is apparent that Nabbes was not a timeserver in his dramatic work. His clearly defined ideals held hard by the Jonsonian precept that the office of the dramatist is to interpret the life of his age in such a way as to set forth the eternal verities; but the age that had been even half- way inclined thus to view the drama, had passed away. Nabbes like his Master Jonson, had to beat his poetic wings against the unyielding bars of public opinion. In endeavoring to keep the drama to its nobler office, each had to take for his solace, that in ideal at least, he was above the grovelling audiences and those playwrights who were content to please them. II Nabbes and his Critics Among dramatic compilers and critics the meagre and somewhat conflicting comment upon the work of Nabbes, has mainly repeated the verdict of his own day, in its mingled recognition and neglect. Those nearest his own time and those farthest from it, regard him the more favorably. Lee quotes Samuel Shepherd's The Times Displayed pub- lished in 1646, five years after the date of Nabbes' last published poem, as ranking him with Beaumont and Fletcher, Shirley and Davenant, and as especially commending his Hannibal and Scipio. u Bullen finds that the English Treasury of Wit and Language, edited by John Cot- grove in 1655, includes among that miscellany "many wise and well- expressed extracts from Nabbes. Near the close of his century in 1691, Nabbes is ranked by Langbaine as a third-rate poet, though as one 23 See Prologues to Covcnt Garden, Tottenham Court, Hannibal and Scipio, V. I, Bullen. Prologue to The Bride, The Unfortunate Mother, V. II, Bullen, The Spring's Glory, p. 219, V. II, p. 256, "A Presentation, etc." 24 An Elegie on his Ingenious friend, the deserving Author, Master Thomas Beedome. Prefixed to Thomas Beedome's Poems Divine and Human, 1641. Lee refers to the Sixth Sestiad, Assyzes of Apollo. 8 THE DRAMATIC WORKS OF THOMAS NABBES pretty much respected by the poets of his time. 25 Langbaine commends Nabbes in that "what he published was his own and not borrowed from others"; but even in this, Langbaine has taken Nabbes at his own word, basing the statement upon the prologue to Covent Garden where the author, Justifies that 'tis no borrowed straine From the invention of another's braine Nor did he steale the Fancie : 26 By the middle of the eighteenth century, Nabbes had fallen in the scale of the critics. The author of Cibber's Lives of the Poets, published in 1753, gives Nabbes fifth rank. 27 Sir Walter Scott who expressed him- self delighted with Shackerley Marmion's The Antiquary, takes no notice of the much less farcical and more nearly romantic characterization of an antiquary in Nabbes' comedy, The Bride. Genest has the following perfunctory review of these plays. "Covent Garden is a poor play, having no plot and little incident, Tottenham Court has scenes that appear to advantage. Hannibal and Scipio is not a bad tragedy nor has it much to recommend it"; but by virtue perhaps of the romantic reversion, the same writer styles The Unfortunate Mother, "a very good play." 28 Samuel Brydges merely mentions the dramatic work of Nabbes, but notes more specifically that he wrote in 1637, a continua- tion of Knolles' History of the Turks. 29 Later comment upon Nabbes, though still meager and conflicting in valuation, shows a tendency to return to the estimate of the author in his own day. Ward names his as "a meritorious writer of dramatic works of various kinds"; but Ward is chiefly interested in the Moral Masque, Microcosmus, w r hich he says has a certain interest in having been, so far as known, the first dramatic composition of the kind ever exhibited on a public stage. 30 Lee, whose biographical sketch of Nabbes is the more detailed, though in essentials following Bullen, estimates the author as "a passable writer of comedies, inventing his own plots, and lightly censuring the foibles of middle class London society. " He thinks his tragedies not attractive, but notes his "satisfactory command of the 25 Langbaine's An Account of the English Dramatic Poets, 1691. 26 Prologue to Covent Garden, p. 5, V. I, Bullen. 27 Cibber's Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland, 5 Vols. London, 1753. V. II. 28 History of the Drama and Stage in England from 1660 to 1830. V. 10, ed. 1832. 29 Biographia Litera V. I, p. 439, Pub. 1838 as the 5th edition. 30 History of English Dramatic Literature. V. 3, p. 194. THE DRAMATIC WORKS OF THOMAS NABBES 9 niceties of blank verse in which all of his plays are mainly written." 31 Bullen, the most authoritative student of Nabbes, commends him as "an elegant scholar and a man of gentle disposition, the author of some agreeable comedies, but having little genius for tragedy." Bullen's valuation of Nabbes has a judiciousness that is not impaired but rather enforced by its rhetorical close. "His place is at the feet of Shirley, on the lower slopes of Parnassus. He has much of Shirley's fluency and refinement, with not a little of his limpidness and tenuity. He was well nigh the last of the runners in the torch race, and the light burned very dimly. But it was a light not unfathered by the fire of Ida." 32 Thus the pendulum of criticism has swung forward and back in the some two hundred and seventy years since The Unfortunate Mother went unacted into print. Even the latest valuation of Nabbes "as well above the average of his lesser contemporaries," leaves him still, if not merely an amateur, at the best a minor dramatist, with the small extant output of five plays and three masques. 33 His work however has for the student, the usual advantage of the minor writer, in its reflection of literary tendencies of his day with their own bearing backward into the Elizabethan and early Stuart drama, and forward into the drama of the Restoration. This is not to say that Nabbes was nothing but imitative of others. Such resemblances as he bears to the earlier Eliza- bethans and to the Jonsonian school, as well as to continental dramatists, are due somewhat to his treatment of the same themes and the same types of character, though embodied in less hackneyed phases of life. Though his characters and situations lack the robustness of the types of Roman comedy employed by Jonson, they are compensated for by an individuality of humor drawn from English life as Nabbes knew it. For the Roman sharper and his victim, Nabbes has substituted the roistering unscrupulous, Londoner and the artless country people of its neighborhood. Nabbes uses much the same range of classical allusion in vogue from Marlowe and Dekker to Jonson. Like Jonson he is con- scious in his method; like Jonson also he is subtil ely rather than broadly humorous, except in his coarser characterizations drawn from the tavern life of his day. At all times he is didactic either through contrast or else by direct precept; but in his comedies he never far exceeds an artis- tic implicitness of the moral. Like most of his contemporaries, Nabbes 31 Diet, of Nat'l. Biog. 82 See Introduction, V. I. Nabbes' Collected Works. 83 Schelling's Elizabethan Drama, V. II, pp. 45, 134, 279, 280, 281. 10 THE DRAMATIC WORKS OF THOMAS NABBES is eclectic, but he selects in accordance with an aesthetic purpose wholly his own. As mentioned above, Nabbes' earlier critics accept his own statement that he invented the plots of his comedies, but they usually make the reservation that the faculty of plot-invention is in itself of no special value to a dramatist. Nabbes, however, mentions the originality of his plots partly in protest against the charge of borrowing, and partly to differentiate his comedies from the more popular plays of the day. 34 Like Jonson's his plots are incidental to his selection of motive and especially to his portrayal of character which in certain novel situations where Nabbes is a master, develops of itself the dramatic action. Nabbes is chiefly interested in character as reflecting his ideal of life. In this he was consciously far above his contemporary playwrights who treat lightly and almost wholly farcically the same subjects in which Nabbes discriminates precisely between the lighter and the more serious phases. In his prologue to Covent Garden, Nabbes denies dependence upon other playwrights and describes himself as one whose Muse is solitary and alone Doth practice her low speculation. The early critics of Nabbes based their valuation chiefly upon his poetic qualities. Eighteenth century reference to his work repeats for the greater part, the traditional criticism of his poetic and dramatic qualities. Critics of a still later time and of the present day, have estimated his dramatic work from the viewpoint of the public stage of the author's own day. There remains another slightly different point of view from which the plays of Nabbes may be read ; that is, from their character of a more nearly private entertainment, which it would appear their author had chiefly in mind, especially if we take into consideration the entire content and form of his plays. In the Prologue to Hannibal and Scipio, there is a hint for the more private and special audience. This play as indicated by its crudeness of structure extending to a phrasing and diction characteristic of late sixteenth century plays from Latin sources, probably antedates Covent Garden in composition. It is thus the first of Nabbes' dramatic work, and as such may be trusted to foreshadow his aims with reference to a more nearly private audience. He assures for his play that, 34 For an exception, see the prologue to Hannibal and Scipio where he suggests the possibility of having borrowed from "a former play." It is also probable that the motives and character of The Unfortunate Mother are borrowed. THE DRAMATIC WORKS OF THOMAS NABBES 11 'Tis free As ever play was from scurrility Nor need you Ladies feare the horrid sight; And the more horrid noise of target fight By the blue coated Stage-keepers; our sphears Have better music to delight your eares . . . Earlier in the prologue, he has assured his audience that "Ladies shall not blush Nor smile under their fannes; nor he in plush, That from the Poet's labours in the pit Informes himself for the exercise of wit At Tavernes, gather notes. 35 The present study accepts the above for evidence, at the beginning of the author's work, of a discrimination between the character of his plays and that of the ordinary public play, as explained later in his prologue to Covent Garden. This attitude of Nabbes toward his work will be taken as sufficient ground for certain limitations in the plays noted when they are compared with contemporary plays of a more public character. It will also, to some degree, account for the narrow range of his theme, for his didacticism which is considered essential to the masque and its near ally, the private entertainment, often more or less akin to the moral- ity play. With this inference from the dramatist's words concerning his audience and his appeal through his plays, the present study will proceed: first, to review generally the dramatic work of Nabbes with reference to the types presented, with the formal content of each plot; second, to discuss the question of his sources and their possible influences upon his work. The aim of the investigation will be to show possible grounds upon which judicious inference may be based. As the culminat- ing interest of the study is in the tragedy, Hannibal and Scipio, the interpretation of which is closely related and to some degree dependent upon that of his other plays, the more intensive study of that play will be reached through a study of his entire dramatic work. Beginning with his comedies and proceeding to his masques which may be considered as occupying the chief place in his work, it is hoped that some not indefinite clue to the interpretation as well as to the sources of the dramatist's Hannibal and Scipio may be reached. 35 Prolog, Q. 11. 3-7 and 22-27. 12 THE DRAMATIC WORKS OF THOMAS N ABBES III A Review of the Dramatic Work of Nabbes 1 Of the dramatic work of Nabbes the three comedies of manners, Covent Garden, Tottenham Court and The Bride, have been considered, next to his masques, his most successful work. 36 As usual with this type, the individual humor or bias is indicated in the names of the characters. The leading characters are genarally from the higher middle class English life with a background of minor characters from the lower middle class or the servant class. The dramatic action developed through the characters, is for the greater part, simple, though complicated sufficiently for interest and suspense, by witty ruse carried chiefly by the women of the action. As a whole the theme of these comedies has the effect of humorous comment upon certain follies incident to the different classes of London and of country life represented in the play. In all three of the comedies the action treats the conventional theme of the poet and playwright of the time, the different phases of love, though in these plays of Nabbes', with emphatic preference for the courtier or chivalric love. In the earlier comedy, Covent Garden, Artlove, " a compleat Gentleman with two "wilde Gallants," Jerker by name, appear as contrasting types of seventeenth century London society. Of these two types of character, Jerker may appeal to the present-day reader as more natural than Artlove ; but this would doubtless be because the role of the wild gallant admits of greater freedom of phrase and of action, also because his type of character has to a certain degree survived that of Artlove. The latter however must as a true courtier, be expected to talk by the book and according to a philosophical mode beyond the earthy apprehension of these wild gallants who dub his high phrasing, "bookish humours." Artlove's role in the play turns upon his admiration for Dorothy Worthy from whose noble character his affection takes its tone. where there is an union Of loving hearts, the joy exceeds expression, That love is vertuous whose desires doe never End in their satisfaction, but increase 38 Covent Garden acted by the Queen's Servants, 1632-3, and published in 1638. Tottenham Court, acted at the private house in Salisbury Court, 1633. Pr. 1638. The Bride, acted at the Private House in Drury Lane, by the Queen's Servants, 1638. THE DRAMATIC WORKS OF THOMAS NABBES 13 Towards the object; when a beateous forme Garnisht with all the lustre of perfection Invites the eye and tells the searching thought It holds a richer minde, with which my soule Would rather mixe her faculties. 37 In interesting contrast, Dorothy Worthy regulates her affections and her theories about destiny according to the best seventeenth century tenets. There is a power Called Fate, which doth necessitate the will, And make desire obedient to its rule. All the resisting faculties of reason, Prevention, feare and jealousie are weake To disannul what in its firme decrees Is once determined. Yet my heart is free; Unbounded by the stricter limits of Particular affection; so I'le keep it ... 38 These idealisations of young womanhood and of young manhood in Dorothy Worthy and Artlove, with their opposites in the young rowdies, Hugh and Jeffry Jerker, along with Mrs. Tongall, "a busie gossip," are dramatically offset in the minor action developed by elderly Sir Generous Worthy's doting jealousy of his young wife. The latter in witty reprisal, feigns to encourage the advances of Jeffry Jerker, though her sole purpose is to correct the fault of jealousy in her much- revered husband. However unsuccessful such a corrective might be in actual life, its stage effect is fortunate in directing and carrying the farcial and satirical comment upon social foibles and vices. The varied ideals of higher social life are contrasted with the more matter-of-fact love affairs of the servants in the Worthy household, and the entire comedy of the foreground shades with vivacious humor into a background of the London Inn and private hostel. Here the conventional disillusionment of the countryman newly come to the city, is represented in Dungworth who is intent upon the exchange of his ancestral acres for a knightship and the privilege of association with London wits, but whose brief experience with the London brand of wit is summed up in his concluding comment, "Thus in the abused sense, cheating is called wit." 39 The adventures of Dungworth are true to London of that day. Some of the situations are even commonplace, 37 Bullen, V. I; 4, p. 17-18. 