SOURCE: Johnson, Marilyn L. “Heywood's Favorite Types: The Good Wife.” In Images of Women in the Work of Thomas Heywood, edited by Dr. James Hogg, pp. 103-35. Salzburg, Austria: Institut für Englische Sprache und Literatur, 1974.

[In the following excerpt, Johnson discusses Heywood's representations of ideal wives in How a Man May Choose a Good Wife from a Bad and other plays.]

But if heaven will that I a
          Consort have,
O grant mee one that's pious,
          wise, and grave.

(Curtaine Lecture, p. 78)

Scattered comments about marriage and stories of wives in Heywood's prose works clearly indicate that in his view wives should be chaste, loyal, patient, and obedient. He gives a character of a good wife “according to Theophrastus” in A Curtaine Lecture. She

must bee grave abroad, gentle at home, constant to love, patient to suffer, obsequious to her neighbors, obedient to her husband. For silence and patience are the two indissoluble ties of conjugall love and piety.

(p. 143)

Also in Curtaine Lecture, Heywood extolls the honor of marriage and discusses qualities to look for in the choice of a wife.

Heywood's view is not essentially different from the ideals set forth in the marriage manuals discussed in Chapter I, except that he does seem more willing than most writers to see the woman's point of view. For instance, he points out the evils that result from some parents' preference for sons over daughters.

Others ill advised, or too selfe-opinioned by their too much dotage on the sons have cast too great a neglect upon the daughters; by which, as they lose time, so they forfeit duty, and many times chastity: for when they come to maturity of yeers, such as their fathers have no care to bestow, have a will to dispose of themselves; the event of which is for the most part disaster and penurie.

(pp. 98-99)

Many stories of women in Gunaikeion deal with married women, and in a few the woman's wifely qualities are the point of the story. Wives should exercise care for their husband's reputation. Heywood tells of one Tertia Aemilia, wife of Scipio Africanus the elder, who concealed the fact that her husband was familiar with one of her maids lest he “should have the imputation of any such lightnesse laid vpon him” (p. 136). Another Roman lady, the wife of Fulvius, was unable to keep a secret which her husband had told her. When the disastrous effects of her weakness became known she killed herself. The suicide is presented as a noble act because the wife was supposed to guard her husband's honor above all. Heywood comments that her final act is

a noble resolution in an heathen Ladie, to punish her husband's disgrace and her owne oversight with voluntarie death; and a notable example to all women that shall succeede her, to be more charie in keeping their husband's secrets.

(pp. 127-28)

These stories illustrate the wifely ideal of care for the husband's honor and also the perennial complaint of women's inability to keep secrets. Heywood alludes to this complaint in another story, where the wives wore their husband's swords, concealed, to a feast where it occurred that the men needed their weapons to defend themselves. Upon completion of the story, Heywood comments that “one thing in this historie is worthy especiall admiration, namely, Secresie, to be kept amongst so many women” (p. 148). This same story is one of several which present wives acting in various ways to show love and loyalty to their husbands. For instance, Turia (p. 136) sequestered her proscribed husband and kept him safe from exile. Hormisda's wife (p. 137) smuggled a file into his prison and enabled him to escape. The wives of the Tyrrhenians, who were captured by the Spartans, changed clothes with their husbands so that the men could escape (p. 148).

My personal favorite among these stories concerns the women of the town of Wynbergen. The city's conqueror proclaimed that the women would be allowed to leave the city carrying with them to safety “a burden of what they best liked” (p. 157). The women carried out their husbands. This so impressed the conqueror that he allowed them to return for a second burden.

These and other stories in Gunaikeion illustrate the wifely virtues which are extolled in the marriage manuals. But it is in the plays that Heywood has the fullest opportunity to show the possibilities of the good wife. In all of Heywood's plays, there are only three adulteresses: Jane Shore, Anne Frankford, and Mrs. Wincott. All of the other married women, whether they are major characters, minor characters, or merely walk-ons, are chaste and true wives. Even the adulteresses are shown to be good wives before they fall, and the quality of their repentance when they recognize the horror of their sin indicates that their crimes upset a fundamental basis of organized society which depends on solid marital relations.

The epitome of the good wife in Heywood's works is Mrs. Arthur in How a Man May Chuse a Good Wife From a Bad. This play was printed anonymously in 1602 and was so popular that it went through six more editions up to 1634.¹ The play was once ascribed to John Cooke or Joshua Cooke on the strength of an inked notation on the British Museum copy of the 1602 edition, but most critics now agree that the play is Heywood's. Fleay,² Swinbume,³ Swaen,⁴ Adams,⁵ and Baskervill⁶ are among the early proponents of Heywood's authorship. Schelling⁷ and Ward⁸ are not so sure, and Otelia Cromwell⁹ would like more external evidence. But in the definitive biography of Heywood, A. M. Clark accepts the play into Heywood's canon without even presenting the arguments for it.

The plot is as follows: Young Arthur, recently married, tires of his wife and treats her badly. He berates her, refuses to speak to her, and spends little time in her company, to the chagrin of her father and father-in-law. Mrs. Arthur remains faithful to her husband and resists the advances of Anselm. Arthur falls in love with a courtesan, Mrs. Mary, who is also pursued by a pedant, Sir Aminadab. Aminadab, jealous of Arthur's success with Mary, tries to poison himself with a sleeping potion given him in jest by Anselm's friend, Fuller. As he is about to drink it, Arthur takes it away from him and uses it to “poison” his wife at a feast to which he has invited the courtesan and at which he orders his wife to receive her rival kindly. The wife “dies” and is buried, but the heartbroken Anslem, visiting the tomb, finds her alive and takes her to his mother's house. Meanwhile, Arthur marries Mary, who refuses to please him as did his former wife. Trying to gain her love, he tells her he killed his first wife in order to be free to marry her. She betrays him to justice, but Mrs. Arthur arrives in time to save him and he repents. The play is a “pleasant conceited comedy.” The characters are well drawn, and the dialogue is clever. Old Arthur, Old Lusam, and Justice Reason are humorous old men. Aminadab, the pedant, adds to the comic effect with his illiterate Latin punning. The servant-clown, Pipkin, is an early example of Heywood's skill with that particular type of character. The two friends Anselm and Fuller contrast with Young Arthur and Young Lusam. In both cases one friend advises the other; Fuller advises Anselm on how to seduce Mrs. Arthur and Young Lusam advises Young Arthur to value his good wife at her true worth. The scenes with Mrs. Mary, Mrs. Splay, and Brabo show the depravity of courtesans and bawds in humorous fashion. Mrs. Arthur suffers as a character from the fact that she is a type—the patient wife. Her only motive for remaining true to Young Arthur through all her trials is her unassailable belief in the sanctity of marriage. However, she is somewhat too steadfast in the face of adversity to be altogether convincing as a character. Instead she is a conventional portrayal of ideal wifely virtue as set forth in domestic conduct books.

