A Jovial Crew
Textual Introduction1A Jovial Crew was first published in 1652, at the end of Brome’s lifetime; two further quartos were published in 1661 and 1684. This introduction will begin by discussing the prefatory material before the play text in the 1652 quarto and providing modernised transcriptions (the original transcriptions occur at the beginning of the quarto text on the website).PRELIMINARY MATERIAL2Brome’s address ‘To The Right Noble, Ingenious and Judicious Gentleman, Thomas Stanley, Esq.’ at the beginning of the preliminary material to the 1652 edition of A Jovial Crew is both humble and moving. He uses the figure of the beggar in various ways to express his gratitude, implore his patron’s pleasure and describe his play. Brome begins by thanking and praising Stanley:I have, long since, studied in these anti-ingenious times, to find out a man that might at once be both a judge and patron to this issue of my old age, which needs both. And my blessed stars have flung me upon you, in whom both those attributes concentre and flourish…3The extent of Stanley’s patronage is revealed by Brome’s admittance into Charterhouse Hospital on 25 March (Lady Day) of 1650.n11442 In order for this to be possible, Brome would have to fulfil certain criteria, and although, as Matthew Steggle suggests, Brome may have qualified for entry through membership of Lady Elizabeth’s Men in a 1628 warrant, it is also possible that Thomas Stanley wrote him letters of recommendation.n11443 This suggests that Brome was able to write the dedication for the 1652 printing of A Jovial Crew in response to Stanley’s letters of recommendation admitting him to Charterhouse in March 1650. If this hypothesis is correct (and since no reference is made in the 1652 quarto to Brome having died before publication) then the printing of the text must have happened before Brome’s death on 24 September 1652.n11444 The inclusion of the dedication also suggests that Brome was involved with the preparation of the text for the printing press.4Brome’s dedication to his patron figures himself as a poor beggar at Stanley’s generous gates:… though my fortune has cast me in that mould, I am poor and proud, and preserve the humour of him who could not beg for anything but great boons, such as are your kind acceptance and protection.5He apologises for not keeping up with court fashions or behaviours, but defends himself for thinking ‘as well and as honourably as the best’. Next, the play, presented as a beggar, ‘limps hither with a wooden leg to beg an alms at your hands’. Brome finishes by asking Stanley ‘to lodge these harmless beggars in the outhouses of your thoughts’, just as Oldrents houses the play’s beggars in his outbuildings. The effect is both dramatic and thought-provoking, particularly if we consider Brome writing these words in preparation for his popular play to be printed, whilst gratefully housed at Charterhouse in his old age and dependency, thanks to his patron. The lingering image is of a playwright perhaps knowing his end is nigh, requesting that his characters live on in the imaginations of his financial and theatrical patrons, both Stanley and his audience.6The full text of the dedication to Stanley is printed below:To the Right Noble, Ingenious, and Judicious Gentleman, Thomas Stanley, Esq.Sir,
I have, long since, studied in these anti-ingenious times, to find out a man that might at once be both a judge and patron to this issue of my old age, which needs both. And my blessed stars have flung me upon you, in whom both those attributes concentre and flourish; nor can I yet find a reason why I should present it to you (it being below your acceptance or censure) but only my own confidence, which had not grown to this forwardness, had it not been encouraged by your goodness. Yet we all know beggars use to flock to great men’s gates. And, though my fortune has cast me in that mould,n11445 I am poor and proud, and preserve the humour of him who could not beg for anything but great boons,n11446 such as are your kind acceptance and protection. I dare not say (as my brethren use) that I present this as a testimonial of my gratitude or recompense for your favours; for (I protest) I conceive it so far from quitting old engagements that it creates new. So that all that this play can do is but to make more work, and involves me in debts beyond a possibility of satisfaction. Sir, it were a folly in me to tell you of your worth; the world knows it enough, and are bold to say fortune and nature scarce ever clubbedn11447 so well. You know, sir, I am old,n11448 and cannot cringe nor court with the powdered and ribboned wits of our days: but, though I cannot speak so much, I can think as well and as honourably as the best. All the arguments I can use to induce you to take notice of this thing of nothing is that it had the luck to tumble last of all in the epidemicaln11449 ruin of the scene,n11450 and now limps hither with a wooden leg to beg an alms at your hands. I will wind up all with a use of exhortation, that since the times conspire to make us all beggars, let us make ourselves merry; which (if I am not mistaken) this drives at. Be pleased therefore, sir, to lodge these harmless beggars in the outhouses of your thoughts; and, among the rest, him, that in this cuckoo time,n11451 puts in for a membership, and will fill the choir of those, that ‘Duly and truly pray for you’,n11452 and is,