38 11:4, p. 31. 39 Act V.; 5. 14 THE DRAMATIC WORKS OF THOMAS NABBES but all the better adapted to contrast the naivete of Dungworth and his man, Dobson, with the over confidence of their guide, another ser- vant who has seen former days in London, but sufficiently in the past to render his directions embarassing. Though the language, the phrasing and the verse form of this comedy belong to Nabbes' early and cruder style, the expression of the play in general illustrates the author's ability to adapt himself to widely differing characters and situations. This is well illustrated in the extreme contrasts ranging from the posed idealism of Artlove and of Dorothy Worthy, through the varying shades of temperament in young worthy, Sir Gener- ous Worthy and his gay-hearted wife, down to the mere pleasure seeker and roisterer of the comedy which has in the naive and sincere Dung- worthy and Dobson, Nature's compensating rebound. Tottenham Court employs much the same types of character in Worth- good, "a Deserving Gentleman, in 'Changelove, ' a fantastical Gallant, in Sam,' a fine young Gentleman of the Inns of Court," and in James, "a wild young Gentleman of the Inns of Court." The action opens with the interupted runaway match of Worthgood and Bellamia, in the fields outside of London, and in the neighborhood of Tottenham Court, a popular pleasure resort. From this pastoral background emerges the leading heroine of the play, Cecely, the pretty milkmaid, beloved of Sam, and ultimately proved to be Cecelia, the lost sister of Worthgood. The comedy culminates in the successful ruse of Cecely who outwits the wily gallants, frequenters of Tottingham Court. By a variety of perilous but ultimately harmless intrigues, Cecely rescues herself and her protege, Bellamia, who in her elopement has been separated from Worthgood, her husband to be. Sam, the best man of Nabbes' three comedies, is the sanest embodi- ment of Courtly love as based upon virtue in its object. Mine eye ne're saw with aptnesse to desire That beauty could enthrall m'unbounded thoughts With passionate affection. Yet this piece Is absolute, and such as cannot choose But have a glorious mind. Love is a cement That joynes not earthly parts alone, but workes Upon th' eternall substance, making one Of two agreeing souls. 40 In this comedy which exhibits greater maturity of thought and of style generally, Nabbes has improved upon his employment of country "Act V: 4, 176. THE DRAMATIC WORKS OF THOMAS NABBES 15 environment in Covent Garden. In Tottenham Court the remote roar and tumult of London life are caught in echoes from the bridges of the Thames, by Worthgood and Bellamia, who else had lost their way in the as yet country environs of the city. Sure I heare. The Bridges cataract, and such like murmers As night and sleepe yield from a populous number. 41 In this play, Nabbes exhibits also a corresponding growth in ability to select material and dramatic situation. His expression has become more natural and facile, hence more artistic. He gives to Cecilia in her character of milkmaid, a song which compares not unfavorably with the best dramatic lyrics of that time, even though it be a poetical para- phrase of Thomas Overbury's character of the milkmaid, beloved of all later writers, and especially complimented by that practical lover of nature, Izaak Walton, 42 What a dainty life the milk-maid leads! When over the flowery meads She dabbles in the dewe And sings to her cowe; And feels not the paine Of love or disdain; And sleeps in the night though she toyles in the day And merrily passeth her time away. To the present-day reader of Tottenham Court it is true as of Covent Garden, that Nabbes appears at his best in his realistic characters and situations, because these have survived to an extent in actual life today , but his Worthgood and his high-souled Sam of the Inns of Court, like his Artlove and Dorothy Worthy, are no less true to the higher social life of that day than are his wild gallants, or the jealously amorous eld- erly husband and his naive countrymen. With his art of placing his courtly lovers and his heroic though adventurous women in an environ- ment of rather commonplace, actual life, he has made them beings of real flesh and blood. The Bride which was acted five years later than Tottenham Court, has an increasing directness of expression, a more robust characteri- zation, and a broader range of dramatic motive approaching the tragic "Act 1,: 1, 101. 42 The complete Angler 2 Vols (Vol. I, p. 87, Chap. IV, part 1) Boston, 1892, Cf. Morley's Character Writings of the Seventeenth Century (Sir T. Overburg). 16 THE DRAMATIC WORKS OF THOMAS NABBES in the intrigues of Raven, the villain of the play. As comedy, the action and characters resemble more nearly those of the play of London life than of the comedy of manners. The action is complicated at the start by the apparent rivalry between Old Goodlove and his son, Theophilus, supposedly his foster-child, for the hand of the same young woman; but the genuine father's affection is discovered in his renunciation of the bride in favor of the son, with the explanation that his own suit had been merely a ruse to further that of Theophilus. The father's role combined with Raven's intrigue results in an elopement of the young lovers, involving romantic situa- tion and hazardous escapade which bring all the characters of the play into dramatic relief. Of the minor characters, the consequential Mrs. Ferret and her hen-pecked but persistent husband, a simple justice of the peace, assume the role of protecting deities to the runaways. Mrs. Ferret's well-intentioned but noisy debate with her husband, together with the curious entertainment furnished by Horton, an antiquary, with some diversion on the part of Kickshaw, a French cook, and by Plaster, a humorous surgeon, compose the farcical element of the play. Raven's finally fruitless intrigue to undo Theophilus and to make him- self the heir of Old Goodlove, serves as a Machiavellian foil to other parts of the action. The Courtier love of the two earlier comedies gives way in The Bride to a somewhat more realistic expression, a result due to the dif- ferent situation in the apparent rivalry between father and son. The young lovers however maintain a no less chivalrous ideal than do those of the two preceding comedies, all the more conspicuous for having been contrasted at times with ignoble phases of passion. This occurs when the robust adventures of the action bring the Bride's gentle womanhood into such contact with the conversation of roaring blades, that she almost doubts the quality of affection in the constant Theophilus Good- love. I now begin t' examine what's in you So taking. An indifferent handsome frame, The superficies neatly varnisht over. In it should dwell a soul rich as the building Doth promise to the eyes ... He that would be mine, Must in his mind as well as outward shine. 43 The Bride like the two earlier comedies, has much movement in its inter- mingling of country scenes and London life, with fine colouring and « The Bride; Act II; 3, p. 28. THE DRAMATIC WORKS OF THOMAS NABBES 17 contrast within a small compass. The museum of Horton, the anti- quary, is heightened in its diversion by the addition of its eccentric visi- tors the Ferret's and the eloping lovers who exhibit the effects of travel and'of exposure to the intrigues of Raven and his Roaring Blades. The skilled "Antiquary" himself is not the least of his many wonders on exhibition. I must confess my care Of knowing and possessing rarities Makes me so skilful I dare undertake To pick a sallet out of Diascorides Shall feast the Doctor's college with rare practices Stranger than Aeson's restitution To youth by Magic. 44 Nor Pliny sir, nor Garner ever made Description of a creature, but I have Some particle thing; and for antiquity I do not store up under any Grecian; Your Roman antiques are but modern toyes Compared to them. 45 My triall's such Of anything I own, all the impostors That ever made antiquity ridiculous Cannot deceive me. If I light upon Aught that's above my skill, I have recourse, To those whose judgment at the second view (If not the first) will tell me what Philosopher That eyelesse, mouthlesse statue is, And who the workman was, though since his death Thousands of years have been revolv'd. 46 2 In the Masque, Nabbes finds the most appropriate form for his courtly theme, the varying kinds of love, a theme culminating in praise of the nobler affections based according to the Platonic theory upon the divine in the human soul. Of his three Masques, Microcosmus was the only 44 Act. IV; 1, 54. « Act IV; 1, 53, 48 Act IV; 1, 56. 18 THE DRAMATIC WORKS OF THOMAS NABBES one acted. The ordering of its theme as well as its regular division into acts, taken with other characteristics make it similar in construction to Hannibal and Scipio, and point to a date of composition near that inferred by the present study, for that tragedy, both works probably antedating Covent Garden.* 7 Microcosmus, a Morrall Masque allegorizes the rule of the divine in human life as expressed in a reasonable ordering of the affections. Nature and Janus, figures of eternal Providence, try in vain to harmonize the four elements for man's creation until Nature appeals to Love as the harmonizing and creative power of the Universe. Physander, the newly created man, is united by Nature and Love to Bellamima the Soul, who is attended by the genii of good and of evil. From this point until near the close of the play, the allegorical dominates to the extent of a near return in content and form, to the prodigal idea in the late morality play, such as Mundus et Infans, 1523, and Lusty Juvenilis.* 8 There is also much in Microcosmus that suggests a near acquaintance on the part of Nabbes, with the moralized Terentian dialogues of Hroswitha a Saxon priestess of the tenth century. Physander falls a prey to sensuality and is reduced to dispair, at which crisis he is rescued by the constant Bellamina. He is placed under the discipline of Temperance who restores him with the aid of Fortitude, Justice and Prudence, through a regimen of strict frugality. Let the earth be his bed; this rock be his pillow; His curtains heaven; the murmur of this water Instead of music, charm him into sleepe, And for the cates which gluttony invents To make it call'd an art, confected juice Of Pontick nuts, and Idumean palmes Candy'd with Ebosian sugar, lampreys guts Fetch t from Carpathian straights, and such like Wantonness. Let him eat sparingly of what the earth Produceth freely, or is, where 'tis barren, Enforct by industrye. In the bright robes of immortalitye. . . . Rewards will only crowne The end of a well prosecuted good, Philosophy, religion, solitude, 47 Microcosmus, a Morrall Maske, "Presented (no date) with generall liking at the private house in Salisbury Court. ..." Printed 1637. 48 1523, by Wynkin de Worde. Lusty Juventus, by R. Wever. See Hazlitt- Dodsley, I-II, 1574. THE DRAMATIC WORKS OF THOMAS NABBES 19 And labour waite on Temperance, in these, Desire is bounded; they instruct the mind's And bodie's actions. 'Tis lascivious ease That gives the first beginning to all ills." 49 Phy Sander's reception of Prudence is an example of the spirit in which he accepts the entire heroic regimen. I do embrace thy fellowship, Prudence, thou virtue of the mind, by which We do consult of all that's good or evill Conducing to felicity. Direct My thoughts and actions by the rule of reason, Teach me contempt of all inferior vanities'; Pride in a marble portall guilded o're; Assyrian carpets; chayres of ivory; The luxury of a stupendious house; Garments perfum'd; ghummes valu'd not for use. But needlesse ornament; a sumptious table, And all the baytes of sense. 50 The action closes with a return to the form of the Masque, Love sur- rounded by the four Stoic virtues named above, enthrone and crown Physander and Bellamina, joint sovereigns of an Elysium whose "Elysii incolae" are gloriously habited and alike. Welcome, welcome happy payre, To these abodes, where spicie ayre Breathes perfumes, and every sense Doth find his objects excellence. Where's no heate, nor cold extreme; No Winter's ice, nor summer's scorching beame, Where's no sun, yet never night, Day always springing from eternall light. A chorus completes the static perfection of this classical stage Elysium. All mortall sufferings layd aside, Here in endlesse blisse abide. 51 The songs of Microcosmus like those of his plays in general, exhibit a lyric talent for Nabbes beyond that displayed in his miscellaneous poems, a result somewhat at variance with the fact that the didactic themes of his masques are not highly conducive to lyric art. The term, hymnic, perhaps best describes the melody of the songs of Misrocosmus. 49 Microcosmus IV, pp. 202-204, Vol. II, Bullen. 50 Microcosmus V, p. 205, Vol. II, Bullen. 51 Act V.: p. 218, Bullen, Vol. II. 20 THE DRAMATIC WORKS OF THOMAS NABBES For an authoritative description of the aim both artistic and ethical in this masque of Nabbes, the lines prefixed by his unidentified friend, Will CuFaude, are best. Seeing thy Microcosmus I began To contemplate the parts that make up man, A little World. I found each Morall right: All was instruction mingled with delight, Nor are thine like those poets' looser rimes That waste upon the humours of the times ! But thou doth make by thy poetick rage A schoole of Virtue of a common Stage. Me thinks the ghosts of Stoicks vexe to see Their doctrine in a masque unmasked by thee, Thou mak'st it to be exprest by action more, Than was contained in all their Books before. The Springs Glory carries the favorite theme of Nabbes', that of Temperance centering in the courtly topic of the day: Love ought to be Platonick and Divine Such as is only kindled and doth shine With beames that may all dark effects controule In the refined parts of the glorious soul. 62 In this masque Cyprean Venus, protectress of perfect love, contests for honors above Ceres and Bacchus whom she decries as ministering wholly to the senses. The debate is referred for decision to Christmas and Shrovetide, who contend in antemasque for supremacy in judgment. Shrovetide as victor favors Ceres and Bacchus; but Venus gains a new champion in Lean Lent who in contest with Christmas furnishes another antemasque. Lent is finally supported by such harbingers of Spring as budding trees, and greening meadows where beggars dance to bagpipe and song. Spring enters as judge and harmonizer of discord. She excludes Bacchus and reconciles Ceres and Venus as complementary in Nature's scheme. Venus Deity Is powerful over all; and Ceres gives Each that hath being, that by which he lives, Yet many times excesse prevents the end . . . Of pure intention; and extremes extend Their powers to undoe those acts are free In their own natures from impuritie. "P. 28, Bullen, V. 2. Spring's Glory, Pr. 1639. THE DRAMATIC WORKS OF THOMAS NABBES In me let Temperance teach you to apply Things to their best ends; and to rectifye All motions that intend effects beside What may run cleere and curant with the tide Of purest love: In which let all your jarres Be reconcil'd and finish your sterne Warres. 