The plot of How a Man May Chuse is drawn from the Hecatommithi of Giovanni Garaldi Cinthio, Part I, deca terza, novella 5. Heywood probably used the English translation of this work which is in the sixth novel of Riche's Farewell to Military Profession (1581).¹⁰

Mrs. Arthur is definitely a Patient Griselda type, though she is made to undergo a different set of trials and though the husband's motive in placing trials on her is different. The Griselda story has been popular in English literature since Chaucer introduced it, probably because it presents man's fantasy of the perfect wife—meek, submissive, obedient, etc. Boccaccio's treatment in the Decameron (tenth day, tenth novel) and Chaucer's “Clerk's Tale” are two of the most widely known sources. An early attempt to portray Griselda on the stage in either English or Latin is the now lost Rare Patience of Chaucer's Griselda (De Griseldis Chauceriane Rara Patientia), 1546(?)-1556, by Ralph Radcliffe.¹¹ A number of Patient Griselda stories were printed around the turn of the century. There is a ballad in Deloney's Garland of Good-Will (1596), called “An excellent Ballad of a noble Marquess and Patient Grissel.” A prose narrative called “The antient True and Admirable History of Patient Grissel, a poore man's daughter in France: shewing how Maides, by her example in their good behavior, may marry rich husbands; and likewise Wives, by their patience and obedience, may gaine much glorie” was printed in 1619, but it is most likely a reprint of a much earlier work. Harbage lists two plays of Patient Griselda. One is John Phillip's Patient and Meek Grissel (1558-61).¹² The other is Chettle, Dekker, and Haughton's Patient Grissel (1600, printed in 1603). In this time of changing conditions for women, the popularity of the Patient Griselda type probably reflects the ordinary citizen's wish for things to remain as they are, or as they are presented in the marriage manuals.

The popularity of the general theme of the patient wife can also be seen in the fact that How a Man May Chuse is one of a group of plays written approximately between 1601 and 1604 in which a meek and patient wife endures all sorts of abuse from her profligate husband. Several scholars have recognized this group,¹³ among them Arthur Quinn, who lists some sixteen Elizabethan and Jacobean plays in which the patient woman-profligate man is either a major theme or an important subplot.¹⁴ Concentrating on the prodigal son theme as well as the patient wife or sweetheart, Quinn narrows down his list to five plays in which he sees some similarities. The plays are How a Man May Chuse (c. 1601-02), The London Prodigal (1603-05), The Fair Maid of Bristow (1603-04), The Wise-Woman of Hogsden (c. 1604-21), and The Miseries of Enforced Marriage (1605-06). In these plays, according to Quinn,

we have a rake and spendthrift who deserts his wife for gain or the love of a courtesan, maltreats the wife who remains faithful to him, and after he has sinned sufficiently, is taken into grace again and even rewarded.¹⁵

A later student of the prodigal son-patient wife or sweetheart theme, Robert Tumer, suggests the removal of The Miseries of Enforced Marriage and the addition of All's Well That Ends Well (1601-02), The Dutch Courtesan (1603), and Measure for Measure (1603-04) to the first four plays on Quinn's list. Turner believes that these plays should be considered as a group because the

story traces the career of a well-born young man who succumbs to lust and riotous living; usually, as the play opens, he is betrothed or married to a virtuous young lady whom he spurns for a courtesan. As the play progresses, the hero grows increasingly obstreperous in the face of the heroine's stalwart devotion to him; finally the hero's sins catch up with him, he is brought to trial in which either his life is threatened or his pride is deflated by the exposure of his follies. In this trial he is purged of his lust, sees the value of the virtuous heroine and, cleansed, rejoins her to live out his days in true love.¹⁶

The significance for our purposes is that How a Man May Chuse is one of a group of plays which constitute a trend that several dramatists observed and sought to exploit.

Of the plays in this group, The London Prodigal and The Fair Maid of Bristow are closest to How a Man May Chuse. The following list of characters¹⁷ shows the similarities among these three plays:

Type	How a Man May Chuse	Fair Maid of Bristow	London Prodigal
Father of wife	Old Lusam	Sir Godfrey	Sir Launcelot
Father of husband	Old Arthur	Sir Eustace	Old Flowerdale
Husband	Young Arthur	Vallenger	Matthew Flowerdale
Lover of wife	Anselm	Challenger	Sir Arthur and Oliver
Wife	Mrs. Arthur	Anabel	Luce
Courtesan	Mrs. Mary	Florence
Friends of husband	Young Lusam	Challenger

The plays also have some similarities in plot. The husband in The Fair Maid of Bristow prefers a courtesan and the wife saves him from execution on a false murder charge. The wife in The London Prodigal, spurned because she forfeited her dowry, remains true to the husband, works disguised as a servant to get him money, and reveals herself when others accuse her husband of murdering his wife. Obviously, The London Prodigal and The Fair Maid of Bristow copy wholesale from How a Man May Chuse.¹⁸ But Heywood's play stands out from its successors because in How a Man May Chuse the faithfulness of the wife is so strongly stressed.

In no other play besides Heywood's are there so many speeches which seem designed solely to illustrate the wife's “good wife” qualities. She has several speeches on the theme of honor and chastity and the “holy band of marriage.” When her would-be lover, Anselm, finds her alive in the grave and offers to shelter her, she replies,

So your demand may be no prejudice
To my chaste name, no wrong unto my husband,
No suit that may concern my wedlock's breach,
I yield unto it; but
To pass the bounds of modesty and chastity,
Sooner will I bequeath myself again
Unto this grave, and never part from hence,
Than taint my soul with black impurity.(19)

(1975-81)

When her father threatens to take her back into his household because of the injuries done to her by her husband, she is horrified.

Will you divorce whom God hath tied together?
Or break that knot the sacred hand of heaven
Made fast betwixt us? Have you never read,
What a great curse was laid upon his head
That breaks the holy band of marriage,
Divorcing husbands from their chosen wives?
Father, I will not leave my Arthur so;
Not all my friends can makes me prove his foe.

(491-501)

Mrs. Arthur defends her husband against detractors several times. It should be recalled that this duty of defending the husband's honor is stressed in several of the stories in Gunaikeion.²⁰ When the fathers appeal to Justice Reason for alleviation of Mrs. Arthur's troubles, she is concerned about the effect on her husband's reputation.