Sir,
Your humble servant,
Richard Brome.7In addition to Brome’s dedication to Thomas Stanley there are commendatory verses by John Hall, J.B., James Shirley, John Tatham, and Alexander Brome (no known relation of Richard). Hall, Shirley and Alexander Brome were all members of Stanley’s literary circle. Stanley and Shirley, along with Richard Brome, had all contributed to Beaumont and Fletcher’s Folio (1647); Hall and Alexander Brome also provided material for Lachrymae Musarum, a collection of poems edited by Richard Brome in 1649. Alexander Brome apparently organised the publication of Richard’s collected plays in 1653 and 1659 and wrote verses for both; Stanley also provided poems for the latter collection.n114538John Hall’s contribution to A Jovial Crew’s prefatory material praises Brome’s play above the recent attempts of ‘some itching academics’, i.e. the academic dramatists such as Aston Cokaine, John Denham, and Nathaniel Richards.n11454 Hall describes how these dramatic efforts ‘did grate the ear’ and ‘mock’d the stupid stationer’s care’, thus being unsuccessful in performance and print, with over-elaborate printing techniques ‘To make a shout before the idle show’. After referencing the printer’s skill, Hall namedrops Brome’s credentials in learning his playwriting skill under Ben Jonson: ‘you do not invade,/ But by great Jonson were made free o’th’ trade’.To Master Richard Brome, on his Play, called, A Jovial Crew: or, The Merry Beggars.Plays are instructive recreations,
Which, who would write may not expect, at once,
No, nor with every breeding, to write well.
And, though some itching academicsn11455 fell
Lately upon this task, their products were
Lame and imperfect; and did grate the ear;
So, that they mocked the stupid stationer’s care,
That both with gilt and cringesn11456 did prepare
Fine copper cuts;n11457 and gathered verses, too,
To make a shout before the idle show.
Your fate is other: you do not invade,
But by great Jonson were made free o’th’ trade.n11458
So that we must in this your labour find
Some image and fair relic of his mind.
John Hall9J. B.’s verse showers praise on Brome:To Master Richard Brome, on his comedy of A Jovial Crew: or, The Merry Beggars.Not to commend or censure thee or thine;
Nor like a bush to signify good wine;n11459
Nor yet to publish to the world, or thee,
Thou merit’st bays by wit and poetry,
Do I stand here. Though I do know there comes
A shoal, with regiments of encomiums,n11460
On all occasions, whose astronomy
Can calculate a praise to fifty-three,
And write blank copies, such as being viewed,
May serve indifferently each altitude;
And make books, like petitions, whose commands
Are not from worth, but multitude of hands;
Those will prove wit by power, and make a trade,
To force by number when they can’t persuade.
Here’s no such need: for books, like children, be
Well christened when their sureties are but three.n11461
And those, which to twelve godfathers do come,
Signify former guilt, or speedy doom.
Nor need the stationer, when all th’ wits are past,
Bring his own periwig poetry at last.
All this won’t do; for, when their labour’s done,
The reader’s ruled not by their tastes, but’s own.
And he, that for encomiasticsn11462 looks,
May find the bigger, not the better books.
So, that the most our leavers serve for, shows
Only that we’re his friends, and do suppose
’Tis good; and that is all that I shall say.
In truth I love him well, and like his play.
And if there’s any that don’t think so too,
Let them let it alone for them that do.
J. B.n1146310Shirley’s poem seems to respond directly to Brome’s request (to Stanley) that his play, its characters and himself might live on in memory, so that Brome need not fear fire. Shirley also warns that it is not university learning that produces great playwrights, but a knowledge and understanding of ‘men, and their actions too’.To his worthy friend Master Richard Brome, upon his comedy called A Jovial Crew: or, The Merry BeggarsThis comedy (ingenious friend) will raise
Itself a monument without a praise
Begged by the stationer; who, with strength of purse
And pens, takes care to make his book sell worse.n11464
And I dare calculate thy play, although
Not elevated unto fifty-two,n11465
It may grow old as time or wit; and he
That dares despise may after envy thee.
Learning, the filen11466 of poesy, may be
Fetched from the arts and university:
But he that writes a play, and good, must know
Beyond his books, men, and their actions too.
Copies of verse, that make the new menn11467 sweat,
Reach not a poem, nor the muse’s heat;
Small bavin witsn11468 and wood, may burn awhile,
And make more noise than forests on a pile,
Whose fibresn11469 shrunk, ma’ invite a piteous stream,
Not to lament, but to extinguish them.
Thy fancy’s metal, and thy strain’s much higher
Proof ’gainst their wit, and what that dreads, the fire.
