The title-cut of 'The pleasant and stately morall of the Three Lordes and Three Ladies of London,' printed by 'R. Ihones' in 1590, is of more interest. If I am right in my interpretation of it, it relates not to the play itself, but to a performance of any morality in a private hall. On the right is a philosophical-looking person with a wand in his hand, whom I take to be the 'Doctor' or 'Expositor,' who used to interpret to the audience the meaning of the old miracle plays and moralities. On the left is a man in ordinary dress of the sixteenth century, apparently an actor. Both these are turning their faces to a group of ladies seated on a dais, presumably as spectators. The picture is thus taken from the rear of the actors, and illustrates, though in rather a dull and conventional manner, the performances of a much earlier period than 1590. This is in keeping with the play itself, the 'statelie morall' being a curious hybrid, half morality, half play, the publication of which at a date when Shakespeare and Marlowe were already writing for the stage was a curious anomaly.
[Illustration: FROM 'THE THREE LORDS AND THREE LADIES OF LONDON,' 1590.]
Three other sixteenth-century plays, Marlowe's 'Faustus,' Greene's 'Friar Bacon' and 'Hieronimo,' were issued with title-cuts, but not, I believe, in the sixteenth century. The edition of 'The Tragicall History of the Life and Death of Dr. Faustus. Written by Chr. Mar.,' which I have found thus illustrated is that 'printed for John Wright, and to be sold at his shop without Newgate at the sign of the Bible, 1616.' Unfortunately the cut is larger than the page of text, and in the copies both of this and of later editions, to which I have had access, has been cropped by the binder's shears beyond any possibility of reproduction. It shows Faustus, looking rather like some of the least flattering portraits of Archbishop Laud, standing in a magic circle, wand in hand, with the devil he has raised squatting before him on his haunches like a ferocious black poodle.
As in the case of 'Dr. Faustus,' it is difficult to find an uncropped copy of 'The Honorable Historie of Frier Bacon and Frier Bongay. As it was lately plaid by the Prince Palatine his servants. Made by Robert Greene, Master of Arts. (London, Printed by Elizabeth Allde dwelling neere Christ-Church. 1630.)' In the copy accessible to me only about three-fourths of the title-page have escaped the horrid shears; but this suffices to show that we have here one of the few variations from the dramatist's text of which these illustrators have to be accused. Bacon, when weariness compels him to leave to his servant the task of watching the Brazen Head, chides him for slowness in answering his call. 'Think you,' is the answer, 'that the watching of the Brazen Head craves no furniture? I warrant you, sir, I have so armed myself that if all your devils do come I will not fear them an inch.' Unluckily the artist has dressed the servant not as a fighter, but as a bandsman, with drum and a kind of fife, and no visible arms. But the Brazen Head is there, and Bacon very fast asleep, while the labels issuing from the Head's mouth, 'Time was,' 'Time is,' 'Time is Past,' show that the text of the play had been read, though not very carefully.