Fathers, you do me open violence,
To bring my name in question, and produce
This gentleman and others here to witness
My husband's shame in open audience.

(823-26)

Anselm and Fuller try to break Mrs. Arthur's faith in her husband by telling her of his frequent visits to a courtesan. She flies to her husband's defense.

Wrong not my husband's reputation so;
I neither can nor will believe you, sir.

(1177-78)

Later in the same conversation she quite sincerely states that she believes her husband frequents the courtesan's house in order to bring those therein to salvation.²¹

Heywood shows Mrs. Arthur tending to her housewifely duties in several of her appearances on stage. The scene²² which is most touching in its realism is that in which Mrs. Arthur is preparing for guests whom her husband has invited to dinner. The first thirty-five lines of that scene show Mrs. Arthur bustling busily about the preparations, overseeing every detail from floral decorations at the windows to clean aprons for the servants.²³ She takes the wifely duty of entertaining her husband's guests so seriously that she welcomes the courtesan he has brought home and even lets her sit in the wife's place at the table.²⁴

The rather large number of “good wife” speeches by Mrs. Arthur is in sharp contrast to the parallel figure in The Fair Maid of Bristow, Anabelle, who has just over one hundred lines in the whole play and does not make any statements about her duty as a wife. The wife in The London Prodigal, Luce, undergoes abuse almost as severe as Mrs. Arthur's, but she says only a few words about wifely duty.²⁵

Besides delivering good wife speeches, Mrs. Arthur also acts as a good wife should. She offers to be her husband's slave,²⁶ endures his insults,²⁷ welcomes the courtesan to her home,²⁸ spurns Anselm's love,²⁹ forgives even Young Arthur's attempted murder,³⁰ refuses to interfere with Young Arthur's affair with the courtesan,³¹ succors him when he flees the law,³² and returns from supposed death to save him from being punished for her “murder.”³³

Heywood highlights these actions of Mrs. Arthur by contrasting her with the courtesan, Mrs. Mary, and also with the former lovers of Fuller. The most deliberate contrast is with the courtesan. Mrs. Mary's original and continued motive in attracting Young Arthur is money. Her bawd, Mrs. Splay, instructs her in the proper attitude for a courtesan.

[Gold] Gilds copper noses, makes them look like gold;
Fills age's wrinkles up, and makes a face,
As old as Nestor's, look as young as Cupid's
If thou wilt arm thyself against all shifts,
Regard all men according to their gifts.

(970-76)

Once married to Young Arthur, Mrs. Mary refuses to please him. She calls him “Jacksauce,” “cuckold,” and “what-not.”³⁴ She insists on having her will in all things. She forces Young Arthur to dismiss his trusted servant. Young Arthur underscores the contrast between Mrs. Arthur and Mrs. Mary. Whenever Mrs. Mary crosses him, he says, “I had a wife would not have used me so; / But she is dead.”³⁵ In his vain attempt to gain Mrs. Mary's love, or at least her cooperation, Young Arthur reveals to her that the extent of his love can be measured by the fact that he killed his first wife in order to be free to marry Mrs. Mary. The courtesan's reaction is swift and predictable. She betrays him to the law,³⁶ and testifies against him when he is brought to trial.³⁷

This contrast between the good wife and the bad is made quite plain in both the opening and closing scenes of the play. In the opening scene, Young Lusam lists Mrs. Arthur's qualities thus:

Is she not loyal, constant, loving, chaste:
Obedient, apt to please, loath to displease:
Careful to live, chary of her good name,
And jealous of your reputation?
Is she not virtuous, wise, religious?

(35-39)

In the closing scene, Young Arthur directs the good wife to stand on one side and the bad wife to stand on the other while he advances to stage front and delivers his homily. All of the qualities he attributes to the good wife have been displayed by Mrs. Arthur.

A good wife will be careful of her fame,
Her husband's credit, and her own good name;

(2723-24)

.....                                                                                          A good wife will be still
Industrious, apt to do her husband's will;

(2727-28)

.....                                                                      A good wife will conceal
Her husband's dangers. And nothing reveal
That may procure him harm.

(2731-33)

Heywood draws a less obvious, but nonetheless revealing contrast between the behavior of Mrs. Arthur and the women that Fuller tells about when he is instructing Anselm in lovemaking. Fuller thinks a woman's “no” really means “yes,” and he is unwilling to believe that Mrs. Arthur is any different. Twice he launches into stories of his amours as encouragement to Anselm.³⁸ Finally, however, even the suave cynic about love is forced to admit that Mrs. Arthur is a paragon of virtue. He counsels Anselm to forbear.

                                                                                                              persist no more
in this extremity of frivolous love.
I see, my doctrine moves no precise ears,
But such as are profess'd inamoratos.

(1249-52)

Obviously, then, Mrs. Arthur is used as an exemplum of ideal wifely virtues as set forth in the marriage manuals. Heywood has carefully constructed her in order to make her such an exemplum. One scene³⁹ in particular shows how closely Mrs. Arthur is modeled on these ideals. First Old Lusam and Old Arthur berate Young Arthur for his behavior. Mrs. Arthur defends him.

I am his handmaid; since it is his pleasure
To use me thus, I am content therewith,
And bear his checks and crosses patiently.

(471-73)

Old Lusam threatens to take Mrs. Arthur back home. She is horrified at the idea of such a divorce. “Will you divorce …” (quoted above, p. 112). Old Lusam and Old Arthur leave, and she illustrates another wifely virtue in her words to young Lusam.

But you are welcome for my husband's sake;
His guests shall have best welcome I can make.

(519-20)

Then, in almost the next breath, she sets about illustrating proper housewifely thrift.

My husband in this humour, well I know,
Plays but the unthrift; therefore it behoves me
To be the better housewife here at home;
To save and get, whilst he doth laugh and spend:
My needle shall defray my household's charge.

(523-28)

While she is thus occupied with her work, her admirer Anselm proposes himself to her to assuage the wrongs her husband has done her. This gives her the opportunity to rebuff his advances, defend her husband, and talk about the unity of man and wife in marriage. Throughout the play Heywood makes Mrs. Arthur a pattern of virtue, the picture of the ideal wife. This scene deserves mention because the good wife qualities are so concentrated in it.

