THE FATAL JEALOUSIE (1673) ***
Produced by Louise Hope, David Starner and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
Series Five: _Drama_ No. 2
Henry Nevil Payne, _The Fatal Jealousie_ (1673)
With an Introduction by Willard Thorp
The Augustan Reprint Society November, 1948 _Price One Dollar_
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_GENERAL EDITORS_
RICHARD C. BOYS, _University of Michigan_ EDWARD NILES HOOKER, _University of California, Los Angeles_ H.T. SWEDENBERG, JR., _University of California, Los Angeles_
_ASSISTANT EDITOR_
W. EARL BRITTON, _University of Michigan_
_ADVISORY EDITORS_
EMMETT L. AVERY, _State College of Washington_ BENJAMIN BOYCE, _University of Nebraska_ LOUIS I. BREDVOLD, _University of Michigan_ CLEANTH BROOKS, _Yale University_ JAMES L. CLIFFORD, _Columbia University_ ARTHUR FRIEDMAN, _University of Chicago_ SAMUEL H. MONK, _University of Minnesota_ ERNEST MOSSNER, _University of Texas_ JAMES SUTHERLAND, _Queen Mary College, London_
Lithoprinted from copy supplied by author by Edwards Brothers, Inc. Ann Arbor, Michigan, U.S.A. 1949
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INTRODUCTION
None of Henry Nevil Payne's plays, _The Fatal Jealousie_ (1673), _The Morning Ramble_ (1673), _The Siege of Constantinople_ (1675), bears his name on the title-page. Plenty of external evidence exists, however, to prove his claim to them. John Downes, in _Roscius Anglicanus_ (1708), has this to say: "_Loves Jealousy_ [i.e. _The Fatal Jealousy_], and _The Morning Ramble_. Written by Mr. _Nevil Pain_. Both were very well _Acted_, but after their first run, were laid aside, to make Room for others; the Company having then plenty of new Poets" (ed. Montague Summers, London, n.d., pp. 33-34). "After the Tempest, came the Siege of _Constantinople_, Wrote by Mr. _Nevill Pain_" (_ibid._, p. 35). Langbaine's _An Account of the English Dramatick Poets_ (1691) gives no author for _The Siege of Constantinople_, but says of _The Fatal Jealousy_ that it is "ascribed by some to Mr. Pane" (p. 531) and of _The Morning Ramble_ that this "Play is said to be written by One Mr. _Pane_, and may be accounted a good Comedy" (p. 541).
We do not have to depend on the early historians of the English drama for certain knowledge that Payne was for a time a dramatist. Though his brief excursion into the theater must later have seemed to him a minor episode in his life, Payne's enemies were aware of the fact that he was a playwright and have written their knowledge into the record of his treasonable activities. For example, the author of a burlesque life of Payne, which contains, so far as I know, the only connected account of his activities, makes this useful remark: "Then [after his return from Ireland in 1672] he composes a Tragedy of a certain Emperour of Constantinople, whom he never knew; but in whose person he vilifies a certain Prince [Charles II], whom he very well knows" (_Modesty Triumphing over Impudence_ ... 1680, pp. 18-19).
As an agent of the Catholic party, Payne had excellent reasons for wishing to keep his affairs well veiled. What we know of his life has had to be pieced together from information found in state papers, court records, and "histories" of the branches of the damnable Popish plots.* The date of his birth is not known, nor of his death, unless Summers was correct in giving it (without supporting evidence) as 1710 (_The Works of Aphra Behn_, 1915, V, 519).
[Footnote: For this biographical sketch of Payne I have drawn on my "Henry Nevil Payne, Dramatist and Jacobite Conspirator," published in _The Parrott Presentation Volume_, Princeton, 1935, pp. 347-381.]