James Shirley. 11John Tatham’s contribution makes direct comparison between Brome and his one-time master, Ben Jonson:To my worthy friend Master Richard Brome, on his excellent play called A Jovial Crew: or, The Merry Beggars.There is a faction, friend, in town, that cries,
‘Down with the Dagon poet, Jonson dies’;n11470
His works were too elaborate, not fit
To come within the vergen11471 or face of wit.
Beaumont and Fletcher, they say, perhaps might
Pass well for current coin in a dark night;
But Shakespeare the plebeian drillern11473 was
Foundered in’s Pericles,n11472 and must not pass.
And so, at all men fly, that have but been
Thought worthy of applause; therefore, their spleen.
Ingrateful Negro-kind, dart you your rage
Against the beams that warmed you, and the stage!
This malice shows it is unhallowed heat,
That boils your raw brains and your temples beat.
Adulterate pieces may retain the mould
Or stamp, but wantn11474 the pureness of the gold.
But the world’s mad: those jewels that were worn
In high esteem by some, laid by in scorn;
Like Indians, who their native wealth despise,
And dote on stranger’s trash and trumperies.n11475
Yet, if it be not too far spent, there is
Some hopes left us, that this, thy well-wrought piece,
May bring it cure, reduce it to its sight,
To judge th’ difference ’twixt the day and night;
Draw th’ curtain of their errors, that their sense
May be conformable to Ben’s influence;
And finding here, nature and art agree,
May swear, thou liv’st in him, and he in thee.
John Tatham.12Alexander Brome’s verses proclaim his warmth and affection for the playwright and his play, and state this in unequivocal terms:To Master Richard Brome, upon his comedy called A Jovial Crew: or, The Merry Beggars.Something I’d say, but not to praise thee, friend,
For thou thyself dost best thyself commend.
And he that with an eulogy doth come,
May to’s own wit raise an encomium,
But not to thine. Yet I’ll before thee go,
Though whiffler-liken11476 to usher in the show.
And like a quarter clock, foretell the time
Is come about for greater bells to chime.
I must not praise thy poetry nor wit,
Though both are very good; yet that’s not it.
The reader in his progress will find more
Wit in a line than I praise in a score.
I shall be read with prejudice, for each line
I write of thee, or anything that’s thine,
Be’t name or muse, will all be read of me,
As if I clawedn11477 myself by praising thee.
But though I may not praise, I hope I may
Be bold to love thee; and the world shall say
I’ve reason for’t. I love thee for thy name;
I love thee for thy merit and thy fame:
I love thee for thy neatn11478 and harmless wit,
Thy mirth that does so clean and closely hit.
Thy luck to please so well: who could go faster
At first to be the envy of thy master?n11479
I love thee for thyself, for who can choose
But like the fountain of so brisk a muse?
I love this comedy and every line
Because ’tis good, as well’s because ’tis thine.
Thou tell’st the world the life that beggars lead;
’Tis seasonable, ’twill become our trade.
’T must be our study too; for in this time
Who’ll not be innocent, since wealth’s a crime?
Thou’rt th’age’s doctor now; for since all go
To make us poor, thou mak’st us merry too.
Go on, and thrive; may all thy sportings be
Delightful unto all, as th’are to me.
May this so please t’encourage thee that more
May be made public, which thou keep’st in store.
That though we’ve lost their dress, we may be glad
To see and think on th’ happiness we had.
