Kemps Nine Daies Wonder: Performed In A Daunce From London To Norwich

KEMPS NINE DALES WONDER PERFORMED IN A DAU IT LONDON TO NORWICH. l WITH AN INTRODUCTION AND NOTES THE REV. ALEXANDER DYCE. -- 1839. -- INTRODUCTION. - WILLIAM KEMP was a comic actor of high reputation. Like Tarlton, whom he succeeded as we1 in the fauour of her Maiesty as in the opinion and good thoughts of the generall audience, he usually played the Clown, and was greatly applauded for his buffoonery, his extemporal wit, and his performance of the Jig. Heywoods Apology for Actors, Sig. E 2, 1612,4to.-Tarlton died in Sept. 1588. A tract by Nash, entitled An Almond for a Parral, n. d. but published about 1589, is dedicated To that most Comical1 andzconceited Caualeire Monsieur clu Kempe, Jestmonger and Vice-gerent generall to the Ghost of Dicke Tarlton. t Letay.-But you, Sir, are incorrigible, and Take licence to yourselfe to adde unto Your parts your owne free fancy and sometimes To alter or diminish what the writer With care and skill composd and when you are To speake to your coactors in the Scene, You hold interloquutions with the Audients, Byplay.-That is a way, my Lord, has bin allowd On elder stages to move mirth and laughter. Letoy.-Yes, in the dayes of Tarlton and Kempe, Before the stage was purgld from barbarisme, And brought to the perfection it now shines with Then fooles and jesters spent their wits, because The Poets were wise enough to save their owne For profitabler ues.-Bromes Antodee, 1640, Act ii. sc. 1, Sig. D. 3. The passage on this subject in Hamlet, Act iii. sc. 2, must Ee familiar to every reader. The term Jig will be afterwards explained. That at one time, -perhaps from about 1589 to 1593 or later-he belonged to a Company under the management of the celebratedEdward Alleyn, is proved by the title- page of a drama which will be afterwards cited. At a subsequent period he was a member of the Company called the Lord Chamberlains Servants, who played during summer at the Globe, and during winter at the Blackfriars In 1596, while the bst-mentioned house was undergoing considerable repair and enlargement, a petition was pre- sented to the Privy Council by the principal inhabitants of the liberty, praying that the work might proceed no further, and that theatrical exhibitions might be abolished in that district. A counter petition, which appears to have been successful, was presented by the Lord Cham- berlains Servants and, at its commencement, the names of the chief petitioners are thus arranged -Thornas Pope, Richard Burbadge, John Hemings, Augustine Phillips, William Shakespeare, William Kempe, William Slye, and Nicholas Too1ey.T When Romeo and Juliet and Much ado about Nothing were originally brought upon the stage, Kemp acted Peter and Dogberry and it has been supposed thbt in A Knack to know a Knaue.-AUeyn was concerned in several theatres the Com- pany mentioned above seems to have acted at the Rose. 1. colliers Hist. of Ettgl. Dram. Poet. i. 297, 298. In the second 4to. of the former play, 1599, and in the only 4to. of the latter, 1600, Kemnp is prefixed to some speeches of Peter and Dogberry...............