Mrs. Arthur also represents a sort of middle-class version of Dante's Beatrice, acting as a channel for God's grace. It is her good example and her fidelity as well as the reverses suffered as a result of his “marriage” to Mrs. Mary that prompt Young Arthur to reform. Mrs. Arthur thus saves him from death as well as saving his soul. Heywood is not alone in assigning this function to his patient wife. Helena is referred to as “the herb of grace” in All's Well (IV, v, 16). Luce is called a “vertuous maide, / Whom heaven hath sent to thee [Young Flowerdale] to saue thy soule” in The London Prodigal (V, i, 421-22). Anabelle in Faire Maid of Bristow and Isabella and Mariana in Measure for Measure act in similar fashion, though no specific comment is made about the fact.⁴⁰ Mrs. Arthur does not see herself as Young Arthur's redeemer: “To heaven, not me, for grace and pardon fall” (2681), and indeed she functions in this role only passively; but without her, Young Arthur would not have returned to grace.

All of the plays in the so-called “patient wife or sweetheart” group show a woman enduring the excesses of her profligate husband or lover until the very goodness of the women leads the men to repent. Mrs. Arthur stands out from the group because her good wife qualities are more strongly stressed than those of any of the other women in the group. Since How a Man May Chuse is probably the earliest play of the group, it can be said that Heywood establishes a pattern which is not equalled in any of his imitators.

The relationship of the play to the domestic conduct books can also be seen in the fact that the very title of the play is similar to three tracts published within a few years of each other. Robert Cleaver's A Godlie Forme of Household Government (1598) provides “Six rules to be observed in the choise of a good wife”; in 1607 appeared the anonymous The Court of Good Counsell. Wherein is Set downe the True rules, how a man should choose a good wife from a bad … &etc. in 1615. It is possible that these later titles indicate the popularity of the play. At the very least they show the popularity of the theme.

Middle-class citizens were concerned over ways to better their lives, over guides to proper behavior. Choice of a wife naturally posed a fundamental question in the burgher's life. Domestic conduct books and controversial tracts attack the question directly and give advice concerning choice and behavior of a good wife. Reflecting these trends, the plays dramatize similar problems.

However, it should be noticed that what Heywood does in this play is to present a good wife totally from a male point of view. Everything that she demonstrates of good wife qualities is designed to enhance the husband's comfort: loyalty, obedience, chastity, care for reputation, thrifty household management. The wife is not a person. She has no raison d'etre without reference to her husband. The virtues she displays would adorn a good slave as becomingly as a good wife and Mrs. Arthur even offers to be her husband's slave. Young Arthur is condemned for being nasty to so good a wife, but his sin of adultery is not dwelt upon. In these matters, Heywood reflects the great bulk of the marriage manuals and tracts dealing with women. The most praised virtues are passive ones and the woman has no existence apart from husband, father, or brothers. In 1638 Heywood wrote Exemplary Lives and extolled the “masculine virtue” of women who were effectively single, though some may have been married at one time. But in 1601, the young man seems to see women as pleasant and useful appendages to men. Mrs. Arthur is held up for the audience's admiration—but what they were to admire was largely her patience and submissiveness.

Heywood's Rape of Lucrece seems at first to be totally removed from How a Man May Chuse. One is domestic comedy and the other is a chronicle play based on classical history. Yet Heywood's characteristic bent shows in the way he stresses Lucrece's wifely virtues. Here he takes a story from classical history and turns the woman character into a type of the good wife who shares many qualities with Mrs. Arthur.

The play was published by Heywood in 1608 and was popular enough to go through five editions in his lifetime: 1608, 1609, undated, 1630, and 1638.⁴¹ The exact date of composition is not known. The evident imitation of Macbeth in the opening scene where Tullia incites Tarquin to murder King Servius suggests a date after 1606.⁴² However, Alan Holaday gives convincing arguments for the suggestion that this imitation results from Heywood's reworking of a play which had been written and performed at least a decade earlier.⁴³

The episode which supplies the title, Lucrece's rape, is only a portion of the play. Actually the play presents in typical Heywood chronicle history fashion the whole story of the fall of the Tarquins, from the murder of Servius Tullius and Tarquin's accession through Rome's war with Porsenna and Horatio's stand against the Etruscans at the bridge. The actions dramatized in the play may be summarized as follows: Tarquin accedes to the throne. Aruns, Sextus, and Brutus consult the oracle at Delphi concerning the fate of the Tarquins. Sextus and Aruns quarrel and Sextus goes over to the Gabines, whom he subsequently betrays as prelude to his return to Rome to be appointed leader of the Roman army. During the seige of Ardea, the men pass the time boasting of their wives. This activity leads to the rape of Lucrece. After the rape, Brutus, Lucretius, and Collatine lead a rebellion against the Tarquins. The Romans defend the city against Porsenna; Horatius defends the bridge; Scaevola burns his hand; Tarquin, Aruns, Brutus, and Sextus all lose their lives, leaving Rome and the consulship to Collatine.

The play is almost universally deplored by critics because of the inappropriate insertions of songs sung by the character Valerius. Baldwin, the play's 1824 editor, calls it “a sort of dramatic monster, in the construction of which every rule of propriety is violated, and all grace and symmetry are set at defiance.”⁴⁴ He goes on to suggest that “the author … must have produced it when in a state of inebriety.” A. W. Ward, writing in 1899, says that

among all the vagaries which the literature of the stage has in our own or in any country permitted itself, I know of none more exquisitely absurd than that of introducing into a tragedy on such a subject as that of Tarquin's crime … a novel sort of clown … distinguished by his capacity for singing all the comic songs of the day.⁴⁵

The play fares no better in later criticism. L. B. Wright calls it “that miserable play.”⁴⁶ Otelia Cromwell says “the harmony of Rape of Lucrece is jarred by the incongruous tone of the interspersed songs and low comedy.”⁴⁷ Even Heywood's biographer, Clark, says “one can only shudder at the disgusting catch sung by Valerius, Brutus, and the clown who has brought Lucrece's message to the camp.”⁴⁸

In spite of this almost universal condemnation, however, the play is not totally without merit. Baldwin, who calls the play “a sort of dramatic monster,” concedes that the play has a “considerable portion of poetry and some powerful scenes.”⁴⁹ Clark says “there are strong, dramatic scenes, the most moving interview of Sextus and Lucrece being but one of them.” He adds that Heywood shows in this work “a humanity all his own which is far removed from the commonplace.”⁵⁰ The presentation of the central episode, Sextus's hesitation before the crime, and Lucrece's reactions are especially good drama. On the whole, however, it is a third-rate play by a good, though not first-rate, playwright.