63 The =ong and chorus with which Spring is ushered in, is a brilliant bit of seventeenth century pastoral, with some good phrasing that again recalls Spenser in his nearest approach to nature. See, see a Metamorphosis, The late Gray Field now verdant is, The son with warme beames glads the earth, And to the springing flowers He gives a new and lively birth By th' ayde of gentle showers, The lambes no longer bleate for cold, Nor cry for succour from the old: But friske and play with confidence Like emblems of true innocence. The quatrain of the chorus: The cheerfull birds their voyces straine, The Cuckoo's hoarse for want of raine, The Nightingale doth sweetly sing To welcome in the joyfull spring. And Spring's descriptive lines The Wind's not rugged now, but calme and fayre, Sweepe flowery Gardens, and perfume the ayre. The Wood's shrill choristers (whose frozen throtes Late wanted motion) now hath found their notes; Strayning their little organes to sound high, And teach men art from Nature's harmony. in their rugged melody recall that of the best lines of The Shepherd's Calendar. 11 A Presentation intended for the Prince his Highness, on his birthday, May 29 1638, annually celebrated," is a wreath of royal praise artfully wrought, with time as the initiator of the masque. The young Prince is crowned with the congratulation of May who adjudges that the "Morisk-dance," her own peculiar past-time is "fitter for course ones and the multitude," 63 P. 235. Spring's Glory, Pr. 1639. 22 THE DRAMATIC WORKS OF THOMAS NABBES I have none that are Worthy his high acceptance : they are far Inferiour to the things that should set forth The fullness of his glory and his worth. This Masque carries humorous comment upon almanac impostors whom time and fairweather undertake to put out of business, but happily do not succeed until after the almanac makers transformed into "horned satyres" by the ale they drink to the prince's health, have performed in antemasque. After their dance in which the horns disappear and their wonted form is regained, Time reappears to drive away the almanac makers and to bring in May attended by Flora and Vertumnus. Amid a song of birds in "a glorious expression of Elysium," appear the shades of the former Eight Princes of Wales, . . . whose histories Shall be instruction, and their memories Present Heroick actions to their mind, Their vertues he shall strictly imitate And make those vertues awfull over fate. The Princes are saluted by the masquers who place themselves in a figure for the dance and song which with Time's epilogue and the chorus complete the masque. From th' earth where honour long hath slept, And noblest dust as treasure kept, By hallowing clay hath made it shine More glorious than an Indian mine, These brave Heroick shadowes come To sport in this Elysium. From th ' Ayre, or from the Spheares above As they in perfect concord move, Let Musick sound, and such as may Equall his harpe that rules the day. Thus do we welcome you tonight Unto our mansion of delight. The royal compliment is completed in the chorus. For theirs and this do both agree In all but the Eternitie. 3 As a tragic dramatist, Nabbes has among his critics, lower rank than as a writer of masques and of comedy. Of his two tragedies, Hannibal and Scipio, and The Unfortunate Mother, the latter is considered THE DRAMATIC WORKS OF THOMAS NABBES 23 the inferior, by all critics with the single exception of Genest. Though this critic regards it as a very good play, he possibly reiterates the favor- able comment of certain critics contemporary with Nabbes. 54 The tone of latter day criticism may be summed up in Bullen's, "It is a play in five acts and written in verse, and there is really nothing more to say. I find it impossible to feel the slightest interest in any of the characters. 55 The scene of The Unfortunate Mother is the court of Ferrara. The action is developed through the Machiavellian intrigue of the prime minister, Corvino, who has undertaken to shield the imperilled reputa- tion of the late Duke and his Duchess, now the Dowager, Infelice, by preserving with them a secret involving the destiny of the three young princes two of whom Corvino has brought up as his own sons. Corvino's intrigue is supplemented by that of a crone, Cardente, and the two dominate the action to its bitter ending, involving the miserable death of the Duchess and her innocent but deluded children. After all the principal characters of the play have fallen either by the sword or by poison or else have died of grief, and Corvino has been sentenced to execution, Macario, the young Duke who succeeds to the rule, pronounces in the closing lines of the tragedy, the moral already appalingly apparent. "Lust and ambition are two means of evils, That practis'd by their owners make them devills." The simple action which follows rigidly the misdirected villany of Cor- vino is unrelieved by pathos even in those who suffer most, and in effect, it repels the reader. That Nabbes over-reached in a carefully planned theory for his tragedy is proved by the uniformly excellent style of the piece, by the tone of his friendly critics named above, and by the Proeme to the Reader. In the dedication of the printed tragedy to Richard Braithwaite Esquire, the author says ... "I can accuse myselfe of no errour in it more than a nice curiosity which notwithstanding I must boast to be without a precedent in the method; where I have denied myself much liberty that may be allow'd a Poet from old example, and new establishh't custome." Part of the author's "nice curiosity" in the method consists in his rigid adherence to the unities. Even his unity of action centers too rigidly in Corvino's intrigue, designed to preserve the secret of the Duchess and to serve thereby his own ambition. There is need of greater elaboration of character, situation and scene to secure contrast and shading for the harsh repulsiveness of the double 64 See above, p. 13. 65 Introd. p. xvii, V. I. 24 THE DRAMATIC WORKS OF THOMAS NABBES villany of Corvino and his instrument Cardente. The Proeme to the Reader promises a precision in observing the unities, by exclusion of bombast, avoidance of obscurity on the one hand and of over detail on the other, leaving nothing to be inferred or to be revealed at the close. The author congratulates himself upon "a constant scene of two hours' action, " and the play justifies the claim. 56 The place is unchanged throughout : The first act is in the presence ; the second is in the chamber of the Duchess; the third is in the presence; the fourth takes place in the gallery; the fifth, in the grove; all in and around the palace at Ferrara. The entire action is brought within the space of the day upon which it opens. Despite his observance of strict method and avoidance of traditional dramatic sins, the author anticipates detraction: Here are no bombast raptures swelling high, To plucke Jove and the rest down from the sky: Here is no sense that must by thee be scann'd Before thou canst the meaning understand; No politician tells his plots unto Those in the Pit, and what he means to do; But now methinks I heare some Critick say, All those left out there's nothing in the play. 57 Whether consciously or not on Bullen's part, his comment upon The Unfortunate Mother paraphrases the author's expected criticism: so prone have been the critics of Nabbes to repeat his own comment. IV The Tragedy, "Hannibal and Scipio" It is apparent that in The Unfortunate Mother, Nabbes missed the artistic economy of strict method in his effort to avoid faults incident to the loose construction of his first tragedy Hannibal and Scipio. It seems probable that a contemporary stickler for the unities had objected to the frequent change of place in Hannibal and Scipio if not also to qualities that bordered upon bombast. Baker's Companion to the Play House, published after the unities had been accepted in England as dramatic essentials, and fully a century and a quarter after Hannibal and Scipio had been acted, has the following criticism of this tragedy. "The unity of place is most excessively broken in upon, the scene of the 56 ' A constant scene: The business it intended. /The two hours time of action comprehended." « Bullen V, II, p. 87. THE DRAMATIC WORKS OF THOMAS NABBES 25 first act lying in Capua, of the second, at the Court of Syphax, of the third, at Utica, of the fourth, at Carthage, and of the fifth, in Bythinia. " 58 Baker could have made a similar comment upon its violation of the unity of time, though not so justly, of lack in unity of action. Histori- cally, there are nine years between the opening of the action at Capua, and that of the second act at Cirta. The third act at Utica takes place two years later; the fourth at Carthage with the battle of Zama, takes place two years later still. From Zama to Hannibal's death at the Court of Prussias, in Bythinia, about nineteen more years elapse. 59 This des- cription of Hannibal and Scipio proves sufficiently that it follows the extreme in construction opposite to that of The Unfortunate Mother. These two extremes are natural to a beginner in the writing of Tragedy. There is no desire to claim for Nabbes more dramatic talent than was his own, but judging from his development in the construction of Comedy, between Covent Garden and The Bride, and the similar rate of improve- ment in the writing of his three masques, a third tragedy might have shown better results had the opportunity to write another been given him in the brief years following the printing of The Unfortunate Mother, after which we hear no more of him. Nabbes had not Webster's genius and probably neither the talent of Shirley nor that of Ford; but the greater tragedies of these men, two at most for each, were as springs in a desert where for number and for aridity the comedies of the minor dramatists of the age are as the sands. Tragedy had seen its day, popularly con- sidered, and a dramatist must have been not only serious-minded, but also heroic to undertake the ungrateful task of writing tragedy, at that late day of the old drama. From the characteristics given above, the tragedy Hannibal and Scipio may be classed with plays on history and classical myth, a type having numerous and varied examples in the earlier Elizabethan drama. 60 This type has much resemblance to the early chronicle play, in its loose- ness of structure, in its epic quality of narrative, as well as in its admit- ting legend and romantic incident. With all its disregard, however, for the conventional unities of time and place, Hannibal and Scipio is artistically unified through a species of local coloring which in dramatic effect far exceeds a strict adherence to chronology and locality, or even to fact in character and event. The attention to local coloring and at- mosphere in the tragedy of Hannibal and Scipio recalls to an extent 58 Baker's Companion to the Play House, London, 1764 V. I. 69 See Momson, Hist, of Rome, V. II, Ch's 4, 5, 6. 60 Cf. Schelling, Elizab. Dr. V, II, pp. 45, 46, 137. 26 THE DRAMATIC WORKS OF THOMAS NABBES Jonson's method in tragedy; but Jonson's local coloring is secured through strict historical accuracy, whereas the type of play to which Hannibal and Scipio belongs, mingles myth and fact indiscriminately. More- over, in Hannibal and Scipio the characters and action take substance and form largely from the philosophy of life which Hannibal and Scipio respectively are reputed to have held. This romantic employment of myth and local coloring with theories of conduct, are interdependent in the play. For example, the opening scene at Capua where legend holds that Hannibal fell in love with a lady of Salapia and that his soldiers were here made effeminate with idle pleasures, is not only definitely, but also dramatically located by textual allusion to Massicus, the famous Campanian wine, as well as by mention of im- ported luxuries in which Capua of all Italian towns indulged the most. 61 Again, allusions drawn from the entire range of the Cytherean myth tone the opening scenes to an extreme of sensuous beauty loved by the Capuans, and to which the more frugal Romans of that period attri- buted the beginning of Hannibal's decline and of Scipio's ascendency. 62 The rivalry between Hannibal nurtured in the nature-worship of ancient Carthage, and Scipio disciplined in the Stoic philosophy, and represen- tative of Rome's early prowess, has accentuation in environment as background for character contrast. The dramatist's avowed deviation from historical record in certain situations "to fit the stage" and "scene," is in harmony with the same emphasis upon environment in the earlier stages of the play. 63 For example, the deviation from record in bringing Hannibal instead of Hasdrubal, to the chance meeting with Scipio at the court of Syphax in Cirta, contributes the more to dramatic unity that it is localized by textual allusion to Cirta's geographical bearings by sea from Spain where the early exploits of the two generals had succeeded each other in the rivalry between Carthage and Rome. 64 In the meeting at Cirta, Hanni- bal's craft and the narrow range of his experience bound up as it is with his hatred of Rome, are contrasted with the frank and open dealing of the many-sided mind of Scipio. Hannibal applies here even his most personal experience, his love for the Salapian lady, to the sole aim of his existence, to injure Rome. 61 Q. A. I, 1 & 2. 62 Cf. Cicero, De Lege Agraria, II, 35 " . . . deinde ea luxuries, quae ipsum Hanni- balem, armis etiam turn invictum, voluptate vicit." "Cf. Prologue, Q. 11. 15-17. "Q. II: 3. THE DRAMATIC WORKS OF THOMAS N ABBES 27 At the climax of Hannibal's intrigue to outwit Scipio and attach Syphax to Carthage, a messenger announces the approach of a ship which brings the beautiful Carthaginian princess, Sophonisba, to the court of Syphax. The stately ship and its burden recall the rivalry between Rome and Carthage for the sea, and emphasizes Hannibal's phrase, "The not to be resisted power of beauty," connecting his own experience at Capua with Sophonisba's patriotic sacrifice throughout her role in the play, as destined by hereditary environment. 65 Wherever Sophonisba appears in the play she carries the suggestion of mingled cults of rival Roman and Carthaginian deities, but with the assured sense of her innate devotion to her ancestral gods of Carthage. This is shown in the first thought of Syphax upon her arrival. Receive her with religious ceremony, Perfume the ayre with incense richer then The Phoenix funerall pile. Let harmony Breath out her soule at every artist's touch, Cover the pavement which her steps must hallow With Persian Tapestrie. 66 Where in the climax of her role, Sophonisba takes poison to escape Scipio's triumph, her dialogue with Massanissa combines allusion to Phoenician nature-worship with a heroism rivalling that of the stoic in her refusal of Massanissa's prayer to Aesculapius, and in sustaining her death in self-immolation on the altar of her country, Carthage. Why doth Massanissa Invoke vaine aide? ' The gods are mercifull In their denying it: and 'tis best justice That I should dye The end, my countrie's good, and the first love I bore thee Massanissa, Now let Scipio Boast of his conquest; Sophonisba is Her owne subverter. 67 The actions at Utica and at Carthage, between Syphax for Carthage and Massanissa for Rome, narrated by Lelius to Scipio, and by another messenger to the Carthaginian Senate, are more definitely localized in following closely the historical record. The leaders in these battles are but instruments of the respective commanders, Hannibal and Scipio in whom the results of the conflict increasingly center; the purpose from « 5 Q. 11. 823, 11:5. 69 Q. 11. 702-707, 11:5. " 7 Q. 11. 1171-1200, A. 111:4. 28 THE DRAMATIC WORKS OF THOMAS NABBES the beginning of the play having been to bring the two heroes into con- trast in every scene. The messenger's description of the meeting of Hannibal and Scipio at Zama, before the battle, shows them equally matched for one brief moment, Before the battaile joyn'd The world's two Captaines (for besides them none Merits the name in equall competition) Mett to have conference : where for a space They stood astonish't at each others presence, And like two comets tilting in the ayre 'Gainst one another, shot prodigious flame From either's eyes; and with a counter change Of fierce and angry lookes seem'ed to begin An eagre fight : till Hanniball broke silence And mov'd a peace: which Scipio . . . refused. 