And thou thereby may’st make our name to shine;
’Twas royal once,n11480 but now ’twill be divine.n11481
Alexander BromeQ1 (1652)13No entries for the play are recorded in the Stationers’ Register. The first written evidence comes from the first Quarto (Q1), printed in 1652:A / JOVIALL CREW: / OR, / THE MERRY BEGGARS. / Preſented in a / COMEDIE, / AT / The Cock-pit in Drury-Lane, in / the yeer 1641. / Written by / RICHARD BROME. / Mart. Hic totus volo rideat Libellus. / [ORNAMENT] / LONDON: / Printed by J. Y. for E. D. and N. E. and are to be / ſold at the Gun in Ivy-Lane. 1652.14The Latin motto is from Martial’s Epigrams 11.15, and an approximate translation provided by Harvey Fried reads: ‘I wish this little book to laugh from end to end, and be naughtier than all my little books.’ n11482 Martial appears on many of Brome’s title pages.n1148315From the initials provided on the title page, W. W. Greg identifies the printer as James Young, son of the printer Robert Young, who had had his father’s copyrights transferred to him in July 1644.n11484 Greg further names the publishers (based on their initials and the sign of the Gun named on the title-page) as Edward Dod and Nathaniel Ekins. Plomer describes Dod as a bookseller situated at the Gun in Ivy Lane from 1646-57, where, in partnership with Nathaniel Ekins they produced several of Sir Thomas Browne’s writings.n11485 On the Agas map of London, Ivy Lane is situated to the north-west of St Paul’s Cathedral and its churchyard, a major London bookselling location.n11486 According to Plomer, Ekins is registered as trading from the sign of the Gun in St Paul’s Churchyard, 1641-60, during the period when A Jovial Crew was both performed and printed. After selling A Jovial Crew, Ekins was to have a further professional relationship with England’s itinerant community, being granted the office of licenser of Pedlars and Petty Chapmen in 1660.16The running title, which appears across the top of both pages, reads: A Jovial Crew: or,/ The merry Beggars. The Prologue (on a1r) is followed by ‘The Persons of the Play’ (a2v), before the play proper (B1r-O4r), which is concluded by the Epilogue (O4v). This edition includes preliminary material which takes up A2-A4v, followed by a1 verso and recto.17In her Regents Renaissance Drama edition (1968), Ann Haaker notes that there are ‘no unresolved confusions in the text’.n11487 The only press variant she notes is printing of L5 instead of L3 as the signature in ‘one of the Bodleian quartos’. Haaker collated the following eight copies: Harvard, Yale, Library of Congress, Huntington, Bodleian (2 copies) and British Museum (2 copies). Greg also notes that in certain copies, K3 is misprinted as Kk3 (for example in the British Library copy). Haaker records checking two British Museum copies, one of which was part of the Wise collection, collected by Thomas James Wise; his widow sold his collection (also known as ‘the Ashley Library’) to the British Museum in 1937, and it is this copy of Brome’s play which is listed by Greg as ‘Wise’. The collection, held at the British Library, is now restricted and therefore has not been consulted for this edition.18There are currently seven known copies of A Jovial Crew in UK libraries and a further nine copies in the USA, totalling sixteen extant copies of the play.UK libraries:
British Library [644.d.33] [Ashley 152] (latter from the Wise collection)
Bodleian Library, Oxford [Douce BB 708] [Mal. 180 (4)]
Dyce Collection, V&A Museum [25.A.53]
Eton College Library [1 copy]
National Library of Scotland, Edinburgh [H.28.e.9(3)]
USA libraries:
Boston Public Library, Boston, Mass. [G.3810.63]
Chapin Library, Williamstown, Mass. [Wing B4873]
University of Chicago Library, Chicago
[Special Collections, Rare Books: PR2439.B5J8 1652]
Library of Congress, Washington D.C. [PR2439.B5 J5 1652]
Folger Shakespeare Library, Washington D.C. [B4873 [cs163.04]]
Harvard College Library, Cambridge, Mass. [Houghton EC B7877 652j]
Henry E. Huntington Library, San Marino, California [Rare books 109542]
University of Texas, Austin, Texas [1 copy - no shelfmark]
Yale University Library [Beinecke Ih B787 652]
19The copy text for the Original text in this edition was the Huntington Library copy featured on EEBO.PRESENTATION OF THE TEXT20A great deal of care has gone into presenting a clear text which is a pleasure to read. The type is large (in particular when contrasted with the smaller, cramped type of the subsequent quartos). To mark act divisions, the printer adds a black line across the page and a line of white space before the italicised act heading in Latin, e.g. Actus Quintus. (M3). The printer leaves another line of white space before the entrance direction. At the beginning of Acts 1, 2 and 5 only the names of characters who are to enter are given, without ‘Enter…’, for example, ‘Clack, Martin.’