The most interesting thing about the play from the point of view of this study is the use which Heywood makes of his sources in presenting the character of Lucrece. For sources, Heywood had the immediate example of Shakespeare's poem which he obviously followed quite closely. It is difficult to speculate on one immediate source, however, since the story of Lucrece has been told by Livy, Ovid, Gower, Chaucer, Painter, and Shakespeare, as well as Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Diodorus Siculus, Plutarch, Valerius Maximus, Hieronymus, Servius, and Florus.⁵¹ T. W. Baldwin believes that “certainly Ovid and Livy (with Painter) were Shakespeare's chief sources for the story of Lucrece.”⁵² Heywood would have had access to the same sources, but Holaday believes that Heywood relied wholly on Shakespeare's Rape of Lucrece for the central episode and on Livy for the surrounding history. He says Heywood chose “to lift his plot almost entirely from Livy, inserting at the proper place his dramatized version of Shakespeare's poem.”⁵³

The story is told by a long line of writers; and each writer chooses different points to emphasize. The downfall of the Tarquins and Brutus's rise to power are focused on by Livy, Painter, and to a lesser degree Ovid. Chaucer and Shakespeare, on the other hand, devote relatively more attention to Lucrece's chastity and her degradation. Heywood tells the whole story and the majority of scenes depict the Tarquin's activity, but he names the play after the episode of Lucrece and in this episode he follows Shakespeare very closely in setting, plot, characterization, and even bits of dialogue. When Sextus enters Lucrece's bedroom, Ovid, Livy, and Chaucer have him simply identify himself as Tarquin's son. Shakespeare's Sextus says “this night I must enjoy thee” (512).⁵⁴ Heywood's Sextus identifies himself as “Tarquin and thy friend, and must enjoy thee” (1974).⁵⁵ The Lucrece of Ovid, Livy, and Chaucer do not speak in reply, but Shakespeare's and Heywood's Lucreces resist with speeches which stress the pitiable state Lucrece is in and the irretrievability of the loss of honor. Shakespeare has Lucrece beg Sextus to desist in these words: “Mar not the thing that cannot be amended” (578). Heywood's Lucrece says:

                                                                                                    marre not that
Cannot be made againe: this once defilde,
Not all the Ocean waves can purifie
Or wash my staine away: you seeke to soyle
That which the radiant splendor of the Sunne
Cannot make bright again: behold my teares,
Oh think them pearled drops, distilled from the heart
Of soule-chaste Lucrece.

(2025-32)

Shakespeare's Lucrece hopes that her tears will

                                                                                                    like a troubled ocean,
Beat at thy rocky and wreck-threatening heart,
To soften it with their continual motion.

(589-91)

In both versions the tears have the opposite effect. Heywood's Sextus says

                    those moist teares contending with my fire,
Quench not my heat, but make it clime much higher.

(2052-53)

Shakespeare's Sextus says

                                                  my uncontrolled tide
Turns not, but swells the higher by this let.

(645-46)

His threat to blacken Lucrece's name by killing her and a servant and placing the bodies together on her bed occurs in all versions. The similar language in Heywood and Shakespeare, however, shows that Heywood was following Shakespeare.

That done, despitefully I mean to bear thee
Unto the base bed of some rascal groom,
To be thy partner in this shameful doom.

(Shakespeare, 670-72)

                                                                      That done, straight murder
One of thy basest Groomes, and lay you both
Graspt arme in arme, on thy adulterate bed.

(Heywood, 2012-14)

Heywood adds one note here. His Sextus says that Collatine will hate Lucrece in death (2018-19).

After the rape, Lucrece summons her father, husband, and friends to tell them what has occurred, to ask for revenge in some versions, and to kill herself. Only Shakespeare concentrates on Lucrece's state of mind and feelings between the rape and the arrival of her family. Other versions simply say that she sent for her husband and father. Shakespeare shows Lucrece giving the message to her groom, who blushes because he perceives her to be in some distress. She fancies that he can read the rape on her face, and blushes some more.⁵⁶ Heywood copies this scene, only changing the groom for the maid. In all versions, the gathered family and friends insist that Lucrece is blameless, but she kills herself in order to put an end to her miserable predicament and to save her reputation.

This kind of close imitation suggests that the dramatist is unable or unwilling to create on his own. However, Heywood does add to the account he found in Shakespeare. Most of his additions are from Livy, but he adds some details of his own invention. The conversation about wives among the men encamped before Ardea is mentioned in all versions. In all versions it is Collatine who precipitates the ride to Rome to test the wives. But only in Heywood's version is there an explicit wager with “a rich horse and armour” (1518) as the stake, and the only bachelor in the group, Sextus, as the judge. Heywood's making Sextus the judge is a nice touch of irony. Exactly what specific virtues the men are testing is not clear in all sources. Ovid mentions “the loyalty of the marriage bed.”⁵⁷ Livy's Collatine merely insists that his wife excells the rest, but no specific quality is named.⁵⁸ Chaucer's Collatine says that his wife “Is holden good of alle that evere hire knowe.”⁵⁹ Shakespeare's Argument states that Collatine “extolled the incomparable chastity of his wife Lucretia,” and the men post to Rome “to make trial of that which every one had before avouched” (p. 65). Heywood presents the wager in more detail. Collatine says:

She of them all that we find best imployed,
Devoted, and most huswife exercisd,
Let her be held most vertuous.

(1515-17)

Thrifty housewifery, that important ideal in middle class marriage manuals, is the virtue in which Heywood's Lucrece excells. Like Mrs. Arthur, Heywood's Lucrece performs all the duties of the good wife and gives several speeches which seem designed to exemplify the ideals in the marriage manuals. Heywood is the only author to mention housewifely exercise as a virtue to be tested by the absent husbands. He no doubt derived the hint from the fact that all sources mention Lucrece spinning among her maids when Collatine and the wagering lords appear. But only Heywood takes this aspect of Lucrece's virtues and enlarges it until Lucrece is made a model of the good housewife. Her speeches do nothing to contribute to the action of the play. They seem designed solely for the purpose of portraying Lucrece as an ideal wife.

Neither Ovid, Livy, Chaucer, nor Shakespeare mentions Lucrece prior to the wager. Heywood develops the good wife aspect of her character by having her appear in one scene before the wager which leads to her rape. Neither this scene nor anything like it occurs in any other version of the story. Lucrece summons the clown, Pompey, and the maid, Mirable, in order to reprimand them for

                    casting amorous glances, wanton lookes,
And privy becks favoring incontinence.

(1090-91)

She will allow

                                                                                                    no lascivious phrase,
Suspitious looke, or shadow of incontinence,
Be entertain'd by any that attend,
On Roman Lucrece.