68 From this point Rome in the personality of Scipio, controls the action of the tragedy. Rome's right to spoils of war, urged by Scipio, forces Massanissa to surrender Sophonisba, though the vow he had made not to deliver her to Roman triumph, is still to him sacred as the altars of his Numidian gods. After Sophonisba's death, Scipio re-establishes Massanissa's shaken confidence by an act of self-conquest in restoring a beautiful Spanish captive to her betrothed husband. 69 When the Carthaginian senate shields itself under the stigma of its banishment of Hannibal, Scipio exhibits his perfect justice in censuring such ingrati- tude. The action in Bithinia which closes the tragedy, all but resolves localization as well as chronology into the one dramatic unity of the typical morality play, that of character contrast. Scipio stands here no longer for the promise of the young Roman Republic; he has estab- lished her supremacy. His brief debate with Hannibal upon the com- parative merits of commanders, relegates their martial deeds to the past with those of Alexander and Pyrrhus. 70 They are now contrasted as rival types of manhood, and theirs is a contest between principles for the conduct of life, in which Scipio is again to gain in Hannibal's loss. Scipio the man, is a product of the Stoic philosophy exhibited in Xeno- phon's hero-romance, Cyropedia; Hannibal the man, is the product of a nature cult disciplined in the fortunes of war. 98 Q. 1298-1310, A. IV :1. 88 Q. 1180-1200, A 111:4. 70 Q. V.:2 11. 1899-1905. THE DRAMATIC WORKS OF THOMAS N ABBES 29 Sdp. From this Paedia I have been truly morall; th' institutions Have beene my guides in every action Which I did either as a man, or Prince, Cyrus himselfe, to whom they were directed, Pursu'd them not so strictly as I have. Man From outward accidents should not derive The knowledge of himselfe: for so hee's made The creature of beginnings over which His vertue may command: Fortune and chance. When he by speculation hath inform'd His divine part hee's perfect; and 'till then But a rough matter, onely capable Of better forme. It oft begets my wonder That thou a rude Barbarian, ignorant Of all art, but of Warres, which custome onely Hath (being joined to thy first nature) taught thee, Shouldst know so much of man. 71 Han. I study man Better from practice than thou canst from books. Thy learning's but opinion, mine knowne truth; Subject to no grosse errours, such as cannot Be reconcil'd but by production Of new and greater. Did thy learned Masters Of arts, with whom even arm'd thou hast converst Before a battayle joyn'd (if fame speak truth) By their instructions showe thee surer wayes To victory, than Fortune joyn'd to valour, And a full strength of men. Scip. That which consists, In action only, and th' event depends Upon no certain rule demonstrative, Is fates not reasons. 72 Except for the remonstrance of Prusias that the heroes are in a court rather than in a "Parliament of souldiers," the location might better have been a Senecan lecture hall than Bythinia to which by a skillful abridgement of history, the meeting-place of the heroes has been changed from the court of Antiochus, at Ephesus. The episode described above and the ensuing debate regarding Hanni- bal's safety, ending in his self-inflicted death by poison, have the struc- ture of tragic scenes in the early plays of Classical history and, in a measure make, this last act a sort of sequel play to the first four acts. »Q. 11. 1859-1889, A. V:2. 71 Q. 11. 1957 A. V, last scene. 30 THE DRAMATIC WORKS OF THOMAS NABBES From a strictly dramatic consideration, the first four acts have furnished all that is essential to a tragedy. The play has opened in regular manner at a critical point in the careers of the heroes; Hannibal at the summit of Fortune's wheel after his victory at Cannae too great to be repeated in results, is surrounded by the temptations of Capua; whereas Scipio, the new Roman commander and Consul, in the first flush of victory at New Carthage and Saguntum, sees Fortune in the ascendant. The tragic point in Hannibal's character is that typical of great men. With Hannibal it consisted in an error of judgment in delaying at Capua instead of following up his victory; but the dramatist has taken care that this error should not decline to vice. Hannibal's momentary deflec- tion from valor to love is differentiated from that of his subordinates in the greater nobility of soul in Hannibal, and in the Salapian gentle- woman who recalls to him the valorous deeds which have won her admira- tion. Hannibal's illusion was dispelled in its beginning by the messen- ger's report of Scipio's victory in Spain and followed immediately by Bomilcar's message for the army's recall to Carthage. The action has had tragic climax not only in Hannibal's defeat at Zama, but also in the death of Sophonisba whose charm Hannibal, profiting by his own experience at Capua, had used to regain the lost prestige of Carthage. Sophonisba's influence for Carthage justifies Scipio's valuation of her after her death. In that weake woman Halfe Carthage's strength is gone. 73 Nabbes' didacticism however is not wholly responsible for the fifth act in which to set forth Hannibal's and Scipio's character-contest. For this the rambling construction of the early historical play is partly responsible, as well as early English stage tradition which sealed its tragedy abundantly with death. Scipio therefore closes the fourth act by initiating the motive for the last act and final catastrophe in the death of Hannibal. Wee'l hunt this Affrick Lion Into a stronger toyle. Fame shall waite on us Till we have loaded her, and that she see Our triumph in his tragedy. 74 Scipio's change of attitude to a more conciliatory tone in the last act is doubtless due to the dramatist's desire to put the Roman hero in the light of a still greater triumph of self-conquest: "Q. 1245-46. A. III:v. 74 Q. 11. 1625-78, A. IV :5. THE DRAMATIC WORKS OF THOMAS NABBES 31 Hannibal I know Hath put off the rough habit which his mind Was lately wrapt in : and since chance hath made him The subject of my conquest, in the peace Rome hath allow'd his country (the conditions Being strictly kept) all past contentions Must lose their memory, and after strifes Be stifled in their first birth by prevention. I would acknowledge my ambition Bore my thoughts higher than my countries good, Or her enlargement only. Had my fortune Captiv'd the person of great Hannibal, My triumph should out-vye all the rich pomps That ever made Rome shine. 75 Hannibal has reason to doubt Scipio's assurance for his safety, especially when informed that Roman soldiers surround his retreat. The situa- tion is perhaps more dramatic in leaving Hannibal's safety a problem and thus truer to life. The dramatist's fidelity to the historical Roman attitude toward Hannibal, as well as his fidelity to Hannibal's character, portrays the hero to the last an enemy to Rome, firm in conviction of Scipio's intent to betray him, and, as Scipio reminds him, possibly forging by this act of mental injustice, fetters for his own spiritual life. This subtle suggestion of a spiritual tragedy completing Hannibal's tragedy of death, gives to his character, devoted as it has been from his oath on the burning altar, at nine years of age, a higher dramatic unity throughout the play. As he sacrificed his private affections for Carthage and for her, narrowed his mind to one idea, that of eternal enmity to Rome, so in his banishment and self-inflicted death, he offered upon the altar of Carthage his last and richest sacrifice, that of his spiritual free- dom. The patriotic extreme in Hannibal's death scene is offset dramatically by the crowning point in the career of Scipio in whom the soldier ready at his country's need, gave way in leisure to the practical philosopher who understood Rome's failings and could evade their results because he had witnessed the ingratitude of Carthage to Hannibal. Carthage Thy base ingratitude to him whose merit But justly challenged all that thou could'st owne Shall teach me a prevention, Solitude «Q. 11. 1824-1836, A. V:2. 32 THE DRAMATIC WORKS OF THOMAS NABBES Is the soules best companion. At Linturnum My country villa I will terminate My after life free from mens flatteries, And feare of their leane envie. V The Question Concerning "A Former Play" The preceding analysis of the tragedy, Hannibal and Scipio pointed to an unevenness of structure which at times amounts nearly to a con- tradiction of dramatic purpose. For example, in the closing act, the emphasis upon Scipio's magnanimity toward Hannibal in assurance of his safety, is followed by a more verbal return to the historical record with the appearance of armed soldiers surrounding Hannibal with intent to capture him in accordance with Scipio's purpose expressed in the closing lines of the fourth act, . . . "Wee'l hunt this Affrick Lion into a stronger toyle. / Fame shall waite on us. / Till we, have loaded her, and that she see. / Out triumph finisht in his tragedy." 76 The style of the play throughout has been described as, at times, following the historical record, and at other times, dealing in highly sententious and speculative speeches, in most instances combined with a wealth of classical allusion and scenic effect. 77 The two styles are at times in such direct contrast as to favor the inference that this tragedy is possibly a revision of an older play; that the portions of nearly epic-narrative style represent more nearly the older play, whereas the scenes characterized by sententious contrast and sometimes heightened in effect by classical allusion, show a more complete revision by the later dramatist. It is the purpose of the following discussion to investigate the evidence for this inference. In his Prologue to the tragedy, which was probably written somewhat later than the play itself, the author anticipates question on the part of his critics, as to the originality of the plot. After contrasting the noisy performance at the larger theatre to the advantage of the circum- stances under which his play is to be given, the dramatist continues: — Our Spheares Have better musick to delight your eares, And not a straine that's old, though some would task His borrowing from a former play. 78 78 Q. 11. 1913. Act V (last scene); Q. 11. 1675. Act IV, (last scene). 77 Act 1: 11:5. Cf. Act III: 1-5. Also 3, Q. 11. 950. 78 Q. (Prologue) 11. 26-29. THE DRAMATIC WORKS OF THOMAS NABBES 33 Bullen's note on the allusion to "a former play" suggests a possible influence from Marston's Sophonisba, which had been published in 1606. 7S In the same note Bullen recalls a non-extant Hannibal and Scipio by William Rankin and Richard Hathwaye, mentioned by Henslowe as acted in 1600-1, at the Fortune theatre. 80 This play in turn will recall the also non-extant Hannibal and Hermes, or Worse 'Feared than Hurt, collaborated in 1598, by Wilson, Drayton and Dekker. 81 An obstacle to the inference of Nabbes' indebtedness to either of these two plays last named, lies in the doubt whether they were extant when Nabbes wrote his play. That the Hannibal and Hermes had some close con- nection with the Hannibal and Scipio of the Fortune, is supported by the fact that the Admiral's company for which Wilson, Drayton and Dekker also had written, was received by the New Fortune at its com- pletion in 1600. It is possible that their Hannibal and Hermes of 1598, was the basis of the Hannibal and Scipio of the Fortune. If either of these plays survived the burning of that theatre, there seems to be no mention of them at least, after the rebuilding of the Fortune in 1624. 82 On the other hand the reference in the prologue, to the contrast between the quiet performance of his play and that of the cruder and perhaps earlier theatre, is significant when associated with Nabbes' mention of " a former play." That Nabbes' first tragedy coincides so nearly in sub- ject with one of Dekker's early attempts at play writing, is also inter- esting, occuring as it did in Dekker's last years when the younger drama- tist possibly knew him in London. Even if the Hannibal and Scipio, of 1601, had perished with the old Fortune theatre, it is yet possible that the manuscript of the Hannibal and Hermes of 1598, survived with Dekker as late as 1635 or 1637. Even if these two plays were non- extant when Nabbes wrote his tragedy, the frequent reference to the fortunes of Hannibal, made in other plays written within the decade before the appearance of Nabbes' tragedy, shows that the earlier plays on Hannibal were still current themes for allusion upon the stage. For example, Thomas May's tragedy of Cleopatra, Queen of Egypt, which appeared in 1626, contains a specific allusion made at Cleopatra's feast, to Hannibal's luxury at Capua, an allusion which was possibly suggested by a play rather than drawn directly from history. 83 79 Sophonisba or The Wonder of Women. See Bullen, Ed. V. I, p. 190. Cf. Introd. VI, p. 441. 80 Henslowe's Diary, Gregg Ed. (2 V. I) VI Sect. 60. 81 Henslowe's Diary, V. I, Gregg Ed. 2 V. Sect. 90. 82 Cf. Schilling Elizabethan Drama, V. I. Introd. XXVI. n Cleopatra, Queen of Egypt. 1 :3 (1654) acted 1626. 34 THE DRAMATIC WORKS OF THOMAS NABBES A possibility of Nabbes' indebtedness to either of the two plays named, or even to a still earlier play possibly used as a basis for those two plays, would be strengthened if it were probable that these plays contained the story of Sophonisba. Ward thinks that the earlier and also non-extant History of Cipio Africanus, acted at Whitehall, in 1579- 80, by the children of Pauls, may be supposed to have included the Sophonisba story. 84 Though Ward does not give the basis of his supposi- tion, the three plays named, derived as they possibly were, in part, at least, from Livy's History of Rome, or else from a work based upon Livy, would probably follow, after the manner of other chronicle plays, the complete trend of incident connected with the character of the play. It is reasonable to suppose that if the play of Cipio Africanus contained the incident of Hannibal's Capuan pleasures, it also contained the Sophonisba incident so closely associated with the fortunes of Syphax whose revolt from Rome to Carthage is inseparable from the fortunes of Hannibal and S cipio. The Cipio Africanus 1579-80, is probably alluded to in Gosson's School of Abuse, published in 1579. In his inveighment against fencing, gaming and drama, he makes exception of plays which enforce a moral. In close connection with his commendation of such as Cataline's Con- spiracies he alludes to another play which shows how lack of vigilance may impair true valor. "Hannibal's power received more hurte in one daye's ease at Capua than in all the conflicts they had at Cannae. " 85 In the same paragraph he commends for imitation, "Scipio (who) before he levied his forces to the Walles of Carthage gave his souldiers the print of the cittie in a cake to be devoured." If Gosson refers to the Revel's play of Cipio Africanus, as he probably does, Hannibal's defeat because of ease at Capua was a dominant motive, and there is a probability that it also contained the Spyhax and Sophonisba story of a kindred moral, so closely connected with the fate of Carthage. The play of Hannibal and Scipio, 1600-01, of the Fortune, and the Revel's Cipio Africanus, 1579-80, judging from the title of the former, and from Gossen's prob- able reference to the latter, may be supposed to have had approximately the same basis, even if the former were not a combination of the latter with the Hannibal and Hermes of 1598, in which Dekker collaborated with Wilson and Drayton. 86 84 Ward's Eng. Dr. Literature, V. I, p. 208. 