The Swisser
Encyclopedia
The Swisser is a Caroline era stage play, a tragicomedy
written by Arthur Wilson
. It was performed by the King's Men
in the Blackfriars Theatre
in 1631
, and is notable for the light in throws on the workings of the premier acting company of its time.
(In seventeenth-century parlance, "Swisser," or "Swizzer" or "Switzer," referred to a Swiss mercenary soldier.)
Though Humphrey Moseley
entered the play into the Stationers' Register
on September 4, 1646
, no edition of the drama was printed in the seventeenth century. The play remained in manuscript until it was published in the early 1900s. The manuscript, now Add. MS. 36,749 in the collection of the British Museum
, is in the author's hand.
, Romeo and Juliet
, The Malcontent
, Philaster
, and 'Tis Pity She's a Whore
as dramatic precedents. (He also concedes that the play "is not bad, as such productions go.")
Greville, Penn and Smith were hired men, and Goughe, Thompson, and Trigg were boy player
s filling female roles. The other six were the "sharers," partners, permanent members of the company. The burly Lowin plays a character of "great Beard and Bulke" — Smith's Asprandus and Greville's Iseas are "two little Pigmies" in comparison (Act III, scene 2).
[The other seven King's Men cast lists are for the company's productions of John Webster
's The Duchess of Malfi
, Philip Massinger
's The Roman Actor
, The Picture, and Believe as You List
, Lodowick Carlell
's The Deserving Favourite
, John Clavell
's The Soddered Citizen
, and John Fletcher
's The Wild Goose Chase
. The 1629 quarto of John Ford's
The Lover's Melancholy
provides a roster of the 17 actors involved, but doesn't assign them to their roles.]
, and bases its characters on actual historical figures of the early seventh century A.D.
As the play opens, Lombard soldiers are fleeing the battlefield, after defeat by the forces of Ravenna
. The Swiss mercenary Andrucho, the title character, observes and comments upon the action. The King of the Lombards enters with his courtiers, including his cowardly and defeated general Timentes. (Andrucho, an unsubtle soldier, functions as something like the King's jester; the King calls him his "bandog," and allows the Swiss to criticize the courtiers with little restraint.) The King demands that Timentes rally the troops and lead a counterattack. Andrucho and the old courtier Clephis speak up critically; Clephis in particular advises the King to replace Timentes with the banished nobleman Arioldus. The Lombard troops themselves cry out and demand Arioldus for their commander.
The second scene shows Arioldus at his country estate; he lives in retirement with his books, glad to be away from the royal court. Andrucho comes to visit him; their conversation reveals that the Swiss mercenary is actually Aribert, another banished Lombard nobleman. Suddenly, courtiers begin arriving at Arioldus's house, assuring him of their (previously invisible) support and affection. Clearly, a change is in the wind. The King arrives, reverses Arioldus's banishment, and appoints him general of the army. The common troops are revitalized, and Arioldus wins a quick (offstage) victory over the army of Ravenna.
Arioldus comes away from his victory with a young female captive called Eurinia. An honorable man, Arioldus protects the virtue of his captive; but she quickly becomes a focus of courtly gossip. When the King meets her, he is strongly taken with her beauty; Arioldus wants to shield Eurinia, but the King commands both of them to attend at his court.
The early scenes in the play delineate two factions: the virtuous courtiers, Arioldus, Clephis, and Andrucho/Aribert, are opposed to the more amoral, cynical and self-interested courtiers, Antharis, Asprandus, and Iseas. Antharis and Clephis are old rivals; but their children, respectively son Alcidonus and daughter Selina, are in love and secretly married — though parental opposition forces them to conceal the fact and live apart.
Timentes comes to be the play's clown substitute, its focus for broad humor. Andrucho and other courtiers convince Timentes that he is being pursued by an angry mob. To hide, Timentes climbs into an empty coffin, and faints from fear. He is thought dead, until he recovers consciousness and climbs back out of the coffin. Later, Timentes gains a false courage through drunkenness.
At court, the King attempts to seduce Eurinia; she resists and stand upon her honor, but the hot-blooded King rapes her. Arioldus learns of the crime, and faces a conflict between his personal honor and his oath of loyalty to the King. The two men confront each other over the issue — but the King is penitent, in his own limited way; he tries to repair matters by arranging a marriage between Arioldus and his sister, the princess Panopia. Arioldus rejects this; and the King offers to fight him, even providing Arioldus a pardon in advance, in case Arioldus kills him. The two are about to fight, when the eavesdropping Andrucho interrupts and prevents them.