(1102-04)

Her reason for this strictness is because

                                                                                                              my reputation
Which is held precious in the eies of Rome,
Shall be no shelter to the least intent
Of loosenesse.

(1110-13)

The function of this scene is to establish Lucrece's individual characteristics. She illustrates two good wifely virtues here: concern for her reputation and the proper management of servants.

In all versions Lucrece sits spinning among her maids when the wagering lords arrive. Heywood takes this opportunity to give Lucrece one of her good wife speeches about the importance of guiding domestic business and eschewing reveling while the husband is gone.

                                                                                                                                            for it fits
Good huswives, when their husbands are from home,
To eye their servants labours, and in care
And the true manage of his household state,
Earliest to rise, and to be up most late.
Since all his business he commits to me,
Ile be his faithfull steward til the Camp
Dissolve, and he return, thus wives should do.
In absence of their Lords be husbands too.

(1545-53)

One maid mentions an invitation to dine out which Lucrece had received, which gives her the opportunity to present another good wife maxim:

Wives should not stray
Out of their doors their Husbands being away.

(1564-65)

Lucrece's welcome to her husband and to his guests illustrates proper and gracious wifely behavior, and not surprisingly she wins the wager for Collatine. After they leave she again speaks, this time musing to herself, on good wifely duty.

Husbands and Kings must alwayes be obaid.

(1697)

I must goe take account among my servants
Of their dayes taske, we must not cherish sloth,
No covetous thought makes me thus provident,
But to shun idlenesse, which wise men say,
Begets ranks lust, and vertue beates away.

(1700-04)

So Heywood takes the hint from his sources—Lucrece spinning among her maids—and embroiders it, making Lucrece a model of the good wife. His other additions also move in this direction. None of the sources makes much of the time between Sextus's arrival at the house and his sneaking into Lucrece's bedroom. Ovid and Livy mention that he was entertained as a guest. Chaucer has him arrive and sneak directly to the bedroom. Shakespeare also has him at dinner with Lucrece. Heywood adds several touches to this dinner scene, all designed to emphasize Lucrece's good wife qualities. One such touch is Collatine's ring which Sextus uses to gain entrance to the house. Lucrece twice mentions that without such a token no man would be allowed to visit her (1789 and 1861). The irony of the fact that it was Collatine's wager that set in motion events leading to the rape is also increased by this added touch of the ring. Thus Sextus is shown betraying his friend's trust as well as betraying Lucrece's innocent hospitality, but Collatine's boasting about Lucrece is a major contributing cause of the crime. There is something nasty about men wagering on their wives' honesty—as though they were hawks or horses. Shakespeare seems to have recognized this nastiness when he has Bianca say to Lucentio, “The more fool you, for laying on my duty.”⁶⁰

When Sextus urges Lucrece to drink some wine, she delivers another of her prim little good wife speeches.

Methinks 'twould ill become the modestie
Of any Roman Lady to carouse,
And drowne her vertues in the juice of grapes.
How can I shew my love unto my husband
To do his wife such wrong? by too much wine
I might neglect the charge of this great house
Left soly to my keepe, else my example
Might in my servants breed encouragement
So to offend, both which were pardonlesse.

(1829-37)

By lengthening the scene of Sextus at dinner with Lucrece before the rape, Heywood accomplishes two purposes. One is the opportunity it gives for Lucrece to emphasize her good wife qualities. The other is that the horror of the crime is dramatically increased by this emphasis on Lucrece's chastity and her trusting hospitality towards Sextus. Sextus's cold criminality is markedly contrasted with the warm, trusting innocence of Lucrece, thus emphasizing the horror of the forthcoming rape. Sextus was monstrous enough in the other versions because he betrayed the wife of his kinsman and friend; but Heywood's Sextus betrays a woman who is so careful of her reputation, so conscientious in her wifely duty, so trustingly hospitable, that the villainy is doubly blackened. Heywood's purpose in thus emphasizing the horror of the crime is to increase the plausability of the motivation he gives for the subsequent action. The war on the Tarquins is made specifically for the purpose of avenging this crime. Brutus swears that her knife

Shall not from Brutus till some strange revenge
Fall on the heads of Tarquins.

(2501-02)

Later during the various battles in the war with the Tarquins, Brutus calls on her memory several times.⁶¹ Mutius Scaevola accepts life from Porsenna solely, he says, for the sake of avenging Lucrece.

                                                                                he gave me life
Which I had then refus'd, but in desire
To venge faire Lucrece Rape.

(2784-86)

When Sextus challenges the Romans to single combat, they vie for the honor of avenging Lucrece.⁶² Heywood thus makes the central episode of Lucrece's rape serve as a unifying element in the loose chronicle history series of events, and ties the downfall of the Tarquins to this one act.

Heywood patches together a chronicle history play which capitalizes on the popularity of Shakespeare's poem, The Rape of Lucrece (and at the same time echoes Shakespeare's plays: Macbeth and Julius Caesar—Brutus is “honorable”). His own inventions include the songs, the lengthening of the dinner scene before the rape, and Lucrece's good wife speeches. The insertion of the songs is almost universally deplored. The dinner scene, however, increases the dramatic effectiveness of the rape and the consequent action. Finally, Lucrece's good wife speeches might help the play by showing just how important Lucrece's wifely qualities are to her self-image and thus increasing the horror of the rape. But the speeches are so prim, so artificial (mostly in rhyme), so obviously a dramatized version of the marriage manuals, that they make Lucrece a flat character.

Only Mrs. Arthur and Lucrece are obviously models of the good wife. But most of the wives in Heywood's plays are chaste and true. Queen Isabella in A Challenge for Beauty brags that she would contest her virtue with any princess in the world. Anne Harding and Susan Forrest Harding, both of Fortune by Land and Sea, are good wives who do what they must: Susan becomes a servant in order to help and stand by her husband; Anne tries to moderate her husband's unreasonable behavior towards his son. The lady d'Auvergne, who appears in The Captives and Gunaikeion, is an example of Heywood's altering of his sources in order to present the good wife in a most favorable light.

The Captives, or the Lost Recovered (1624) was discovered in manuscript in 1885. It can be assigned to Heywood on both internal and external evidence, even though no name appears on the manuscript.⁶³ The play has a main plot and a subplot, from separate sources. The action of the main plot concerns two chaste and fair girls who escape by shipwreck from the control of a bawd, Mildew, and are helped by John Ashburne, a displaced English merchant, who is discovered to be the father and uncle of the two girls, who were kidnapped in infancy. In the subplot, the Lord of Auvergne kills a friar who lusted after the Lady, and disposes of the body so that it appears that the friar's enemy, Friar Richard, did the deed, but the Lord confesses in time to save the friar from hanging. The only connection between the two plots is that the two girls receive temporary succor in the monastery after the shipwreck.

