Excerpt from The Plays of Philip Massinger, Vol. 3 of 4: With Notes Critical and Explanatory
The Maid of Honour. This "Tragi-comedy" does not appear, under the present title, in the Office-book of Sir H. Herbert: but a play called the Honour of Women was entered there May 6th, 1628, which Mr. Malone conjectures to be the piece before us. He speaks, however, with some hesitation on the subject, as a play of Massinger's, called the Spanish Viceroy, or the Honour of Women, was entered at Stationer's Hall, for Humphrey Mosely, in 1653. If this double title be correct, of which we may reasonably entertain a doubt, the plays cannot be the same; for among the dramatis person? of the present, no such character as a Spanish viceroy is to be found. Sicily, indeed, was long governed by viceroys from Spain; but Roberto is here styled King, and constantly acts from himself.
Mr. Malone says, that the Maid of Honour was printed in 1631. All the copies which I have seen (for there is but one edition) are dated 1632, which was probably the earliest period of its appearance; as we learn from the commendatory verses prefixed to it by Sir Aston Cockayne, that it was printed after the Emperor of the East, which was not given to the press till this year.
This Play was always a favourite, and, indeed, with strict justice; for it has a thousand claims to admiration and applause. It was frequently acted, the old title-page tells us, "at the Ph?nix in Drurie-lane, with good allowance, by the Queen's Majesties servants." An attempt was made some years since to revive it, by Mr. Kemble, but, as I have been informed, without success.
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