The young lovers Alcidonus and Selina are surprised in a clandestine meeting, and separated by their fathers. Antharis, ignorant of their marriage, tries to squelch their affair by telling his son a giant lie — that Alcidonus is a bastard, and Selina's half-brother. The two lovers meet over this distressing news; believing themselves guilty of incest, they decide on suicide. They share a vial of poison. Their bodies are found, and Antharis is driven mad by the consequences of his deception. But the prudent Clephis, anticipating trouble, made sure that what the lovers thought was poison was only a sleeping potion. The lovers recover, though Antharis does not.
The drama concludes in a large revelation scene, in which Arioldus, Andrucho, and Panopia manipulate the King into a positive resolution. A faked assassination attempt reminds the King that he is not invulnerable. Andrucho is revealed as Aribert, and redeemed from banishment; Eurinia is revealed as Aribert's daughter Eugenia. Years before, the King had loved Eugenia; now, he marries her as a way of repairing the damage he has done to her. Arioldus and Panopia also marry, yielding the requisite happy ending of the tragicomic form.
Antonio and Mellida
(c. 1600), Beaumont's
The Knight of the Burning Pestle
(1607), Shakespeare's
Pericles, Prince of Tyre
(c. 1609), and several plays in the canon of John Fletcher
and his collaborators. Middleton
employs a single instance of the device in The Puritan
(c. 1607), and a doubled instance in A Chaste Maid in Cheapside
(1613).
The moral resolution of the play, in which a rapist makes up for his crime by marrying his victim, is an abomination to modern sensibilities — but an acceptable thing to the minds of the 17th century. It occurs in other plays of the era; a notable example is found in the Fletcher collaboration The Queen of Corinth
(c. 1617), though other instances could also be cited.
Tragicomedy
Tragicomedy is fictional work that blends aspects of the genres of tragedy and comedy. In English literature, from Shakespeare's time to the nineteenth century, tragicomedy referred to a serious play with either a happy ending or enough jokes throughout the play to lighten the mood.-Classical...
written by Arthur Wilson
Arthur Wilson (17th century)
-Life:Wilson was born in Yarmouth. In the 1620–25 period he served as secretary to Robert Devereux, 3rd Earl of Essex, and accompanied the Earl on his military campaigns on the Continent. After two years' study at Oxford University , Wilson entered the service of Robert Rich, 2nd Earl of...
. It was performed by the King's Men
King's Men (playing company)
The King's Men was the company of actors to which William Shakespeare belonged through most of his career. Formerly known as The Lord Chamberlain's Men during the reign of Queen Elizabeth, it became The King's Men in 1603 when King James ascended the throne and became the company's patron.The...
in the Blackfriars Theatre
Blackfriars Theatre
Blackfriars Theatre was the name of a theatre in the Blackfriars district of the City of London during the Renaissance. The theatre began as a venue for child actors associated with the Queen's chapel choirs; in this function, the theatre hosted some of the most innovative drama of Elizabeth and...
in 1631
1631 in literature
The year 1631 in literature involved some significant events.-Events:*January 9 - Love's Triumph Through Callipolis, a masque written by Ben Jonson and designed by Inigo Jones, is staged at Whitehall Palace....
, and is notable for the light in throws on the workings of the premier acting company of its time.
(In seventeenth-century parlance, "Swisser," or "Swizzer" or "Switzer," referred to a Swiss mercenary soldier.)
Though Humphrey Moseley
Humphrey Moseley
Humphrey Moseley was a prominent London publisher and bookseller in the middle seventeenth century.Possibly a son of publisher Samuel Moseley, Humphrey Moseley became a "freeman" of the Stationers Company, the guild of London booksellers, on 7 May 1627; he was selected a Warden of the Company on...
entered the play into the Stationers' Register
Stationers' Register
The Stationers' Register was a record book maintained by the Stationers' Company of London. The company is a trade guild given a royal charter in 1557 to regulate the various professions associated with the publishing industry, including printers, bookbinders, booksellers, and publishers in England...
on September 4, 1646
1646 in literature
The year 1646 in literature involved some significant events.-Events:*March 24 - The King's Men petition Parliament for three and a half years' back pay; this is despite the London theatres officially remaining closed through the middle 1640s...