It is Heywood's treatment of the subplot which is more relevant to our purposes than the main plot, in which he faithfully parallels the original, Plautus's comedy Rudens, with few alterations. The subplot appears under a different title as one of the stories in Gunaikeion. We thus have the opportunity to compare two of Heywood's treatments of the same plot with its source or sources. Kittredge mentions several versions of an Old French fabliau and its corresponding English versions, but Emil Koeppel points to an Italian novella of Masuccio do Salerno in 1476, to which Heywood's versions conform in more details.⁶⁴ The character of the Lady is somewhat different in all versions. In the English fabliau, “The Mery Jest of Dane Hew, Munk of Leister,” alluded to by Kittredge, the monk lusts after the wife of a tailor. She finally offers to receive him while her husband is out of town on condition that he pay her twenty nobles. When he arrives with the money, the husband kills him and sets in motion the plot to obscure the deed. The wife is not mentioned any more as the plot proceeds, so what we have is a wife who, while unwilling to close with the monk's passion, is willing to trick him for money. In the Italian version the friar lusts after the wife of one of the leading gentlemen of the city. This woman is at first flattered by the praise of her beauty and its effects, but she dislikes friars, and does not encourage him. His attempts to gain her sympathy become so importunate that she begins to fear for her reputation, and so reveals the whole matter to her husband, who then orders her to invite the friar to visit her. He kills the friar and sets in motion the plot to obscure the deed. Again the woman drops out of the story.

In neither case does the woman respond to the friar's lust. In fact, both the women ultimately do what good wives ought, that is to tell their husbands and obey them in further workings of the plot to entice the monks to death. However, neither of these women can be considered a model for virtuous women, as both allow the matter to continue for some time before telling their husbands, the one motivated by greed, the other by vanity.

Heywood follows the Italian plot in so many details that his departure in the characterization of the woman is the more significant. Heywood's first use of the story occurs in Gunaikeion, where it is called “the faire Lady of Norwich.” This lady shows none of the less pleasant aspects of her predecessors. She instantly shows the friar's letter to her husband “least her honour should be any way called in question,” then, like her predecessors, obeys him in enticing the monk to the house. In the play, Heywood further refines the character of the wife. Here, as in Gunaikeion, she is annoyed instead of pleased by the friar's letter.

what might [this] sawcy ffellowe spy in mee
to Incorradge such a boldnes.
                                                                                                                        sylly ffryar,
madnes or ffolly, one off these t'must bee.

(1270-71, 1280-81)⁶⁵

She shows her husband the letter at once instead of allowing the matter to ride as did the women in the sources. Also here, as in Gunaikeion, the woman is presented as being deeply concerned at the possibility that her husband might want to kill the friar: “patiens syr the ffellowe suer is madd” (1333). The lord is so angry that he threatens to demolish the monastery. She tries to temper his anger

ffor my sake syr do-not ffor one mans error,
destroy a woorke off perpetuity
by wch your name shall lyve.

(1352-54)

When he persists in his anger and plans to revenge himself on the friar, she, like a good wife, dutifully obeys him as he sets in motion his plans. She writes the letter as he commands, but she continues to try to temper his anger.

All shall bee'
as you Instruct[s] but punishe syr wth pitty
putt him to payne or shame, but deathe alas.
is too seveare example.

(1422-25)

The women in Gunaikeion and The Captives are nicer, more likeable, more conspicuously virtuous than the women in the sources. One further refinement occurs in the play. In all the narratives, including Heywood's, the woman is not mentioned again after she obeys her husband concerning inviting the friar to visit her. But in the play, Heywood shows her concerned about her husband's sudden change of mood following the murder. She asks him why he is so restless at night. He curtly replies “you dogg mee Lady / lyke an Ill genius:” (2469-70). She answers “you weare woont to call mee / your better angell” (1471-72). Then, demonstrating her function as her husband's better angel, she goes to the king and obtains a pardon for her husband. Thus she reappears in the last scene of the play as the agent of mercy, having performed her wifely duty of defending her husband's honor.

Heywood, then, has two opportunities to tell the story. In both the narrative and the drama, he improves on the character of the woman, adding the ultimate touch in the play. What he has done, then, has been to take a slightly unsavory, though in the main dutiful woman, and refine her characterization until she becomes in the final version a perfect model of a chaste and true wife.

The remainder of the wives in Heywood's plays are a various lot, ranging from the noble Catelina in Dick of Devonshire to the vicious Tullia in Rape of Lucrece, and including minor characters who come on stage for only a few lines. The point to be noted about the type is that Heywood seems to believe that wives are usually good; that in the normal order of things wives are chaste and true, a genuine “help meet” for their husbands; while as though deliberately dramatizing the conduct books, he presents a few good wives who serve as specific exempla of the ideal.

Notes

1. Water W. Greg, A List of English Plays Written Before 1643 and Printed Before 1700 (London, 1900), p. 13.

2. Fleay, I, 289-90.

3. Swinburne, p. 247.

4. A. E. H. Swaen, ed., How a Man May Chuse a Good Wife From a Bad. Materialien zur Kunde des alteren Englishen Dramas (Louvain, 1912), p. vii.

5. Joseph Q. Adams, “Thomas Heywood and How …,” Englische Studien, XLV (1912), 43.

6. Charles R. Baskervill, “Source and Analogues of How …,” PMLA, XXIV (December 1909), 711-30.

7. Schelling, I, 331.

8. Ward, II, 608.

9. Cromwell, p. 200.

10. Baskervill, pp. 711-12, and Swaen, pp. xiv-xv.

11. Harbage, Annals of English Drama, 975-1700 (London, 1964), p. 30.

12. Annals, p. 34.

13. See Mary Hyde, pp. 38-46; Frank H. Ristine, English Tragicomedy: Its Origin and History (New York, 1910), pp. 97-98; Schelling, I, 330-34; and Baskervill, pp. 717-27.

14. The Fair Maid of Bristow (Philadelphia, 1902), p. 25. The list includes Patient Grissel, The Shoemaker's Holiday, The Wisdom of Dr. Doddipoll, How a Man May Chuse, The Wise-Woman of Hogsden, Othello, Measure for Measure, The London Prodigal, The Miseries of Enforced Marriage, The Yorkshire Tragedy, A Winter's Tale, The White Devil, The Duchess of Malfi, II The Honest Whore, The Fair Maid of the West, and Match Me in London.