85 P. 39 Gosson's School of Abuse, reprinted for the Shak. Soc. London, 1841. "Henslowe 38, 39, V. 1 Gregg. THE DRAMATIC WORKS OF THOMAS NABBES 35 Added to the consideration involved in Nabbes' allusion to "a former play," the probability that his Hannibal and Scipio is a revision of one of the earlier plays, is strengthened by the fact explained above, that the action of the tragedy is, unduly extended, and follows closely the cruder type of the history-play. At the same time, it admits classical myth in the vogue of Elizabethan and early seventeenth century drama. It also resembles plays of the earlier time in that its action depends for development upon a loose bringing together of the characters in con- trasting attitudes. These plays, it will be remembered, differed in kind; some, like Jonson's Sejanus and his Cataline, followed strictly the classical narrative, or else they emphasized the heroic note, as in the Dekker-Massinger's Virgin Martyr, Massinger's Roman Actor, Fletcher's Valentinian, May's Cleopatra and his Agrippina. Though Hannibal and Scipio has qualities belonging to both groups, it is classed more nearly with the latter tragedies from classical history treated romantically. 87 With so casual an inquiry for the "former play" as has fallen to the general historian of the drama, and to the general editor of Nabbes works, it is not surprising that a fragment of a play in Latin verse, in which Hannibal is a prominent character, a manuscript belonging to the Bodleian Library, should have escaped the notice of Ward and Bullen. 88 Though the title has not survived, the scene is Saguntum, with whose siege Hannibal opened the second Punic war. The fragment ends with the second scene of the second act. The characters speak in monologue of the Epic-narrative style, and generally make the exit individually or else in a group. There is no dialogue, and the chorus helps to supply the action. Brief as the fragment is, there is little doubt that it follows the Punica of Silius, beginning as it does with a prologue by Juno, and throughout its brief scenes of about two hundred and thirty five lines, taking its content in general, from the first three books of the Punica. 89 Though the much mutilated fragment has no date, the handwriting is of the late sixteenth century. The Latin lettering is also of the early type. The fragment is bound, in early eighteenth century English mode, with other pamphlets among which is a copy of Andrew Boorde's Dietary of Health, bearing the date 1553. The volume came to the Bodleian with Malone's library in 1821. 89 Though the identity of the fragment 87 Cf. Spelling's Elizabethan Drama, V. II, pp. 19, 28, 37. 68 See List of Plays, p. 624, Schelling. Ed. 1909. 89 For the history of the fragment as far as known, as well as for the transcript, a copy of which is given p. 53, I am indebted to the Librarian of the Bodleian. For its reference to the Punica for content in general, suggestion is given in "Ghosts . . . to Author." Q. 11. 20-22. 36 THE DRAMATIC WORKS OF THOMAS NABBES with the Punka in content, order of situation and event is quite possible, the dramatization of the epic has necessarily changed to a great extent the diction and construction, yet leaving the thought and spirit intact. It would appear that the situations selected from the epic, were first translated into English and retranslated into the Latin verse of the play. Judging by the fragment, the play did not slavishly follow the epic throughout its prosaic seventeen books which have interlarded Livy's third decade with Vergilian periphrasis, although it has retained so far, much of the Virgilian spirit, with its compression within two hundred and thirty-five lines, of the essentials of the first three books of the Punica. 90 The dramatist probably read thoroughly the Epic before attempting his play in which he has apparently developed from the con- tent of the Epic, a chorus and other senic and interpretative intermedii, such as the Ghost of Amilcer who appears upon the scene to ask whether Hannibal intends to carry out his childhood's oath against Rome, and thus prove himself worthy of his father, Amilcar. 91 Juno, with whose wrath Hannibal is described in the opening lines of the Epic, as having invested himself before the siege of Saguntum, appears, in the Frag- ment, in character, to embody that wrath in prologue. 92 Bostar, who, at the close of the third book of the epic, is described as inspiring the Cathagian heroes," "pugnae propriano amore, " has, as Boschus of the Fragment, infused this same spirit into the several ranks and types, of soldiers. The Lancer, the Archer, each declares his enthusiasm for battle to the extent that he is willing to brave the struggle alone and upon his own account. 93 Though it is impossible to attempt an identification of the probably late sixteenth century manuscript with either the Cipio Africanus of 1479-80, or the Hannibal and Hermes of 1598, or the Hannibal and Scipio of 1600-01, it is reasonable to suppose that if any identification were possible, it would be with a play of Latin title, and this would be Cipio Africanus belonging as it did to the type of plays designed for school and court. It is impossible however to say whether the revel's Cipio Africanus was an abstract direct from Livy, or whether it was influenced in any way by North's translation of Plutarch's parallel lives of Hannibal and Scipio which appeared in 1579. If as supposed, Gosson refers to 90 The three books comprise 2096 11. 91 Cf. Punka 1:81-135; see Fragment, 11. 180 ff. 92 Cf. Punica 1; 35-55; see Fragment, 11. 1-35. 93 See Fragment "Bolista," "Proiector Saxorum," "Lancia," "Sagittarius," 11. 210-230. THE DRAMATIC WORKS OF THOMAS NABBES 37 the Cipio Africanus, it was quite as sententious as Plutarch knew how to be. It is significant however that the reference to Scipio's feast before the Walls of Carthage which was mentioned above as possibly identifying the play mentioned by Gosson with the Cipio Africanus, bears some resemblance to the description by Silius of the encampment of Scipio's army before Carthage. After the taking of the city they gave libations on account of the booty and celebrated their victory with a feast. pradae libamina dantur Turn vacui curis vicino litore mensas Instituunt, festaque agitant convivia ludo. 94 In regard to the possibility of identifying the fragment with the "former play" confessedly used by Nabbes, there is some evidence in its favor. The existence itself of this remnant of a Latin play which was possibly intact when Nabbes wrote his tragedy; the extent to which the vocabulary of the tragedy is of Latin derivation, and, with the excep- tion of the masques, to a degree byond Nabbes' other plays, even to the frequent inclusion of the Latin form of the word, are significant. Though the fragment opens and is broken off at Saguntum, whereas the tragedy of Nabbes opens with Hannibal's festivity at Capua, it is probable that Silius figures largely among Nabbes' various sources; for he is mentioned directly by Nabbes in the reminder of the Ghosts of Hannibal and Scipio that in contrast with his own unpaid pains and "cheap Phoebean" honors, The singer of the Punick wars had bayes Making our acts his subject; and thy prayse Should be no lesse. 95 The appearance of Amilcar's ghost as used in the fragment, is in keeping with the appeal of Nabbes to the ghosts of Hannibal and Scipio, and with their reply which would suggest that Lucian, the clever satirist, inspired the author's quaintly humorous appeal What charm commands us hither to repayre? And once again salute the upper ayee? Would Lucian vexe our shaddows? make us tell Which of us holds priority in Hell? 98 94 Punka XV, 220, 235, especially 11. 262 and 272. 96 See the "Ghosts ... to the Author," A 20-23. Cf. Lucian's "Dialogues of the Dead," XIII. 96 Q. 11. 1-4. 38 THE DRAMATIC WORKS OF THOMAS NABBES The oath which Hannibal, according to tradition, took at nine years of age against Rome, figures largely in Silius, and dramatically in both the fragment and the play of Nabbes. It is probable that Silius gave sug- gestion for the comparison of Hannibal with Hercules who according to tradition, was the first to cross the Alps, though Appian also represents Hannibal as saying that none before himself except Hercules, had crossed the Alps. 97 It is not improbable that some rhetorical influence from such passages of the Punica as the soliloquy of Hercules upon the difficulties of his mountain journey, may have colored corresponding passages in the tragedy even when it draws the event more directly from Livy, Appian, or Plutarch. 98 The Herculean myth is the dominant motive underlying both the Punica and the tragedy of Nabbes. Both transfer the idea at will to describe either Hannibal or Scipio as occasion may suggest. For example, Silius transfers to Scipio immediately before his attempt to recapture Saguntum, the myth in which Virtue and Pleasure appeared in a dream and contended for the mastery over Hercules. 99 The same contest between temperance and pleasure is the informing motive of the Hannibal and Scipio of Nabbes. This contest is made for both heroes; the difference in the outcome lies in the individuality which in both men is largely the result of heredity and environment. The attitude of Silius to the story of Sophonisba is that of Livy and other patriotic Romans. It is reasonable to suppose that the play repre- sented by the fragment, followed Silius and, if so, it would add another possibility of its indentity with the Cipio Africanus; for the complimen- tary, and possible reference of the Puritan Gossen to the latter play, would logically involve such an attitude. In this point the tragedy, Hannibal nad Scipio, follows Appian, instead of Livy, and consequently differs in this from Silius and possibly from the fragment-play. In Scipio's magnanimity and self restraint shown in his restoration of a Spanish captive in safety to her friends, both Silius and Nabbes follow Livy in essentials, but both alike place this incident directly after the capture of Carthage; whereas the historian places it in Spain, after the capture of Saguntum. 100 "Punica, Bk. 111:1. 490-495. Cp. Appian, V. II, p. 121 White's Edition. 98 Livy XXI, 30-31, Appian, VII :1, Plutarch's Life of Hannibal, North Transl. 99 Punica, XV; 17-148. See also Xenophon's Memorabilia, 11:2. 100 Punica, XV:268 and Nabbes' Hannibal and Scipio Q, V:5, 1572-1640. Cf. Livy XXVI :50. THE DRAMATIC WORKS OF THOMAS NABBES 39 The constant approach to an equality of prowess in the two heroes is characteristic of both Silius and Nabbes. The allusions, the choice of epithet in the more highly rhetorical portions of the tragedy, recall similar expressions in Silius; but the tragedy has elaborated its allusions from other sources for dramatic effect. As an illustration of the dif- ference, the opening scene of the tragedy, at Capua, the traditional winter quarters of Hannibal, where he was entertained with festivities, after his victory at Cannae, is heightened by allusion beyond the des- cription of the same scene by Silius, who evidently imitates closely the style of the corresponding scene of the Aeneid, the entertainment of Aeneas by Dido. 101 The beginning of Hannibal's revenge upon Rome, at Saguntum, described by the brief fragment, is omitted by the tragedy, except that his former victory is a splendid memory amid the festivity of Capua, to be interrupted by news of the recapture of Saguntum by Scipio. Consequently a direct bringing together of the two texts is impossible, and their only common ground apparently is in their general points of identity with the Punica. Considering its brevity, the frag- ment possibly has its due proportion of allusion and rhetorical phrasing conceived rather in the epic style of the opening books of the Punica, than in the scenic and dramatic style of the tragedy. 102 In summary, the probability of this common ground in the Punica between the fragment and the Hannibal and Scipio of Nabbes, points to the possibility that the fragment is of the former play referred to by Nabbes in his prologue. This possibility is supported by the considera- tion that the fragment is the only play on the subject known to be extant in England. This possibility is further strengthened by the fact that the fragment is in Latin and that Nabbes' tragedy gives evi- dence of a Latin basis other than Livy. From the corresponding data of the above study it would seem that either the Punica itself was this basis or that else a play based upon the Punica was used. Nabbes grants the assumption that such a play was used, and this fragment is the only play known to be extant which gives evidence of having been based upon the Punica. 101 Hannibal and Scipio 11:1-3, Q. 11. 1-160. Cf. Silius XI:261-483; Aeneid 1:637-755. 102 Frag. 1.12. Rutile cf. Punica Rutulo 1; 1.371-584, 11:541, and others. Frag. 1. 61 ignis sicut /Etnaeus fuerit, cf. H. & S 111:4, Q. 1192.3. Frag. 1.181 quid facit Hannibal Belidae generis. ... Cf. Punica 1. 70-73 Belo numerabat. Frag. 1. 227, ubi Patrio veneno Getica. ... Cf. Punica 1. 324; Geticae telluris . . . ven- eno. . . . Frag. 1.232-3 Cadmea domo et gentente digna cf. Punica 1. 106. 40 THE DRAMATIC WORKS OF THOMAS NABBES VI The Original Classic Sources and Influences for "Hannibal and Scipio" In his Prologue to Hannibal and Scipio, Nabbes characterizes his play as "from a rich subject drawn," a phrase justified in the story's almost incalculable amount and variety of Greek and Roman historical and mythical content. 103 The treatment of the story by Latin writers alone, ranges from fragments of Naevius and Ennius, with the detailed treatment in the several Greek and Roman historians, to the briefer mention by Roman poets, philosophers and satirists of the early, and the late Empire, who used the story of Hannibal's fortunes to mould a proverb and to point a moral. The revival of portions of the story by writers of the early Renaissance, especially by Petrarch, Boccacio, Bandello and others, made its content a source of current literary motive and allusion for novelist, poet and dramatist, as well as a theme for art in general. Sixteenth century enthusiasm for the classics gave the several characters of the story wider scope, through French and Eng- lish translations making them at once popular subjects, especially in the drama, where the characters have been somewhat divided. English drama almost alone has employed to any extent the rivalry between Hannibal and Scipio, whereas the Italian, the French drama, and after these, that of other countries has employed the story of Sophonisba almost to the exclusion of the character of Hannibal. The remainder of this study will attempt to treat in some detail the question of the original sources of Nabbes' Hannibal and Scipio, as found in the classics and as repeated in mediaeval and modern versions of the classic story. Of classic historians, Polybius and especially Livy were the chief sources for succeeding historians and poets. In the fourteenth century. Appian found a place among poets and novelists for his version of the story of Sophonisba; but with the rise of the romantic drama, such fourteenth century versions as those of Petrarch, Boccacio and Bandello, which empk^ed Livy's History of Rome as the general basis, were also used as sources for plays whether of classical or romantic character. Though Livy has retained precedence by virtue of his richly descriptive detail, vivid character coloring, epic quality, and vivacious narrative movement easily reconstructed into drama, Appian's relation of Sophonis- ba's betrothal to Massanissa prior to her patriotic marriage to Syphax, 103 Prologue, Q. 1. 10. THE DRAMATIC WORKS OF THOMAS NABBES 41 has taken precedence in a number of the plays, over Livy's version which omits this incident so replete with pathos and dramatic interest. Earlier comment upon Nabbes' tragedy, Hannibal and Scipio, re- ferred in very general terms to its classic sources. Langbaine's list is probably the most complete, mentioning besides Livy, Cornelius Nepos, Plutarch, Florus, Justinus, Orosius, Diodorus, Polybius, Appian, Eutropius, and adding a Renaissance source in Petrarch's II Trionfo d'Amore, for the Sophonisba story. Langebaine apparently refers in large to the whole material rather than to Nabbes' specific selection from the material. 