, no edition of the drama was printed in the seventeenth century. The play remained in manuscript until it was published in the early 1900s. The manuscript, now Add. MS. 36,749 in the collection of the British Museum
British Museum
The British Museum is a museum of human history and culture in London. Its collections, which number more than seven million objects, are amongst the largest and most comprehensive in the world and originate from all continents, illustrating and documenting the story of human culture from its...
, is in the author's hand.
The play
The Swisser shares the primary fault of Caroline drama as a whole; it is unoriginal and highly derivative of earlier works. Felix Schelling catalogued the play's stock elements as "the lecherous tyrant; the love-lorn girl page; the banished lord...; two old men of noble houses, enemies; their children, in love; poison evaded by the substitution of a sleeping potion; a fair captive generously treated by a chivalrous soldier, her captor; and...consanguinity a bar to virtuous love." Schelling cites CampaspeCampaspe
Campaspe, the mistress of Alexander the Great and a prominent citizen of Larissa. She was painted by Apelles, who had the reputation in Antiquity for being the greatest of painters...
, Romeo and Juliet
Romeo and Juliet
Romeo and Juliet is a tragedy written early in the career of playwright William Shakespeare about two young star-crossed lovers whose deaths ultimately unite their feuding families. It was among Shakespeare's most popular archetypal stories of young, teenage lovers.Romeo and Juliet belongs to a...
, The Malcontent
The Malcontent
The Malcontent is an early Jacobean stage play written by the dramatist and satirist John Marston ca. 1603. The play was one of Marston's most successful works....
, Philaster
Philaster (play)
Philaster, or Love Lies a-Bleeding is an early Jacobean era stage play, a tragicomedy written by Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher. One of the duo's earliest successes, the play helped to establish the trend for tragicomedy that was a powerful influence in early Stuart era drama.-Date and...
, and 'Tis Pity She's a Whore
'Tis Pity She's a Whore
'Tis Pity She's a Whore is a tragedy written by John Ford. It was likely first performed between 1629 and 1633, by Queen Henrietta's Men at the Cockpit Theatre. The play was first published in 1633, in a quarto printed by Nicholas Okes for the bookseller Richard Collins...
as dramatic precedents. (He also concedes that the play "is not bad, as such productions go.")
The cast
The cast list supplied by the manuscript is one of only eight extant King's Men lists from the period of the 1620s and the early 1630s, making it a valuable source of information on the company in this era.| Role | Actor |
|---|---|
| The King of the Lombards | Richard Sharpe Richard Sharpe (actor) Richard Sharpe was an actor with the King's Men, the leading theatre troupe of its time and the company of William Shakespeare and Richard Burbage... |
| Arioldus, a nobleman retir'd | Joseph Taylor Joseph Taylor (17th-century actor) Joseph Taylor was a 17th-century actor. As the successor of Richard Burbage with the King's Men, he was arguably the most important actor in the later Jacobean and the Caroline eras.... |
| Andrucho, a Swisser otherwise Count Aribert banish'd | John Lowin John Lowin John Lowin was an English actor born in the St Giles-without-Cripplegate, London, the son of a tanner. Like Robert Armin, he was apprenticed to a goldsmith. While he is not recorded as a free citizen of this company, he did perform as a goldsmith, Leofstane, in a 1611 city pageant written by... |
| Timentes, a fearful General | Thomas Pollard Thomas Pollard Thomas Pollard was an actor in the King's Men — a prominent comedian in the acting troupe of William Shakespeare and Richard Burbage.... |
| Antharis | Robert Benfield Robert Benfield Robert Benfield was a seventeenth-century actor, noted for his longtime membership in the King's Men in the years and decades after William Shakespeare's retirement and death.Nothing is known of Benfield's early life... |
| Clephis | William Penn King's Men personnel King's Men personnel were the people who worked with and for the Lord Chamberlain's Men and the King's Men from 1594 to 1642... |
| Alcidonus, son to Antharis | Eliard Swanston Eliard Swanston Eliard Swanston , alternatively spelled Heliard, Hilliard, Elyard, Ellyardt, Ellyaerdt, and Eyloerdt, was an English actor in the Caroline era. He became a leading man in the King's Men, the company of William Shakespeare and Richard Burbage, in the final phase of its existence.-Career:Swanston... |
