permissible, but simply logical and reasonable, to set down this poem, a young man’s work on the face of it, as the possible work of no man’s youthful hand but Shakespeare’s.’

 Mr. A. C. Swinburne. 

A. C. Swinburne

[v]

[v]

PREFACE

Early Editions. On 3rd April, 1592, ‘The Tragedie of Arden of Feversham and Blackwall’[A] was entered on the Stationers’ Registers to Edward White. In the same year appeared, ‘The lamentable and true Tragedie of M. Arden of Feversham in Kent. Who was most wickedlye murdered, by the meanes of his disloyall and wanton wyfe, who for the love she bare to one Mosbie, hyred two desperat ruffins, Blackwill and Shakbag, to kill him. Wherin is shewed the great mallice and discimulation of a wicked woman, the unsatiable desire of filthie lust and the shamefull end of all murderers. Imprinted at London for Edward White, dwelling at the lyttle North dore of Paules Church at the signe of the Gun. 1592.’ A second Quarto, with the same title, was printed in 1599. A third, ‘by Eliz. Allde dwelling neere Christs Church,’ appeared in 1633. The second and third Quartos are founded textually upon the first, and their variations are of no value. The text of the first Quarto is unusually good even when prose and verse are mixed together, although the printer has apparently no scientific knowledge of the nature of metre.

[A] A misprint for Blackwill.

[A]

Place of the Play in the Elizabethan Drama. Arden of Faversham is the finest extant specimen of a kind of play which[vi] has been classified as Domestic Tragedy. A picturesque or sensational murder in the sixteenth century was given to the public first in popular ballads or pamphlets, and afterwards, if sufficiently notable, in the more serious Chronicle. From the popular pamphlet, or from the Chronicle, or from both together, it found its way on to the stage. Four of these ‘murder-plays’ have come down to us, and the titles of many others. They form a minor section of the Chronicle plays or Histories. They did not attain any very striking literary development, owing perhaps to the necessary bondage of the poet to his facts. Arden of 

 Prev. P 2/173 next