104 Bullen's edition of comparatively recent date, 1887, refers the story generally to Livy, and traces several detached scenes and passages of the play to definite sections of that historian. He adds to these a reference to Cicero, quoted in the play itself, for the tradition of Scipio's admiration for Xenophon's Cyropaedia, and notes some minor sources of allusion, such as Lucian and Silius Italicus. 105 Bullen's references are probably as specific and complete as necessary for an edition of all the available plays and poems of Nabbes. A more intimate study, however, of the tragedy, Hannibal and Scipio, admits not only of a closer scrutiny of its subject matter in relation to the classics and other sources available, but also of other possible influences upon the theme and dramatic construction of the play. In the discussion of the "former play" reference has been made to the very probable sources in Silius Italicus, Livy and Appian; with Lucian as a source of allusion and of form in the "addresses" with which the play is prefaced. 106 The author's choice of motto for his title page, "Anna Virumque cano, " pays a passing tribute to the master of Silius and to the epic of Roman foundations, which had their first rival in young Carthage, and which even so early had exacted self-immolation of "Sidonian Dido." 107 Lucian probably furnishes Hanno's allusion to the Salapian lady as Omphale, the Lydian Queen, who held Hercules in distaff service. 108 Possibly Hannibal has in mind the same allusion, when at Capua he rebukes his soldiers as those who "Lay by all com- mand, save only. / To set your distaffe servants tasks, and study. / Lascivious dressings, not warres discipline." 109 104 Langbaine's Eng. Dramat. Poets, p. 326. 106 Bullen V. II. p. M. loe Q. 11. 1-4. ""Aeneid, 1:1, 348. IV:629, 692. 108 Lucian, Dial. Deorum, XIII :2, cf. Ovid, Fasti, 2:305. 109 Q. 1. 1433, A. IV :2. A. 1:3, Q. 1. 174. 42 THE DRAMATIC WORKS OF THOMAS NABBES To gather more specific data from the great body of material which was available for Nabbes, some not indefinite parallel can be drawn between his play and Plutarch's Lives of Hannibal and Scipio, where legendary detail is sometimes fuller than in Livy's history. For example, Hannibal on seeing the effects of Capuan luxury upon his soldiers, sug- gests leading them again to Rome to stimulate their war-energy. Plu- tarch alone notes specifically the incident of the Salapian gentlewoman, and he comments that writers are divided upon the question of Hannibal's yielding himself to the pleasures that captivated his soldiers: "Some," writes Plutarch, "greatly commending the continencie of this Cap- tain." 110 Plutarch's doubt is used in the play to Hannibal's advantage, though the dramatic appeal of the Salapian lady to his valor as a com- mander, and immediately afterward, through the yet more dramatic announcement of Scipio 's victory in Spain, an incident calling Hannibal at once to renewed action. 111 The kindred episode of Scipio's self- command in restoring the Spanish captive to her friends, is used in the resolution of Massanissa's temporary alienation from Scipio on account of Sophonisba's death. 112 The portrayal of this in the play is similar to Plutarch's representation of Scipio as a "Myrour and example of all virtue"; but in dramatic detail the play resembles Livy, and especially Polybius from whom both Plutarch and Livy probably drew the inci- dent, though Plutarch drew also from writers no longer extant. The traits portrayed in the Scipio of Nabbes, are in general, those of Livy. For both Hannibal and Scipio, the play represses for the greater part, the religious formalities with which, according to Plutarch, Scipio awed the public, and in the play there is apparently no special connection between Hannibal's sacrificial oath at nine years old and the religious elements in his personality which according to Polybius and Plutarch, fused as fire, the heterogeneous army into soldiers of Hannibal. For the greater part, Hannibal of the play is portrayed in much the same spirit in which Livy describes his single, warlike and revengeful personality in contrast with that of the Roman chief whose martial genius was sub- ordinated to the greater wisdom of the Roman citizen and philosopher. To Hannibal of the play probably Livy gave such concrete features as the swarthy face wrinkled by age and care, the eye that had lost its light in the fens of Arnus, the cruelty and craft of his expression, and 110 Plutarch's Life of Hannibal, North's transl. Temple Ed. V. X, p. 178-181. Cf. Polybius III, 11,48, 82. 111 Q. 1:2, 11. 60-410. » J Q. IV: 5 11. 1570-1644. THE DRAMATIC WORKS OF THOMAS NABBES 43 possibly his untiring physical and intellectual energy; in short, the soldier virtues accorded to Hannibal for Scipio's greater glory in the victory. 113 Hannibal's more subtle qualities of character, however, in his refusal to despair, his almost superhuman power to achieve his purpose, his intuitive insight into character and his knowledge of men, which in the play, seemed marvellous to Scipio in a barbarian, are qualities similar to the estimate of Polybius. 114 There is possibly some repetition of the attitude of Polybius in Plutarch, though the latter largely accepts the Roman attitude toward Hannibal, according him martial virtues, solely in exaltation of Scipio's character. It would seem that the play, though drawing from Cicero the allusion to the Cyropaedia of Xenophon for the prototype of Scipio's stoic virtues, nevertheless, follows Appian for the legendary detail of the meeting between the two heroes. 115 The change of the event from Ephesus to the Court of Prusias in Bythinia, is made to bring the debate between the two heroes for precedence in war, directly before the climax of interest in the ethical rivalry which closes with Hannibal's death. Appian abridges the meeting at Ephesus and the treachery by which Flaminius caused Hannibal's death at the court of Prusias, bringing the two inci- dents together in the same paragraph in order to contrast the magnanimity of Hannibal and Scipio with the perfidy of Flaminius. Livy could have furnished Nabbes with only the basis here, as the points which Livy enlarged upon are not followed by the play. It is possible, as explained above, that this is one of the instances in which Nabbes made radical changes from the "former play" which as already shown, possibly followed Silius Italicus in his paraphrase of Livy. However, Silius and Nabbes employ the fame of each hero to enhance that of the other in the same spirit which constitutes the chief resemblance between the two writers throughout. 11 ' The legend used by the play that Hannibal took poison from a ring is traceable to Juvenal's tenth satire; but there seems to be no clue so 118 Livy Hist. Rome, XXII:2-4; XXI:4; XVVI:49-50, XXVI:19. ni Polybius 111:11, 48-82, pp. 208-335. Vol. I Schuckburgh's Translation. Polybius X, 18-19. 115 Appian, V, 11, Bk. XI, 11, p. 120, White's Ed. 116 Punka XVII:403-406,— Scipio si Libycis esset generatus in oris, Sceptra ad Agenoreos credunt ventura nepotes : Hannibal Ausonia genitus si sede fuisset Haud dubitant terras Italia in ditione futuras. 44 THE DRAMATIC WORKS OF THOMAS NABBES far to Juvenal's source. Many modern writers repeat the legend, but none name the source. The substitution in the play, of Hannibal for Hasdrubal, and its representation of Scipio as discourteous to Hannibal, instead of Livy's representation of his gracious bearing toward Hannibal, belongs to the motive of the play itself, treating as it does the intense rivalry between the two captains for the alliance of Syphax in the tragic crisis of Zama. 117 It also serves dramatic economy in giving to Hannibal the patriotic disposal of Sophonisba, and in uniting the two heroic representatives of Carthage more closely to the destiny of that city, as well as in reducing the number of characters to the proportions of a heroic action. Another instance of omission on the part of the play, in the interest of abridge- ment, is that of Livy's dramatic scene between Massanissa and Sophonis- ba, at the door of her palace in Cirta, after the defeat of Syphax. 118 The meeting between Hannibal and Scipio before the battle of Zama, as described by the messenger, is similar to that of Livy, even to the inclu- sion of the fact that the horse of Syphax was killed under him. 119 So for Hannibal's behaviour in the senate house, after his defeat at Zama, the play seems to follow Livy's account in its detail; but the irony of Hannibal and his contempt for Hanno's graft, has possibly its origin in Polybius. 120 The central motive of the play, Sophonisba's sacrifice for Carthage and her self-imposed death, undoubtedly has Appian as its original source. Appian is followed in this incident by Plutarch as well as by Sir Walter Raleigh in his History of the World, published in 1614, the fifth and sixth books of which treat the Second Punic War. Raleigh's History followed no one writer, but aimed to give an account of the events and chief characters concerned. In the story of Sophonisba, Raleigh gives Appian preference over Livy whom otherwise he deems more trustworthy; but according to Raleigh, certain considerations prove Appian's version the more reasonable. 121 Appian's chief variation from Livy consists in his account of Sophonisba's betrothal to Massanissa, before her marriage to Syphax, the latter contract having been urged upon her by the Carthaginia senate as patriotic policy. 122 117 Livy XXVIII :18. 118 Livy XXX:12, 1, Cf. Polybius, 111:2. 119 Livy XXX:30-31, Cf. Play III; 1, Q. 11, 880-83, Bullen quotes Livy. 120 Polybius, XX; 19, p. 152, Schuckburgh, V. II. 121 Raleigh's History of World, V, p. 509. m Appian's Hist. Rome, V. I, p. 417, ed. White. THE DRAMATIC WORKS OF THOMAS NABBES 45 It would be unreasonable to expect a very definite conclusion for individual writers as the immediate sources of the play, Hannibal and Scipio. To dramatists who read both ancient and modern literatures in their originals as easily as Nabbes apparently read them, all sources were open, and it is probable that many and varied sources were read in the dramatist's effort "to write the story new" and to express his heroes as they were when they " breath 'd ayre and had their beings here." 123 If his tasked "borrowing from a former play" is correctly understood as an admission of such indebtedness, some evidence in connection with that admission, has been furnished by the fragment as well as by the play itself, that the dramatist reconstructed what he borrowed, and that he enlarged upon the ethical import of the parallel between Hannibal and Scipio. 124 From certain changes and combina- tions acknowledged by the dramatist as his own, it may be inferred that Nabbes gave to the play the dramatic perspective which constitutes Hannibal and Sophonisba the two halves of the last power and glory of Carthage, and together the noblest because the most patriotic sacri- fice upon her altar. VII Nabbes' "Hannibal and Scipio" Compared with Other English and Foreign Plays on the Subject of the Second Punic War If in Nabbes' tragedy the characters of Hannibal and Scipio attain a scarcely higher degree of sublimity than that of Sophonisba, in the foreign plays, which depend chiefly upon the Sophonisba motive, Hanni- bal has either been discarded, or else is included incidentally, and Scipio is retained chiefly as a factor in Sophonisba's tragedy. The artistic range of Sophonisba's story is significant, having been a common theme for the stage since its first dramatisation in Italy by Carretto, in 1502, and by Trissino in 1514. Through the three centuries following, it appeared in more than forty plays by as many different playwrights, and in all the civilized countries of Europe, except Portugal whose dramatists were content with three different translations of Voltaire's version. The universal cult of the story in the different realms of art, assumed large proportions, amounting in the instance of the drama, almost to a cycle in the varied adaptations. It has been particularly the subject of first tragedies, and has been closely associated with innovations in the drama. 123 To the Ghosts of Hannibal and Scipio Q. 11. 3-6. 1M Prologue, Q. 11. 15-22. Also 1. 29. 46 THE DRAMATIC WORKS OF THOMAS NABBES As the first tragedies of Carretto and of Trissino, the story began the romantic drama in Italy. As its heroic vicissitudes had lent themselves to romanticism, its simplicity of plot and sublimity of characterisation lent themselves as readily to classicism in Mairet's Sophonisba, which in 1596, inaugurated the unities as the sine qua non of French tragedy. Its heroic qualities were exhibited in English Drama through Marston's Sophonisba, The Wonder of Women, which appeared in 1603, the year of the accession of King James. In the last decade of the Stuart reign, it was again revived in Nabbes' Hannibal and Scipio, thus closing the Elizabethan Drama with the theme of patriotic self-sacrifice. In 1676, Sophonisba or Hannibal's Overthrow, a tragedy by James Lee, completed the adaptation of the story to the conventional heroic type of Restora- tion drama. That Sophonisba's story is a universal art theme is shown in the ease with which it was adapted to music. Germany, which of all countries produced the greatest number of tragedies on the subject, thirteen in all, the theme having been introduced there as late as 1680 with Lohenstein's tragedy, also gave Sophonisba her musical apotheosis, in 1785, when it was arranged as monodrama and set to music by Meissner. In every leading country of Europe, the story has been used either as a musical theme or as a subject by painters, except in England, where first the courtly play and later the heroic drama gave the theme an embodiment allied to both opera and painting. Marston, Nabbes, and James Lee exhibit traces of the musical potentialities of the Sophonisba story. As mentioned in the preceding section, the variation from Livy's to Appian's version of the Sophonisba story, is the most definite point found in the examination of the ancient sources for the tragedy of Hanni- bal and Scipio, giving as it does, a broad but fundamental clue to the sources of all the plays, both English and foreign, which are connected with this story of the Second Punic War. The plays which take Livy's version of the story of Sophonisba, keep close to this historian throughout the dramatic action; those which follow Appian in the Sophonisba story, elect more freely from the other sources as well. It is impossible even with a thorough comparison of the plays which are accessible, all deriving, as they more or less do, from the same Latin originals or else from Renaissance sources as well, to say whether the English plays derived substantially from the foreign plays. The subject, however may admit of some discussion. As a basis for an investigation of foreign plays upon the subject, the present study is indebted to the THE DRAMATIC WORKS OF THOMAS NABBES 47 thoroughgoing monograph of Dr. A. Andrae's Sophonisba in der fran- zosichen Tragodie. 125 In Dr. Andrae's study a relation is suggested between Marston's Sophonisba and Montchretien's tragedy on the same theme. "It is possible that the Sophonisba material was established in England through Montchretien's who took refuge there after a duel, and at all events after he had written his Sophonisba. It is possible that Marston knew the work and was thus induced to fashion his own play, though the two depend upon each other, only in their use of mythical figures, Erictho in the English play and the furies in the French play." 126 At the time, 1871, of writing the monograph quoted, Dr. Andrae was not aware of the English plays, traditionally no longer extant, which preceded Mar- ston's Sophonisba. In a later note, 1894, on his study published in 1891, Andrae mentions Ward's record of a Cipio Africanus, and especially Ward's inference that this play contained the Sophonisba story. 