| Asprandus | Anthony Smith King's Men personnel King's Men personnel were the people who worked with and for the Lord Chamberlain's Men and the King's Men from 1594 to 1642... |
| Iseas | Curtis Greville King's Men personnel King's Men personnel were the people who worked with and for the Lord Chamberlain's Men and the King's Men from 1594 to 1642... |
| Panopia, the King's sister | John Thompson John Thompson (actor) John Thompson was a noted boy player acting women's roles in English Renaissance theatre. He served in the King's Men, the acting troupe formerly of William Shakespeare and Richard Burbage.Thompson's career is notable for his length... |
| Eurinia, a captive | Alexander Gough Alexander Gough Alexander Gough , also Goughe or Goffe, was an English actor in the Caroline era. He started out as a boy player filling female roles; during the period of the English Civil War and the Interregnum when the theatres were closed and actors out of work, Gough became involved in the publication of... |
| Selina, daughter to Clephis | William Trigg King's Men personnel King's Men personnel were the people who worked with and for the Lord Chamberlain's Men and the King's Men from 1594 to 1642... |
Greville, Penn and Smith were hired men, and Goughe, Thompson, and Trigg were boy player
Boy player
Boy player is a common term for the adolescent males employed by Medieval and English Renaissance playing companies. Some boy players worked for the mainstream companies and performed the female roles, as women did not perform on the English stage in this period...
s filling female roles. The other six were the "sharers," partners, permanent members of the company. The burly Lowin plays a character of "great Beard and Bulke" — Smith's Asprandus and Greville's Iseas are "two little Pigmies" in comparison (Act III, scene 2).
[The other seven King's Men cast lists are for the company's productions of John Webster
John Webster
John Webster was an English Jacobean dramatist best known for his tragedies The White Devil and The Duchess of Malfi, which are often regarded as masterpieces of the early 17th-century English stage. He was a contemporary of William Shakespeare.- Biography :Webster's life is obscure, and the dates...
's The Duchess of Malfi
The Duchess of Malfi
The Duchess of Malfi is a macabre, tragic play written by the English dramatist John Webster in 1612–13. It was first performed privately at the Blackfriars Theatre, then before a more general audience at The Globe, in 1613-14...
, Philip Massinger
Philip Massinger
Philip Massinger was an English dramatist. His finely plotted plays, including A New Way to Pay Old Debts, The City Madam and The Roman Actor, are noted for their satire and realism, and their political and social themes.-Early life:The son of Arthur Massinger or Messenger, he was baptized at St....
's The Roman Actor
The Roman Actor
The Roman Actor is a Caroline era stage play, a tragedy written by Philip Massinger; it was first performed in 1626, and first published in 1629...
, The Picture, and Believe as You List
Believe as You List
Believe as You List is a Caroline era tragedy by Philip Massinger, famous as a case of theatrical censorship.-Censorship:The play originally dealt with the legend that Sebastian of Portugal had survived the battle of Alcácer Quibir, and the efforts of Philip II of Spain to suppress the "false...
, Lodowick Carlell
Lodowick Carlell
Lodowick Carlell , also Carliell or Carlile, was a seventeenth-century English playwright, active mainly during the Caroline era and the Commonwealth period.-Courtier:...
's The Deserving Favourite
The Deserving Favourite
The Deserving Favourite is a Caroline era stage play, a tragicomedy written by Lodowick Carlell that was first published in 1629. The earliest of Carlell's plays "and also the best," it is notable for its influence on other plays of the Caroline era....
, John Clavell
John Clavell
John Clavell was a highwayman, author, lawyer, and doctor.He is known for his poem A Recantation of an Ill Led Life, and his play The Soddered Citizen...
's The Soddered Citizen
The Soddered Citizen
The Soddered Citizen is a Caroline era stage play, a city comedy now attributed to John Clavell. The play was lost for three centuries; the sole surviving manuscript was rediscovered and published in the twentieth century....
, and John Fletcher
John Fletcher (playwright)
John Fletcher was a Jacobean playwright. Following William Shakespeare as house playwright for the King's Men, he was among the most prolific and influential dramatists of his day; both during his lifetime and in the early Restoration, his fame rivalled Shakespeare's...
