[82] Unique original, pub. by Pickerynge and Hacket, 1561, in Duke of Devonshire's Libr., Chatsworth; repr. by Grosart, _Fuller Worthies Libr._, vol. IV., _Miscellanies_, 1873. [83] As _Hester and Abasuerus_, 1594. I see no reason for attributing the authorship, with Mr. Fleay, to R. Edwardes. [84] The relation of _The Taming of the Shrew_ to this play is well known. [85] _Hist. St._, p. 66. [86] Brit. Mus. c. 34, g; Collier's _Illustr. O. Engl. Lit._, II. 2; Brandl's _Quellen_. [87] Collier, _E. Dram Po._, II. 432; and Ward, _Hist. E. Dr. Lit._, I. 264. [88] _Hist. E. Dr. Lit._, I. 141. _John Heywood_ THE PLAY OF THE WETHER _and_ A MERY PLAY BETWENE JOHAN JOHAN, THE HUSBANDE TYB, HIS WIFE, &c. _Edited with Critical Essay and Notes by Alfred W. Pollard, M.A., St. John's College, Oxford_ CRITICAL ESSAY =Life.=--The first authentic record of John Heywood is one of 6 January, 1515, in Henry VIII.'s Book of Payments, which shows him to have then been one of the King's singing men, in receipt of a daily wage of eightpence. According to Bale, who must have known him, he was "civis Londinensis," the story that he was born at North Mimms, Hertfordshire, having apparently arisen from his possession of land in that neighbourhood. Tradition has sent him to Broadgates Hall, now Pembroke College, Oxford, and there is nothing improbable in this. In February, 1521, Heywood was granted by the King an annuity of ten marks, and in 1526, a quarterly payment of the same sum was made him as a "player of the virginals." He appears to have been specially attached to the retinue of the Princess Mary, a payment being made in January, 1537, to his servant for bringing her "regalles" (or hand-organ) from London to Greenwich, and Heywood himself in March, 1538, receiving forty shillings for "pleying an interlude with his children" before her. At Mary's coronation Heywood made her a Latin speech in St. Paul's Churchyard, and in November, 1558, the Queen granted him some leases in Yorkshire. On the accession of Elizabeth, Heywood, though he had steered through the reign of Edward VI. with safety, fled to Malines, and Professor Ward (in the _Dictionary of National Biography_) identifies him with the John Heywood who in 1575 wrote from Malines, "where I have been despoiled by Spanish and German soldier," thanking Burghley for ordering the payment to him of some arrears on lands at Romney, and speaking of himself as an old man of seventy-eight, which would give 1497 as his birth-year. He is mentioned in a list of refugees in 1577, but by 1587 is spoken of as "dead and gone." Earlier biographers, it should be noted, following Anthony à Wood, have placed his death in 1565.