127 Andrae's interest in making this note, apparently is in establishing the idea that the story of Sophonisba is inseparable from the subject what- ever phase of it may have been treated. Andrae however fails to note the bearing that the theme was established in England through Mon- tchretien, and he consequently fails to modify his former statement with another to the effect that Montchretien's visit, early in the reign of James, to the English court, as an author of a tragedy Sophonisba, possibly caused a revival in England of the motive already naturalized in English drama, in the Cipio Africanus of 1579-80, and repeated in Hannibal and Hermes, 1598, in Hannibal and Scipio of the Fortune, 1601, not to mention other plays drawn from the subject of the Second Punic War, and contemporary with the Cipio Africanus such as the Four Sons of Fabyous, and Quintus Fabius. 128 Andrae favors the possibility of a relationship among plays in which Massanissa himself hands the poison-cup to Sophonisba, instead of merely employing a messenger for this errand. In support of this view Andrae quotes Schack whose analysis of the Spanish Los Amantos de Carta go he follows, as the original was inaccessible to himself. Schack believes 126 Mit Berticksichtigung der Sophonisbe bearbeitungen in Anderen Litteraturen, von Dr. A. Andrae, Oppeln und Leipzig, 1891. 126 Andrae, p. 87 refers to Schaeck II, p. 33 in support of the view that Mont- chretien's play was known in England. 127 Zeitschrift fur Neu franzosichen Sprach und Literatur, 1894, p. 155. 128 Four Sons of Fabyous acted 1580; Quintus Fabius acted 1574. See Revels, pp. 154, 51. 48 THE DRAMATIC WORKS OF THOMAS NABBES that the Spanish play was possibly known to the English dramatists, as Spanish literature was generally known in England. Andrae notes a marked resemblance between this Spanish play and Marston's Sophon- isba. Though he finds the date of the Spanish Los Amantos de Cartago uncertain, he concludes from the circumstance of its having been bound with others bearing the date 1608, that it had appeared much earlier and had probably preceded Marston's which was acted in 1603. Andrae notes resemblance between Marston's Sophonisba and Los Amantso not only in Massanissa's method of conveying the portion to Sophonisba but also in the incidents which open the two plays, especially the mar- riage scene of Sophonisba to Massanissa and in the interruption of the ceremonies by the call of Massanissa to battle against Syphax. In both plays there is a compact between Scipio and Syphax against Massanissa and Carthage. Again the arrival of Massanissa before the city gates, the confusion of battle, and the duel in which Syphax falls, have notable resemblances in spite of differences such as when in Marston's plan Sophonisba evades the decree of the Carthagenian senate to unite her in marriage to Syphax, and so remains constant to Massanissa through- out. Andrae notes also the same chronological sequence of events in the two plays, and concludes a possible borrowing from one or the other with the probability of Marston's indebtedness to the Spanish play. 129 The fact that Los Amantos is the only certified tragi-comedy on the subject, the draught given to Sophonisba being in this play the conven- tional Spanish sleeping potion which does not cause death, admits of certain reflection upon the English plays. Halliweil quotes Gifford's stricture and Langbaine's interpretation of Marston's Sophonisba as a satire on Jonson's historical method, to the effect that Marston's play is no more than "an honest general satire." 130 Gifford's explanation places the play logically on the basis of an object lesson in the use of historical legend in romantic tragedy, but there is indeed pathos and patriotic sublimity in the death scene of Marston's Sophonisba that is scarcely equalled in any other play on the subject. Marston's Sophonis- ba is a true tragedy and in this respect differs vitally from the Spanish play. The points of sublimity noted above in the plays in which Massanissa himself hands the potion to Sophonisba, may be extended to the cor- responding scene in the Hannibal and Scipio of Nabbes. It is significant 129 Zeitschrift, p. 69. 130 See Langbaine, p. 350. Cf. Holliwell's Introd. to Plays of John Marston. See Gifford's Ben Jonson, Introd. \ THE DRAMATIC WORKS OF THOMAS NABBES 49 also that Nabbes negates the effect of a sleeping potion in Massanissa's speech as he hands the cup fo Sophonisba, "This is no potion to preserve a beauty In its first greene; or ripe it to a Summer; Or prevent th' Autumme; or returne the Winter Into a new Spring. This will pale the dye Which thy cheek blushed when it would cloth modesty In a rich scarlet;" 131 Again the situation in which Massanissa wishes to end his own life at Sophonisba's death, as described in Los Amantos, is also varied with fine effect by Nabbes when the cup is conveyed to Sophonisba, 'Give me some wine: Fie drink a bridall health to Sophonisba, And mixe it with Nepenthe, Here's the juice Will cause forgetfulnesse, and mask th' extremity Of my adverse fortune. 132 (Messenger enters with wine) Interpreting Massanissa's words to refer to his own death by drinking of the cup, Sophonisba begs, Leave to breath An errant o're it; that when he is entred Elysium, throngs of Carthagenian Heroes May bid him welcome, and informe themselves From him of Sophonisba." 133 By this artful movement Sophonisba secures the cup for herself. The entire scene is artistically contrived for Massanissa and Sophonisba each to share the inevitable outcome and with each to make it fall as lightly as possible on the other. Scipio's offer of a Roman lady in marriage to Massanissa, is similar to the attempt in the Spanish play to marry Massanissa to Amatilda after the supposed death of Sophonisba. 134 Most plays follow the story of Sophonisba's marriage to Syphax, for patriotic reasons, and her sub- sequent return to Massanissa. The Spanish play is not taken from Livy, nor from any one source in particular, though Applian's version of Sophonisba is the leading motive. This electicism agrees with Nabbes' method of using his sources. In respect of Los Amantos, Andrae finds 131 Q. 1116-1126. 132 Q. 1091-1095. 133 Q. 1149-1153. 134 Q. 1560-1563. 50 THE DRAMATIC WORKS OF THOMAS N ABBES a certain indebtedness to Petrarch's Africa in Massanissa, dating his fortunes from the time of Scipio's arrival in Africa; but there is seemingly no necessity for tracing any such indebtedness of Nabbes to Petrarch's Africa. The indications are that the resemblances noted above have arisen from the same or else similar sources used by the two English dramatists and by the author of the Spanish play. As for Marston and Nabbes, the interpretation in both, of Sophonisba's patriotism is suf- ficiently similar to satisfy the supposed indebtedness of Nabbes to a "former play" if Appian were not as apparently the source of the story in both plays. Aside from the Sophonisba story the sources are ap- parently different even for somewhat similar features: Nabbes drawing from Lucian's Dialogues for the address to the Ghosts of Hannibal and Scipio; Marston drawing from Lucian's Pharsalia for his episode of the witch Erictho as well as for the subterranean passage through which Sophonisba escapes Syphax. 135 Another less easily explicable coincidence between Marston and Nabbes may be noted in the epilogue spoken by Scipio at the close of the play of Hannibal and Scipio and in the highly dramatic touch in the death scene of Marston's Sophonisba, where Massanissa takes the laurel wreath from his own brow, and crowns Sophonisba on her bier. Similarly in Nabbes' Epilogue, Scipio says, . . . . "To him that writ Our story, gratefully I would allow One leave of Lawrell torne from mine own brow. Another author of a Sophonisba, Nicolas de Montreux, has in this tragedy, and in the titles, at least, of his other plays, a significant as- sembly. The list of his plays includes besides a Sophonisba, a Diana, a Cleopatra, a Cyrus, a Hannibal and a Chaste Joseph. The edition of his Sophonisba which Andrae found in a volume of tragedies by various authors, bears the date 1599. 136 The other plays of Montreux, the men- tion of which precedes that of his Sophonisba, and which for this reason were supposedly prior in composition, have not been located, though his Hannibal is believed to be still in manuscript. 137 The only reason for dwelling upon Montreux is that, as far as known, he is the only foreign dramatist who wrote a play on Hannibal, or who has given Hannibal I35 Lucian Dial. XII; Pharsalia, Bk. VI. 136 Diverses tragedies de plensiers Anthems de ce temps, Recueillies par Raphael du Petit vol. A. Rouen, 1599. 137 Vol. 39 of Nicerone (Jean P.) Memorial Hist, of illustrious men of the republic of letters, pp. 196-205, Paris 1727-1745. THE DRAMATIC WORKS OF THOMAS NABBES 51 more than passing notice in a play on Sophonisba. In his Sophonisba, Montreux has given a brief scene also to Hannibal. Andrae regards the Sophonisba of Montreux as the first French play on the theme to be treated in any very independent manner as contrasted with the general tendency to follow Trissino. Though in the general comment of his critics, Montreux is a poor playwright, Andrae credits him as far as Sophonisba is concerned, with creating a new role for this play. It is possible that the individuality of Montreux as regards Sophonisba is explicable by the difference between his sources and those of Trissino who follows Livy closely. Montreux names his sources, Appian, and Plutarch's life of Scipio Africanus, the same writers who are evidently among the original sources for the Hannibal and Scipio of Nabbes. It is possibly for this reason that the same conflict between love and duty, appears in the debate which Montreux has Scipio hold with Laelius and Syphax, as in that Nabbes has Scipio hold with Mass- anissa. 138 It is possibly also the reason that both dramatists represent Scipio as, the servant of the gods, sacred and holy whom none dare injure without exciting divine vengeance. Both Montreux and Nabbes are indebted to Appian for Sophonisba's betrothal to Massanissa before her marriage to Syphax, and both give to her a highly patriotic purpose. In Montreux, however, Syphax praises Sophonisba even in his defeat, whereas Nabbes follows the Roman attitude of Livy's version in which Syhpax declares himself deluded by her beauty, to break his faith with Rome. This is possibly also an idea accepted by Nabbes from the "fragment play." With both Nabbes and Montreux, Massanissa feels defiant toward Rome when he fails to rescue Sophonisba. This defiance is strongly marked in Montreux' Massanissa who is a sort of injured Achilles and must be coaxed to fight against Carthage. In the tragedy of Hannibal and Scipio, Massanissa's defiance is marked by sustained sadness and distrust of Scipio's boasted self-command. Nabbes has avoided everywhere what Andrae points out as the chief defects of Montreux, who has Massanissa send the cup to Sophon- isba, and who in every great crisis of the play fails to bring these two characters together on the stage. Instead of Massanissa's wish for a noble death for Sophonisba, accompanied by a prayer to the gods for her rest, as in Montreux, Nabbes is more truly dramatic in Sophonisba's refusal of Massanissa's prayer that Aesculapins might avert the will of the gods. As in the instance of certain similarities between the Sophon- isba of the tragedy of Hannibal and Scipio and Los Amantos de Carthage, 138 Q. 950-1035. 52 THE DRAMATIC WORKS OF THOMAS N ABBES so its resemblances with the Sophonisba of Montreux, are such as should be expected of dramatists who have used the same source for their plays, just as the differences are those expected of individual writers who add original features for particular scenes. With the Hannibal of Montreux written before 1601, not available, with the English Hannibal and Scipio of 1598 and the Cipio Africanus of the revels, 1579-80, traditionally nonextant, the tragedy of Nabbes and the Latin fragment of the Bodleian, are the only available extant works remaining of those which up to Nabbes' own time, give Hannibal, from the beginning of the play, his proper place in the drama connected with the subject of the Second Punic War. In later plays, such as Nathaniel Lee's Hannibal's Overthrow which was acted in 1703, the character of Hannibal is far below the heroic figure of history and classical legend. In James Thomson's Sophonisba, acted in 1730, Hannibal is once more an accident of the Sophonisba story such as had already been portrayed in the Italian and the French plays. Whether or not the Bodleian fragment is the "former play" mentioned by Nabbes in his Prologue, and whatever may have been its relation to the still earlier English plays on the same subject, Nabbes' Hannibal and Scipio, up to his time and for more than a century thereafter, remained the only com- plete play extant, which is known to preserve the Roman historical perspective of the conflict between the old and decadant civilization of Carthage, and the young and progressive civilization of Rome, exhibiting each as represented in great genius. Nabbes adopted the traditional Roman point of view, in dividing the strength of Carthage between Hannibal and Sophonisba: Hannibal embodying her martial force and strategy; Sophonisba embodying her ancient seductive charm; Scipio summing up the source of Rome's early prowess as consisting in tem- perance, fortitude, wisdom and justice, the stoic virtues of magnanimous patriotism. The dramatic purpose of Nabbes in his Hannibal and Scipio, as in all his plays, was to realize character, and to that end to realize Hannibal and Scipio as they lived in the minds of those they impressed. The hero among men is always invested with legend; so Nabbes reinvested Hannibal and Scipio with the legend their action inspired. The drama- tist's purpose was not historical accuracy, but the accuracy of a known perspective as these men appeared to act upon their environment and to be reacted upon by it, in fine, that which after all, constitutes the heroic personality. THE DRAMATIC WORKS OF THOMAS NABBES 53 531. Written by 16 Cent, hand) TRANSCRIPT OF A FRAGMENT OF A PLAY IN LATIN VERSE IN WHICH HANNIBAL IS THE PRINCIPAL CHARACTER. Bodleian MS. 20577 (Malone 531). ACTUS I us Scena l a Juno (f IV of the 2nd Horebit ergo? turgidum attollet caput item in Malone Invisa nobis tenera gens? profugus, iners, Perfidus inermis, prodita patriae, enget Romana jura? penitus an summae irrita Junonis odia? Minint — iras dies? Pacemne dedimus, Romana qua fruitur, datur Quod nullus hostis? cuijus insana et ferox Mens turbo sicut rapidus ex imo eruat Romana sceptra, cujus armatus furor Latium ruina vertat, evertat statim. Hostem deesse quaerimus? ast hostis datur Magnamine Rutile? siste violentum impetum Praelatus hospes debitas poenas luet. Tyrias per undas victor Europae venit Carthago peperit bellicum, impavidum virum; Emersit Hannibal, maria, terrain, omnia Miscebit atrox, machinam mundi potens Dissolvet, altus timeat, et caveat sibi Junonis ille frater. Enceladi patrem Carthago enixa est; jura violata improbe, Disrupta foedera, et fidem ferro manu, Discussam, ut ipsa sacra divorum colit. Hie miles animo regias toilet minas Se vix inermis continet strictus furor Armata. dextra quid velet? quid non vepe* Caput illud alto vertice elatum Expectat Helleborum cruentem ensem I perge miles noster Hannibal, pede Fausto, fluente sanguine ardentem sitim Sedato, Latij regna jam tota excidant Iter ruina serve, sit vilis pudor Superbe, cresce, maximum Hannibilis de . . . Sit Roma victa, sed, velim tandem mat Herculea quondam injusta quod fecit m . . . Opus Segunthum, parta, sic parta ultis (f. 2) [written in MS. ve (pe). There may be a letter cut off af- ter ve] [51 [10] [151 [201 [251 [301 [351 "[The edges of the book have been trimmed by the binder, hence occasionally parts of a word are cut away at the end of a line.]»