's The Wild Goose Chase
The Wild Goose Chase
The Wild Goose Chase is a late Jacobean stage play, a comedy written by John Fletcher, first published in 1621. It is often classed among Fletcher's most effective and best-constructed plays; Edmund Gosse called it "one of the brightest and most coherent of Fletcher's comedies, a play which it is...
. The 1629 quarto of John Ford's
John Ford (dramatist)
John Ford was an English Jacobean and Caroline playwright and poet born in Ilsington in Devon in 1586.-Life and work:...
The Lover's Melancholy
The Lover's Melancholy
The Lover's Melancholy is an early Caroline era stage play, a tragicomedy written by John Ford. While the dating of the works in Ford's canon is very uncertain, this play has sometimes been regarded as "Ford's first unaided drama," an anticipation of what would follow through the remainder of his...
provides a roster of the 17 actors involved, but doesn't assign them to their roles.]
Synopsis
The play is set in LombardyLombardy
Lombardy is one of the 20 regions of Italy. The capital is Milan. One-sixth of Italy's population lives in Lombardy and about one fifth of Italy's GDP is produced in this region, making it the most populous and richest region in the country and one of the richest in the whole of Europe...
, and bases its characters on actual historical figures of the early seventh century A.D.
As the play opens, Lombard soldiers are fleeing the battlefield, after defeat by the forces of Ravenna
Ravenna
Ravenna is the capital city of the Province of Ravenna in the Emilia-Romagna region of Italy and the second largest comune in Italy by land area, although, at , it is little more than half the size of the largest comune, Rome...
. The Swiss mercenary Andrucho, the title character, observes and comments upon the action. The King of the Lombards enters with his courtiers, including his cowardly and defeated general Timentes. (Andrucho, an unsubtle soldier, functions as something like the King's jester; the King calls him his "bandog," and allows the Swiss to criticize the courtiers with little restraint.) The King demands that Timentes rally the troops and lead a counterattack. Andrucho and the old courtier Clephis speak up critically; Clephis in particular advises the King to replace Timentes with the banished nobleman Arioldus. The Lombard troops themselves cry out and demand Arioldus for their commander.
The second scene shows Arioldus at his country estate; he lives in retirement with his books, glad to be away from the royal court. Andrucho comes to visit him; their conversation reveals that the Swiss mercenary is actually Aribert, another banished Lombard nobleman. Suddenly, courtiers begin arriving at Arioldus's house, assuring him of their (previously invisible) support and affection. Clearly, a change is in the wind. The King arrives, reverses Arioldus's banishment, and appoints him general of the army. The common troops are revitalized, and Arioldus wins a quick (offstage) victory over the army of Ravenna.
Arioldus comes away from his victory with a young female captive called Eurinia. An honorable man, Arioldus protects the virtue of his captive; but she quickly becomes a focus of courtly gossip. When the King meets her, he is strongly taken with her beauty; Arioldus wants to shield Eurinia, but the King commands both of them to attend at his court.
The early scenes in the play delineate two factions: the virtuous courtiers, Arioldus, Clephis, and Andrucho/Aribert, are opposed to the more amoral, cynical and self-interested courtiers, Antharis, Asprandus, and Iseas. Antharis and Clephis are old rivals; but their children, respectively son Alcidonus and daughter Selina, are in love and secretly married — though parental opposition forces them to conceal the fact and live apart.
Timentes comes to be the play's clown substitute, its focus for broad humor. Andrucho and other courtiers convince Timentes that he is being pursued by an angry mob. To hide, Timentes climbs into an empty coffin, and faints from fear. He is thought dead, until he recovers consciousness and climbs back out of the coffin. Later, Timentes gains a false courage through drunkenness.
At court, the King attempts to seduce Eurinia; she resists and stand upon her honor, but the hot-blooded King rapes her. Arioldus learns of the crime, and faces a conflict between his personal honor and his oath of loyalty to the King. The two men confront each other over the issue — but the King is penitent, in his own limited way; he tries to repair matters by arranging a marriage between Arioldus and his sister, the princess Panopia. Arioldus rejects this; and the King offers to fight him, even providing Arioldus a pardon in advance, in case Arioldus kills him. The two are about to fight, when the eavesdropping Andrucho interrupts and prevents them.