. Only Act 4 is divided into scenes, of which there are two; there is no formal division between the scenes (such as the black line used to divide acts) other than announcing the second one.21Songs are presented with white space before and after to segregate them from the main body of the text and are usually printed in italics. Exit directions are right justified. Major entrance directions (i.e. of several characters) are usually surrounded by lines of white space, however when only one or two characters are entering, their entrance direction might not have any white space around it. Speech prefixes are italicised and abbreviated, and there don’t seem to be any problems with differentiating between them in abbreviated form.SUBSEQUENT QUARTOS: Q2 (1661) and Q3 (1684)22After the 1652 edition, two further quartos were published in 1661 and 1684. These will be described briefly. The title-page of the 1661 quarto (Q2) states that, since its original performance in 1641 at the Cockpit theatre, A Jovial Crew has additionally been ‘acted by his majesties servants at the New Theatre in Vere Street, 1661’. The play was ‘Printed for Henry Brome at the Gun in Ivy-Lane, 1661’, i.e. the same year as its performance, presumably after its success in revival after the inter-regnum. Plomer states that Henry Brome, a bookseller in London, had a sequence of shops in and around St Paul’s Churchyard, including the Gun in Ivy Lane, from 1660 to 1665 (a sign which he subsequently seems to have taken with him to locations at St Paul’s Churchyard and Ludgate Street). Plomer adds that ‘According to the best authorities he was in no way related to Alexander or Richard Brome, the playwrights, though he published the works of both of them, and wrote a preface to Richard Brome’s play The Queens Exchange’.23There are nine extant copies of the 1661 quarto (five in UK libraries and four in the USA):UK:
British Library [644.d.36] [162.c.16]
Bodleian Library, Oxford [Mal. 914 (1)]
Pepys Library, Magdalene College, Cambridge [Loose Plays I PL 1075 (9)]
Worcester College, Oxford [1 copy]
USA:
Folger Shakespeare Library, Washington D.C. [B4874 (cs223)]
Harvard College Library, Cambridge, Mass. [Houghton EC B7877 652jb]
Newberry Library, Chicago, Illinois
[Special Collections 4th Floor Case Y 135 .B7835]
Yale University Library, New Haven, Conn. [Beinecke Ih B787 652b]
24The 1661 quarto is also advertised among Henry Brome’s printed books in P. Ricaut, The Present State of the Ottoman Empire.25The title-page of the 1684 quarto (Q3) states that it represents the text of A Jovial Crew or, the merry beggars ‘as it is acted at the Theatre Royal’ but gives no approximate date of performance. It was printed for Joseph Hindmarsh, ‘bookseller to his royal highness at the Black Bull in Cornhill, 1684’.26There are thirteen extant copies of the 1684 quarto (three in UK libraries, nine in the USA and one in Stockholm):UK:
British Library [644.g.23]
Bodleian Library, Oxford [Vet. A3 e.86]
University Library, Cambridge
[Brett-Smith.386a - UL: Order in Rare Books Room]
USA:
University of Chicago Library, Chicago [Special Collections, Austrian Collection of Drama: PR2439.B5J8 1684]
Folger Shakespeare Library, Washington D.C. [B4875 (6.3.42)]
Harvard College Library, Cambridge, Mass. [Houghton EC B7877 652 jc]
Henry E. Huntington Library, San Marino, California [Rare books 151878]
Newberry Library, Chicago, Illinois
[Special Collections 4th Floor Case Y 135 .B78352]
University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pa.
[EC6.B7877.652j] [Furness EC6.B7888.652jc]
Princeton University, Princeton, N.J. [Rare Books (Ex) 3639.9.351.1684]
Yale University Library, New Haven, Conn. [Beinecke Ib B787 652C]
Europe:
Royal Library, Stockholm, National Library of Sweden [001615660]
27As Elizabeth Schafer’s piece on the performance history of A Jovial Crew in this edition’s Critical Introduction testifies, Brome’s play enjoyed considerable success in the years after its publication and into the twentieth-century. A lively, entertaining but thought-provoking play, it holds as much value in performance today as it did during Brome’s lifetime.
n11442 (Lady Day) of 1650.
n11443 letters of recommendation.
n11444 24 September 1652.
n11445 in that mould,
n11446 but great boons,
n11447 scarce ever clubbed
n11448 know, sir, I am old,
n11449 in the epidemical
n11450 of the scene,
n11451 this cuckoo time,
n11452 pray for you’,
n11453 the latter collection.
n11454 Denham, and Nathaniel Richards.
n11455 some itching academics
n11456 gilt and cringes
n11457 prepare Fine copper cuts;
n11458 made free o’th’ trade.
n11459 signify good wine;
n11460 regiments of encomiums,
n11461 are but three.
n11462 he, that for encomiastics
n11463 them that do. J. B.
n11464 book sell worse.
n11465 elevated unto fifty-two,
n11466 envy thee. Learning, the file
n11467 the new men
n11468 heat; Small bavin wits
n11469 a pile, Whose fibres
n11470 Dagon poet, Jonson dies’;
n11471 within the verge
n11472 the plebeian driller was Foundered in’s Pericles,
n11473 driller
n11474 mould Or stamp, but want
n11475 trash and trumperies.
n11476 thee go, Though whiffler-like
n11477 if I clawed
n11478 for thy neat
n11479 of thy master?
n11480 shine; ’Twas royal once,
n11481 ’twill be divine.
n11482 my little books.’
n11483 Brome’s title pages.
n11484 in July 1644.
n11485 Thomas Browne’s writings.
n11486 London bookselling location.
n11487 in the text’.