-Note of the copyist. 54 THE DRAMATIC WORKS OF THOMAS NABBES bcena 2 Hannibal cum militibus et Boschus ductor Hannibal Generosa sobiles Martis, Hannibalem Vestrum creastis, bellicae fraenos rei Haec nostra retinet, nostra moderatur Lnbens amorem amplector hunc, pariter Fidem pudoris nesciam, summe inc . . . [40] Amplector, ilia est militum egregium, de . . . Sed quern velitis (milites) placidum d . . . Castris latentem? lanquidum otio pla . . . Ducis sequester, dura qui nulla imper . . . (f. 2y) Talem velitis? eligite truncum ducem, [45] Statuam create nulla quae bella exitet, Discedat Hannibal, aliter hie Martem induit Tristes labores sitis, toleranda famem, Caedes, rapinas, funera melius color Intus reversus mente secreta ex quo qiut [50] Oculis soporem denego, frustra mihi Natura noctem fecit, et frustra otium. Insanit Imber? Vertice occuram imbribus Nee fulminantis dextram timeo Iovis. Si me velitis regere, vos similes mej, [55] Faciam necesse est; plura peragenda impiger Vix cessat animus voce dum prodam meas Quis fuerit intus impetus, quantus furor. Boschus Magnanime ductor, dulce Poenorum decus Solus calescis frigidum numquid putas [60] Hoc pectus? ignis sicut ^Etnaeus furit Te quaerimur ipsi languidum, tardum nimis Videtur Hannibali dubia nostra fides? Intus tumescit animus, accensus furor Imas medullas vrit impatiens morae [65] Quid dura nerras? dura dediscimus pati Dudum, recentes non sumus vitam hactenus Mollem, sub umbra neutriquam dux ut manus haec tua, Inbeto tristia, horrenda, impia Natura quicquid timeat, aut horret nimis [70] Dux si inbebit, fiet, haud dubita, licet Fortuna frendat, dira si Mars intonat Nihil est, senectus languida, imbellis, deos Curet: lacertos numquid hos decent preces? Per fas nefas ve quod libet faciam, viam [75] Si quid negabit, hoc dabit ferrum viam Discendit istud semitam, atque aditum dabit. (f. 3) Ducas remota ad litora ignota hactenu[s] THE DRAMATIC WORKS OF THOMAS NABBES 55 [line cut away, only the tops of letters visible] Pino timenda navitis, ducas velim Vrbem ad sacertam, maximam, armatam, ire /Equanda terris menia, aequabo solo Sit ilia forsan, Roma, quis Romam tim . . . Non plura dicam, militis certe probrum es[t] Esse eloquentem; Due, iube, presto est manu Ad exequenda plura, quam Hannibal imb . . Parata ad arma milites bella exigunt. Omnes ad arma. Hannibal Vos laudo, pronum militem unanimem manu Accipio, virtus iuncta consilio magis Magisque nostras spes victrix ratas Hannibalis animus grande presentit bonu . . Sed petite castra milites. Boschus par . . . Maneat, Quid intus animus evolbit sci . . . Cum prima voces lingua distinxit meas Sonore bellum lingua Romanum mea Didicit, et ipse primus hie sonus manet Ad usque temp us istud; et primus furor Mecum senescit, dirus et gratus comes His adde invenis, vel puer, vix tunc sciens Quid esset hasta, bella quid, patri pie Testatus ipsa numina dedimus fidem Hostem latius memet infestum fore Iurata res est, debitum solvam lubens Patri sepulto, bella sic pietas velit Deesse patri nolo, non fallam fidem Et quid moramur, ista si here placent. Boschus Honesta causa, pulchra res, promptae satis Validae cohortes, arma sumenda ocyus Parens Amilcar iussit; et dormis tamen? Quid vetera narras odia, iam sonitu tuba Clauxisse dudem oportuit, tacitus furor Vt fulmen aera dividens rumpat foras. Hannibal Erumpat ergo; sentiet primum hoc malum Nimium Sagunthos libera accipiat nisi, Animo lubenti nostra quae dabimus inga Celeres vocatur nuncij ; hoc pie satis [Intrant] Dicite Saguntho pareat, quod si neget Stringantur ensis; bella et hostiles manus Instare videat tuta pax frigit procul Micante fero et igne fugientem sequar. Exeunt Hannibal et Boschus. [80] [85] [90] [95] [100] [105] [110] [115] 56 THE DRAMATIC WORKS OF THOMAS NABBES Scena 3 ia Ntjncij: Saguntini Nuncius i us Vrbes velimus presides Dominos : Sagunt: sumus [120] Illi ipsi: at unde sonitus, et quid vult tuba? Nuncius lam statuit ille magnus atque ingens virum [Duc]tor superbus Hannibal, bella acriter Sumenda in hostes quoslibet, terram da . . . Aquamque nisi patienter, atque eius ferent [125] Imperia iusta dicite hactenus licet Obsequia minuent odia, cedando duce . . . Vobis pericla fugere, quae capiti immin . . . Nostro salutem, tuta presidia et decus Paratis, ampla spolia; sin marti place [130] Armisque credere, bella nee dubia movent Bella haec cruenta pace sublata, geret Poenus, feroci cuncta prostermens manu Sagun : Sicoris Quid hoc? tremiscit animus, et pectus . . . Quid possit Hannibal, petit, rapiet, prem . . . [135] Aliena regna? teneat innocuus manus Ductore dignas inclyto fieri nocens Vbique potent, non potest fieri innocens Vbique, pareat sanguine nostro et suo. Vigeat Sagunthos libera, et semper dies [140] Vrbs grata, nescit ferre Poenorum ingun . . . Sed ista potius longa consilia expetunt Caeca est temeritas cuncta praecipitans; d . . . Responsa referet alius, hie nova attuli . . . Nuncius : 2 US Imo repente dicite, et palam et statim [145] Deliberandum pace, sed sonitus tubae Praesignat arma prompta, qua nequent n . . . Servare, dirus militem exagitat furor Mensura non est illius motus dies Nunc dicite an haec conditio placet [150] Non est morandum, lingua non facit mor . . . lam proroganda, vestra mens quae sit, cito Statuisse opportebit aliter dubia est salu . . . Quam sic velitis integram. lam, iam loq . . . [The rest of line lubes [155] cut away] *Vertatis: Ecce castra magnanimi ducis (i. 3 v.) Parere placeat, hoc Saguntinis dabunt. Stragem et supulchrum, nostra si imperia abnuunt. THE DRAMATIC WORKS OF THOMAS NABBES 57 Saguntinus Tabifica mentis vitia qua voce intonas? Mors tam parata est? Siste lethele impetum; [160] Si|sit loquendum, si labris sedeat meis Patriae ruina sacia vel patriae solus Proh misera pietas, Quicquid in nostro crepat Carthago renuo; Quodque in extremis solet [165] Metus ipse fugit, neutiquam patriae decus Depono sponte sancta, sed Poenos fides Pietas cohibet; Nuncius: Punica at fallit fides Corrupta sero foedera vigetis, nihill [teste interlined Faciunt: Sagunt: sacrata teste numine haud volent [170] above, haud Foedera? Movebunt sed Saguntinos fides struck out] Foedusque Romae prestitum sceleris reus Non ero nefandi: Nunci bella presignat tuba. Exeunt. Chorus: Amilcharis Vmbra Olim nomen erat fortis Amilcharis Sat no turn ducibus, qui faera praelia [175] Hoc astu Lybico digna per omnia Amplexi, ac eadem tendit ad inferos Mecum mens amimum non locus alterat Ulinc sollicitos nunc refero gradus Vt tandem videam, quid facit Hannibal [180] Belidae generis, summae inclytus [line cut away] cidus degener abditus (f. 4) Castris ille latet? nee gerit horrida Quae mundus timeat? seu referat patrem Audax in scelera, haec nam sobilem probant [185] Haec haedos similes patribus indicant Si vultus patrios, atque animum patris Gestat terrificum, concipit et novas Strages assidue, sanguine de meo Dicam progenitum, vivit Amilcharis [190] E casto gremio, filius Hannibal Virtutem aut vitium quod gentor ten . . . Haeres possideat; Iuo sit imaginis Signati speciem reddere propriam Numen si recolat, si fuerit pius [195] Quae non competerent castra sequentibus lam iam quo superos vel puer invocat In mentem subeat, rumpere foedera Romana, et patriae pellere dedecus. Infans pollicitus tanta; nee effluant [200] Quae mente tenerae sunt satis indita Excrescat magis, ast Hannibalis furor Et primo rapiat proxima singula 58 THE DRAMATIC WORKS OF THOMAS NABBES Ad Roman facilis sic dabitur via. Stabo, posteritas quae facit effera [205] Spectabo scelera, ac aspiciam probans. ACTUS 2 US Scena: T Boschus: CUM MITITIBUS Quam sunt parati milites? belli exitus Adstat secundus, arma cum tereat manus Nescia repulsae, qualis haec nostra est cohors. (f. 4. v.) Batista En hie balistam, ducta cui circum caput [210] Habena firma, verbere insigni iacit Glandes, vel ipsa tela, si noceant magis Torquebit ilia terminum ad caeli voltimum Solus capessam bello, sum potens satis. Proiector Saxorum En hie libranda saxa dum metum opprimant [215] Valido lacerto, brachia haec nevos probant His irruentis hostis obsistam impetum [edge of MS. Iisdemque pellem millia hostis agmina cut away] Solus capessam bella, sum instructus satis. Lancea Impulsa quid vult lancea haec nodo levj [220] Imas medullas, ossa quae exiccat calor Et dura liquit, fundit angustos poros Extendit altum cuspide explorans viam Solus capessam bella, sum validus satis. Sagittarius En hie sagittas toxico infestas Hidrae [225] Hae si remota leniter attingant, ubi Patrio veneno Getica quod tellus parit Nervas retorquens deficit, valent tamen Satis in ruinam, virus exitum dabit Solus capessam bello, sum victor dolo. [230] Boschus (f. 5) Bene est, pericla quisquis vel solus fere Sat bellicosa vriba, Cadmea domo Et gente digna, facta si verbis quod . . . Scena 2 a Intrat Hanniball Hanniball Intus phalanges se parent, dies adest Qua terminantur bella cum pace impro . . . Exeunt Boschus . . . [235] cum Militibus. THE DRAMATIC WORKS OF THOMAS NABBES 59 BIBLIOGRAPHY Plays Upon Which the Study is Directly Based Bride (The), Thomas Nabbes, A. 1638 Pr. 1640, Bullen, Old Plays. Covent Garden, Thomas Nabbes, A. 1632-3, Pr. 1638, Bullen, Old Plays. Hannibal and Scipio, Trag. Thomas Nabbes, A. 1635, Pr. 1637, Quarto. Hannibal, Fragment in Latin verse, Bodleian M. S. 20577, Malone 531. Microcosmus, A Moral Masque, Thomas Nabbes, A. 1634, Pr. 1637. Presentation (A) for the Prince, Thomas Nabbes, written, 1638, Bullen, 1887. Spring's Glory (The) Masque, Thomas Nabbes, Written 1638, Bullen 1887. Unfortunate Mother (The) Trag. Thomas Nabbes, Written 1638, Pr. 1640, Bullen edition 1887. Plays Used for Direct Illustration Agrippina, Empress of Rome, Thomas May, Pr. 1654, Q. Albovine, Sir Wm. Davenant, Edinburgn, 1872. Antiquary (The) Shackerley Marmion, Pr. 1641, Hazlitt, Dodsley V. XIII, 1875. Cataline, his conspiracy, B. Jonson, (Trag) A. 1611. Cleopatra, Queen of Egypt (Trag) T. May, Q. Pr. London, 1854. Cornelii Nepotis Vitae, Excellentium Imperatorum, Lipsiae c/3/3 ccv. Dido, Queen of Carthage (Trag) Marlowe-Nash, 1591-94. Sejanus, his Fall, (Trag) B. Jonson, 1603, 1605—. Sophonisba, The Wonder of Women, (Trag) J. Marston, 1603-1806. Sophonisba, or Hannibal's Overthrow (Trag) N. Lee, London, 1722. Sophonisba, James Thompson, A. 1788 (Bell's Brit. Theat. V, 18.) Sophonisba, Calotto Caretto, Ferrara, 1546. Sophonisba, Antoine de Montchretien, 1596. Sophonisba, Giovanni Giorgio, A. 1524 (Ed. with Tasso's notes). Sun's Darling, (The) A Moral Masque, Dekker-Ford, 1623. Virgin Martyr (The) Dekker-Massinger (Trag) A. 1620. Plays Bearing Less Directly Upon the Study Covent Garden Weeded, Richard Brome, A. 1632. Dramatic Works of Brome, 3 Vols., London, 1873. Love and Honour, Sir. Wm. Davenant, A. 1634, Dramatic Works of, 5 Vols., Edin- burgh, 1872. Ordinary (The), Wm. Cartwright, Pr. 1691, Dodsley-Hazlitt V, XII, 1875. Politician (The) James Shirley, (Trag) A. 1639, Pr. 1655, Dr. Works 6 Vols., London, 1833. Temple of Love (The) Sir Wm. Davenant (Masque) A. 1634 Davanant's Dramatic Works, see above. 60 THE DRAMATIC WORKS OF THOMAS NABBES Works Used for Biographical Data and General Comment Account (An) of the English Dramatic Poets, Gerard Langbaine, London, 1691. Annals of the Stage etc., 3 Vols., F. P. Collier, V, 1, London, 1831. Biographia Litera, V, 1, fifth ed. 1838. Censura, Sir Samuel Brydges, 10 Vols., V, 1. Chronicle (A) Hist, of The London Stage, (1559-1642) F. G. Fleay, London, 1890. Collected Works of Thomas Nabbes (Introd.) A. H. Bullen, London, 1887. Companion to the Play House, 2 Vols., 1764, Baker, London. Dictionary (The) of National Biography, ed. Sir S. Lee, Vol., XL Elizabethan (The) Drama, 1558-1642, F. E. Schelling, 2 Vols., 2nd ed. 1889. Encyclopedia Brittanica, (The). Encyclopedia of English Literature (The). Extracts from the Account of the Revels at Court in the Reigns of Elizabeth and King James I, ed. by Peter Cunningham. Genest, V, X. p. 595. Henslowe's Diary, ed. W. W. Gregg, 2 Vols. Historia Histronica, Dodsley-Hazlitt, V, XX, Pr. 1699. History of English Dramatic Literature to the Death of Queene Anne, 4 Vols., Sir. A. Ward, London, 1879. History of Literature, Klein Vol., V. History of French Literature, Van. Laun, London, 1883. Italian Poets (The), Stebbing, V. II. Knolles' Richard, History of the Turks, Nabbes' continuation. Lectures on Dramatic Literature in the Age of Elizabeth, Hazlitt, London, 1821. Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland, Cibber, 5 Vols., London, 1783. Old and New London, W. Thornbury, London. Undated. . Specimens of the English Dramatic Poets, Charles Lamb, ed. by Israel Gollanez, London, 1893. Sources Consulted for Hannibal and Scipio and for Other Plays on the Subject of the Second Punic War A Primary and Approximate Sources Appian's Roman History, 4 Vols., (V, 1-2) edited and accompanied with translation, by Horace White, London, 1912. Cicero, M. Tullius, De Lege Agraria, 11:36. The Correspondence of, 4 Vols. ed. Robert Yelverton, Tyrrell, Dublin and London, 1885, See V. Ill, 23. Claudianus, Claudius, Idylleia, etc. Homer, The Iliad and the Odyssey, ed. William Dindorf, Lipsiae, Teubner, 1908. Horatii (Q) Flacci, Opera Illustr. by C. W. King, Revised by H. A. J. Munro, London, 1869. Juvenal, D. Juni, Thirteen Satires, 2 Vols., (Vol. 1) John E. B. Mayor, London, 1893. Titi Livi, In Urbe Condita, Libri, erklert von W. Weissenborn, Berlin, 1860 B. XXX. Lucian of Samosata, The Works of, Trans. H. W. and F. G. Fowler, Oxford, 1905. Ovid (Publius Ovidius Naso) Fasti. Pliny (Plini Secundi Naturalis, Historiae, Hamburg et Gothae, 1851. Pliny's Natural History Trans, by Bostwick and Riley, (Bohn Lib.) London, 1845.- THE DRAMATIC WORKS OF THOMAS NABBES 61 Plutarch's Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans, Englished by Sir Thomas North, 1579, Vol., VI, ed. G. Wyndham, (Annibal) (Scipio African). London, 1896. Polybius, General Hist, of the Wars of the Romans, Trans, from Greek by Mr. Hamp- ton, London, 1812. Strabonis Geographia, Parisiis, 1853. Virgil (P) Maronis Opera, ed. T. L. Papillon and A. E. Haigh, Oxford, 1892. Xenophon, Cyropaedia and Memorabilia, Trans. Bohn, Lib. Secondary Sources consulted for reference to primary sources, and for comment, textual notes, etc. Andrea's Sophonisba in der Franzosischen Tragodie, Oppeln und Leipsig, 1891. Arnold, Thomas, Hist, of Rome V, III, 2nd ed. London, 1845. Arnold Thomas, A Life of Hannibal (Famous Warrior Series) New York, no date. Bandello, see Painter, (below). Boccacio, see Painter, (below). Crutwell, C. T. Hist. Roman Lit. N. York, 1887. Dodge, T. A. Hannibal (A defense of Hannibal) New York, 1891. Donaldson, James, Woman, Her Position and Influence in Ancient Greece and Rome, New York, 1907. Fairbanks, Arthur, The Mythology of Greece and Rome, New York, 1907. Green, J. R., A Short History of the English People, New York, 1888. Harper's Dictionary, Classical Antiquities, New York, 1896. Morley Edition, Character Writings of Seventeenth Century, London, 1891. Mommson, Theodor, Hist, of Rome V, II, Transl. by W. P. Dickon, New York, 1900. Niebuhr. G. Lectures on the History of Rome 3 Vols., London, 1849. Painter's Palace of Pleasure, ed. J. Jacobs V, 11, London, 1890. Petrarch's II Trionfo d' Amore, Trans. Bohn Lib. Preller, L. Romische Mythologie, Berlin, 1881. Raleigh, Sir. W., History of the World in Six Books, Vols., V and VI, Edinburgh, 1820. Schelling, F. E., English Literature in the Time of Shakespeare, New York, 1910. Seyffert, Oscar, Dictionary of Classical Antiquities, etc. London, 1891. Simcox, G. A., Hist, of Latin, Literature, Ennius to Boethius, 2 Vols.,?New York, 1906. Smith, Wm., Dictionary Greek and Roman, Antiq. London, 1891. Warton, Thomas, History of English Poetry, 3 Vols., V, I, London 1840. Wright, Thomas, A Dictionary of Obsolete and Provincial English, London, 1857. Part II of this Thesis consists of a transcript of the Quarto text, 1637, of Hannibal and Sclpio, with some introductory pages remaining from the part here published. The text is accompanied with notes and a glossary. r 014 066 180 6