The young lovers Alcidonus and Selina are surprised in a clandestine meeting, and separated by their fathers. Antharis, ignorant of their marriage, tries to squelch their affair by telling his son a giant lie — that Alcidonus is a bastard, and Selina's half-brother. The two lovers meet over this distressing news; believing themselves guilty of incest, they decide on suicide. They share a vial of poison. Their bodies are found, and Antharis is driven mad by the consequences of his deception. But the prudent Clephis, anticipating trouble, made sure that what the lovers thought was poison was only a sleeping potion. The lovers recover, though Antharis does not.
The drama concludes in a large revelation scene, in which Arioldus, Andrucho, and Panopia manipulate the King into a positive resolution. A faked assassination attempt reminds the King that he is not invulnerable. Andrucho is revealed as Aribert, and redeemed from banishment; Eurinia is revealed as Aribert's daughter Eugenia. Years before, the King had loved Eugenia; now, he marries her as a way of repairing the damage he has done to her. Arioldus and Panopia also marry, yielding the requisite happy ending of the tragicomic form.
Commonalities
In having a supposedly dead body rise from its coffin, Wilson is exploiting a time-honored stage effect of English Renaissance drama. A roster of earlier instances of the trick, with no pretense to completeness, could include Marston'sJohn Marston
John Marston was an English poet, playwright and satirist during the late Elizabethan and Jacobean periods...
Antonio and Mellida
Antonio and Mellida
Antonio and Mellida is a late Elizabethan play written by the satirist John Marston, usually dated to c. 1599.The play was entered into the Stationers' Register on Oct. 24, 1601, and first published in quarto in 1602 by the booksellers Matthew Lownes and Thomas Fisher...
(c. 1600), Beaumont's
Francis Beaumont
Francis Beaumont was a dramatist in the English Renaissance theatre, most famous for his collaborations with John Fletcher....
The Knight of the Burning Pestle
The Knight of the Burning Pestle
The Knight of the Burning Pestle is a play by Francis Beaumont, first performed in 1607 and first published in a quarto in 1613. It is notable as the first whole parody play in English...
(1607), Shakespeare's
William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon"...
Pericles, Prince of Tyre
Pericles, Prince of Tyre
Pericles, Prince of Tyre is a Jacobean play written at least in part by William Shakespeare and included in modern editions of his collected works despite questions over its authorship, as it was not included in the First Folio...
(c. 1609), and several plays in the canon of John Fletcher
John Fletcher (playwright)
John Fletcher was a Jacobean playwright. Following William Shakespeare as house playwright for the King's Men, he was among the most prolific and influential dramatists of his day; both during his lifetime and in the early Restoration, his fame rivalled Shakespeare's...
and his collaborators. Middleton
Thomas Middleton
Thomas Middleton was an English Jacobean playwright and poet. Middleton stands with John Fletcher and Ben Jonson as among the most successful and prolific of playwrights who wrote their best plays during the Jacobean period. He was one of the few Renaissance dramatists to achieve equal success in...
employs a single instance of the device in The Puritan
The Puritan
The Puritan, or the Widow of Watling Street, also known as The Puritan Widow, is an anonymous Jacobean stage comedy, first published in 1607. It is often attributed to Thomas Middleton, but also belongs to the Shakespeare Apocrypha due to its title page attribution to "W.S.".-Date and...
(c. 1607), and a doubled instance in A Chaste Maid in Cheapside
A Chaste Maid in Cheapside
A Chaste Maid in Cheapside is a city comedy written c. 1613 by English Renaissance playwright Thomas Middleton. Unpublished until 1630 and long-neglected afterwards, it is now considered among the best and most characteristic Jacobean comedies....
(1613).
The moral resolution of the play, in which a rapist makes up for his crime by marrying his victim, is an abomination to modern sensibilities — but an acceptable thing to the minds of the 17th century. It occurs in other plays of the era; a notable example is found in the Fletcher collaboration The Queen of Corinth
The Queen of Corinth
The Queen of Corinth is a Jacobean era stage play, a tragicomedy in the canon of John Fletcher and his collaborators. It was initially published in the first Beaumont and Fletcher folio of 1647.-Date:...
(c. 1617), though other instances could also be cited.