15. Quinn, p. 27.

16. Robert Y. Turner, “Dramatic Conventions in All's Well …,” PMLA, LXXV (December 1960), 497-502.

17. Distilled from Quinn, p. 29.

18. See Baskervill, pp. 718-25.

19. All line references given in the text are from the Swaen edition.

20. Cf. p. 104, above.

21. See also 468-73 and 1964-67.

22. The scene runs from 1470 to 1857.

23. See also 165ff, 220ff, 244ff, and 523ff.

24. The courtesan is embarrassed by the wife's submission in this matter. Swaen calls this “one touch of true human kindness in his [Heywood's] best manner” (p. xiiin) and cites it as among the minor supporting evidence of Heywood's authorship.

25. III, iii, p. 231 of W. C. Hazlitt's ed. of Doubtful Plays of Shakespeare (London, n.d.).

26. 255ff.

27. 244ff. and 468ff.

28. 1570-87.

29. 606-16, 1221-40, and 1973-81.

30. 1964-67.

31. 2162-68.

32. 2428-43.

33. 2654-66.

34. 2187.

35. 2186 and 2192-93.

36. 2307-15.

37. 2570-71.

38. 392-417 and 1132-64.

39. The scene runs from 425-628.

40. See Michael H. Leonard, “A Critical Edition of Thomas Heywood's Wise-Woman of Hogsden” (Diss. University of Southern California, 1967), pp. 84-87, for a broader discussion of this convention.

41. Old English Drama, I (London, 1825), preface to Rape of Lucrece, iii.

42. Clark, p. 47.

43. Alan Holaday, ed., Rape of Lucrece (Urbana, 1950), pp. 5-19.

44. Old English Drama, I, iii.

45. Ward, II, 581.

46. Wright, p. 643.

47. Cromwell, p. 117.

48. Clark, p. 219.

49. Old English Drama, I, iii.

50. Clark, p. 221.

51. Hans Galinski, Der Lucretia-Stoff in der Weltliteratur (Breslau, 1932), passim.

52. Thomas W. Baldwin, On the Literary Genetics of Shakespeare's Poems and Sonnets (Urbana, 1950), p. 153.

53. Holaday, p. 20.

54. William Shakespeare, The Poems, ed. F. T. Prince (Arden Edition, Cambridge, 1960), pp. 64-149. All line references are to this edition.

55. Line references are to Holaday's edition.

56. Shakespeare probably found the blush in Ovid.

57. Arden Edition, p. 199, 1. 730.

58. Arden Edition, p. 193.

59. Legend of Good Women, 1. 1709. The Works of Geoffrey Chaucer, ed. F. N. Robinson (Boston, 1957).

60. Taming of the Shrew, V, ii, 129. Shakespeare: The Major Plays, ed. G. B. Harrison (New York, 1948).

61. 2612, 2794-95, and 2953.

62. 2888-2950.

63. A. C. Judson, ed., The Captives (New Haven, 1921), p. 9.

64. Archiv für das Studium der Neueren Sprachen und Literaturen 97 (1896), 323-29. Cited by Judson, p. 17.

65. The Captives, ed. Arthur Brown (Oxford, 1953). All my citations are from this edition.

List of Works Consulted

Adams, Joseph Q. “Thomas Heywood and How a Man May Chuse a Good Wife From a Bad.” Englische Studien, XCV (1912), 30-44.

Baldwin, Thomas Whitfield. On The Literary Genetics of Shakespeare's Poems and Sonnets. Urbana, 1950.

Baskervill, Charles R. “Sources and Analogues of How a Man May Chuse a Good Wife From a Bad.” PMLA, XXIV (Dec. 1909), 711-30.

Clark, Arthur Melville. A Bibliography of Thomas Heywood. Oxford, 1925.

———. Thomas Heywood, Playwright and Miscellanist. Oxford, 1931.

Cromwell, Otelia. Thomas Heywood: A Study in the Elizabethan Drama of Every Day. New Haven, 1928.

Fleay, Frederick Gard. Biographical Chronicle of the English Drama. 2 vols. London, 1891.

Galinsky, Hans. Der Lucretia-Stoff in der Weltlïteratur. Breslau, 1932.

Greg, Walter Wilson. A List of English Plays Written Before 1643 and Printed Before 1700. London, 1900.

Harbage, Alfred. Annals of English Drama, 975-1700. London, 1964.

Hazlitt, William, ed. Doubtful Plays of Shakespeare. London, n.d.

Heywood, Thomas. The Captives. Ed. Arthur Brown. Oxford, 1953.

———. The Captives: Or, The Lost Recovered. Ed. Alexander C. Judson. New Haven, 1921.

———. A Curtaine Lecture. London, 1638.

———. Dick of Devonshire. Ed. W. W. Greg. Oxford, 1955.

———. How a Man May Chuse a Good Wife From a Bad. Ed. Adrian E. Hugo Swaen. Louvain, 1912.

———. The Rape of Lucrece. Ed. Charles Baldwyn. In The Old English Drama. 2 vols. London, 1825.

———. Rape of Lucrece. Ed. Allan Holaday. Urbana, 1950.

Hyde, Mary. Playwriting for Elizabethans, 1600-1605. New York, 1949.

Kittredge, George Lyman. “A Note on The Captives.” JGP, 2 (1898), 13.

Koeppel, Emil. Archiv für das Studium der Neueren Sprachen und Literaturen, 97 (1896), 323-29.

Leonard, Michael H. “A Critical Edition of Thomas Heywood's Wise-Woman of Hogsden.” Diss. Univ. Southern California, 1967.

Quinn, Arthur Hobson, ed. The Fair Maid of Bristow. Philadelphia, 1902.

Ristine, Frank Humphrey. English Tragicomedy: Its Origin and History. New York, 1910.

Schelling, Felix Emmanuel. Elizabethan Drama, 1558-1642. 2 vols. London, 1908.

Shakespeare, William. Shakespeare: The Major Plays. Ed. G. B. Harrison. New York, 1948.

Swinburne, Algernon C. The Age of Shakespeare. London, 1908.

Turner, Robert K. “Dramatic Conventions in All's Well That Ends Well.” PMLA, LXXV (Dec. 1960), 497-502.

Ward, Adolphus William. A History of English Dramatic Literature to the Death of Queen Anne. 2 vols. London, 1875.

Wright, Louis B. “Heywood and the Popularizing of History.” MLN, XLIII (1928), 287-93.

———. Middle Class Culture in Elizabethan England. Chapel Hill, 1935.