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  THE FATAL DOWRY

  BY

  PHILIP MASSINGER AND
  NATHANIEL FIELD

  EDITED, FROM THE ORIGINAL QUARTO,
  WITH INTRODUCTION AND NOTES

  A DISSERTATION

  PRESENTED TO THE
  FACULTY OF PRINCETON UNIVERSITY
  IN CANDIDACY FOR THE DEGREE
  OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY

  BY
  CHARLES LACY LOCKERT, JR.

  ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF ENGLISH, KENYON COLLEGE

  PRESS OF
  THE NEW ERA PRINTING COMPANY
  LANCASTER, PA.

  1918

  Accepted by the Department of English, June, 1916




PREFACE


This critical edition of _The Fatal Dowry_ was undertaken as a Thesis
in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Ph.D. at
Princeton University. It was compiled under the guidance and direction
of Professor T. M. Parrott of that institution, and every page of
it is indebted to him for suggestion, advice, and criticism. I can
but inadequately indicate the scope of his painstaking and scholarly
supervision, and can even less adequately express my appreciation of
his ever-patient aid, which alone made this work possible.

I desire also to acknowledge my debt to Professor J. Duncan Spaeth
of Princeton University, for his valuable suggestions in regard to
the presentation of my material, notably in the Introduction; also to
Professor T. W. Baldwin of Muskingum College and Mr. Henry Bowman,
both of them then fellow graduate students of mine at Princeton, for
assistance on several occasions in matters of special inquiry; and to
Dr. M. W. Tyler of the Princeton Department of History for directing me
in clearing up a lego-historical point; and finally to the libraries of
Yale and Columbia Universities for their kind loan of needed books.




INTRODUCTION


In the Stationer's Register the following entry is recorded under the
date of "30th Martij 1632:"

  CONSTABLE Entred for his copy vnder the hands of Sir HENRY HERBERT
    and master _SMITHWICKE_ warden a Tragedy called _the ffatall
    Dowry_.    Vj d.

In the year 1632 was published a quarto volume whose title-page was
inscribed: _The Fatall Dowry_: a Tragedy: As it hath been often Acted
at the Private House in Blackfriars, by his Majesties Servants.
Written by P. M. and N. F. London, Printed by John Norton, for Francis
Constable, and are to be sold at his shop at the Crane, in Pauls
Churchyard. 1632.

That the initials by which the authors are designated stand for Philip
Massinger and Nathaniel Field is undoubted.


LATER TEXTS

There is no other seventeenth century edition of _The Fatal Dowry_. It
was included in various subsequent collections, as follows:

I. _The Works of Philip Massinger_--edited by Thomas Coxeter,
1759--re-issued in 1761, with an introduction by T. Davies.

II. _The Dramatic Works of Philip Massinger_--edited by John Monck
Mason, 1779.

III. _The Plays of Philip Massinger_--edited by William Gifford, 1805.
There was a revised second edition in 1813, which is still regarded as
the Standard Massinger Text, and was followed in subsequent editions of
Gifford.

IV. _Modern British Drama_--edited by Sir Walter Scott, 1811. The text
of this reprint of _The Fatal Dowry_ is Gifford's.

V. _Dramatic Works of Massinger and Ford_--edited by Hartley Coleridge,
1840 (_et seq._). This follows the text of Gifford.

VI. _The Plays of Philip Massinger._ From the Text of William Gifford.
With the Addition of the Tragedy Believe as You List. Edited by Francis
Cunningham, 1867 (_et seq._). The Fatal Dowry in this edition, as in
the preceding, is a mere reprint of the Second Edition of Gifford.

VII. _Philip Massinger._ Selected Plays. (Mermaid Series.) Edited by
Arthur Symons, 1887-9 (_et seq._).

In addition to the above, _The Fatal Dowry_ appeared in _The Plays of
Philip Massinger_, adapted for family reading and the use of young
persons, by the omission of objectionable passages,--edited by Harness,
1830-1; and another expurgated version was printed in the _Mirror of
Taste and Dramatic Censor_, 1810. Both of these are based on the text
of Gifford.

The edition of Coxeter is closest of all to the Quarto, following even
many of its most palpable mistakes, and adding some blunders on its
own account. Mason accepts practically all of Coxeter's corrections,
and supplies a great many more variants himself, not all of which are
very happy. Both these eighteenth century editors continually contract
for the