CHILDREN OF THE CHAPEL AT BLACKFRIARS re 
modeled after Malvolio of Twelfth Night (ca. 1600), while the 
title character of M. D’Olive (ca. Oct—Dec. 1601) is Bassiolo 
developed. May Day (ca. May, 1602) contains an answer to the 
attack on Blackfriars in Hamlet (late 1601—early 1602)? in the’ 
form of satirizing parodies on the “To be” soliloquy and other — 
parts. These read as if Chapman had heard Hamlet once or twice 
while May Day was in progress, and had caught the general 
trend. Acts III and IV contain bits of satire certainly made thus. 
The Widow’s Tears (Sept., 1602) in overcoming of feminine 
scruples is mindatory of The Taming of the Shrew (early 1602?). 
Did Chapman intend these character-extensions as ridicule of — 
Shakespeare? Or did he simply find good comedial material — 
here ready for further development? At any rate, even if it is © 
proved that Chapman here imitated, that fact would not disprove ~ 
that his and Jonson’s plays at Blackfriars in turn were imitated. — 
Both seem true. Opposition to a rival institution upon principle — 
and imitation of its successes at the same time are not incom- ~ 
patible. Ne a 
The opposition of the Globe to the Blackfriars is only typical — 
of conditions in all the other public theatres. Hamlet tells us ~ 
thus much. Dekker’s “the puppet-teacher’’? in Satiromastix (at — 
the Globe, summer, 1601) is a thrust at the Boys as well as at © 
Jonson. The minor reference in the Prologue to Troilus and — 
Cressida (ca. 1602, late) can hardly be called friendly. Paul’s — 
Boys and the Chapel Children in 1580-84 and at other periods — 
had performed together. But under the new conditions Paul’s = 
and the public theatres made common cause against Blackfriars, — 
and found a convenient means of expressing their attitude through _ 
furthering on their stages the personal quarrels of certain dram- 
atists opposed to Jonson of the Chapel Boys’ theatre. 
I must here notice this incident, since it is connected with the E 
theatrical conditions in hand. : 
168 
*Written late 1601. First acted 
late 1601—early 1602, doubtless at 
the Christmas season. See also su- 
pra, 86, and infra, 174-75, 182-84". 
“Hold, silence, the puppet- 
teacher speaks.”—Satiromastix, op.” 
TT; A 7A; 
cit., ' 
’ ... “And hither am I come 
fidence 
Of Authors pen, or Actors voyce.” 
This is in reference and reply to 
Jonson’s armed Prologue to Poet- 
4 
A Prologue arm’d, but not in con- 
4 
= 
aster, in which the public theatres, 
and particularly the Globe in the 
“9g 
a 
anticipated Satiromastix there, are 
282 
ay 
