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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 December 2020
To those who look askance when the drama of the last forty years of the seventeenth century is mentioned, it may be a doubtful honor to connect a minor Restoration playwright with the early history of America. But the fact remains that John Crowne, one of the most prolific of the dramatists of this period, was for three years a resident of New England and a student at Harvard College. He is now remembered chiefly as the author of Sir Courtly Nice, a comedy which held the boards for almost a hundred years.
1 A. T. Bartholomew in The Cambridge History of English Literature, New York, 1912, viii, p. 212.
2 John Dennis, Original Letters, Familiar, Moral, and Critical, London, 1721, i, p. 48.
3 The Dictionary of National Biography, 1888, xiii, p. 243.
4 J. S. H. Fogg, John Crowne—Dramatist and Poet. The Maine Historical and Genealogical Register (1888), iv, p. 189.
5 Archibald MacMechan, John Crowne, a Biographical Note. Modern Language Notes (1891), vi, coll. 277-285.
6 Wm. H. Davis, Colonel William Crowne and his Family. The New England Historical and Genealogical Register (1903), lvii, pp. 406-410.
7 William Crowne, A True Relation of All the Remarkable Places and Passages Observed in the Travels of Thomas, Lord Howard, Earle of Arundel and Surrey, Ambassadour Extraordinary to Ferdinando II, 1636, London, 1637. See the dedication and pp. 1 and 70.
8 Edwin B. Chancellor, Historical Richmond, London, 1885, pp. 166-169. Wilhelm Grosse, John Crownes Komödien und burleske Dichtung [Leipzig], 1903, p. 6, was inclined to doubt the assertion of Oldys that William Crowne was Rouge Dragon. His letters patent are dated Sept. 14, 1638. Cf. Mark Noble, A History of the College of Arms, London, 1805, pp. 70, 93-94, 251.
9 Calendar of State Papers, Domestic, 1650, pp. 288, 505, 509.
10 Henry T. Weyman, The Members of Parliament from Bridgnorth. Transactions of the Shropshire Archaeological and Natural History Society, Fourth Series, v, p. 60.
11 Suffolk County (Massachusetts) Registry of Deeds, Boston, 1880-1906, iii, p. 108.
12 J. P. Baxter, Documentary History of the State of Maine, Portland, 1907, x, pp. 28-29.
13 Colonel Crowne's will was probated on Feb. 26, 1683. Suffolk County Massachusetts Probate Records, vol. vi, part 2.
14 Thos. Blore, History of the Antiquities of the County of Rutland, Stanford, 1811, p. 226.
15 Robt. Clutterbuck, The History of the Antiquities of the County of Hertford, London, 1827, iii, p. 305.
16 On April 28, 1674 the General Court of Massachusetts issued the following order : “This Court taking into consideration that Collonell William Crowne hath lived here a considerable time from his wife judge meete to Order that the said Colonell do take passage for England & return thither to his wife by the next opportunity of shipping after these ships that are now ready to sail under penalty of twenty pounds according to the law.” A ms. record of the Suffolk County Court in the Boston Athenaeum. I am indebted to Mr. John H. Edmonds, curator of the Gay Collection in the Harvard College Library, for this reference.
17 Edmund Gosse, A History of Eighteenth Century Literature, London, 1889, p. 58.
18 MacMeehan, op. cit., col. 282.
19 This deposition is reprinted by J. S. H. Fogg, John Crowne— Poet and Dramatist. The Maine Historical and Genealogical Register, iv, pp. 189-190. The original document was probably in Dr. Fogg's own collection, which has been dispersed since his death. Inquiries have failed to reveal its present habitat. Grosse, in his monograph, John Crownes Komödien und burleske Dichtung, p. 10, concludes that Crowne was born in 1645 on the basis of a statement in the dedication to Pandion and Amphigeneia, a prose romance, published in January 1665. Crowne there wrote: “I was scarcely 20 years of age when I fancyed it.” It is evident that between the fancying of it and the printing, several years elapsed.
20 Royal Commission on Historical Manuscripts, Fourth Report, 1874, London, 1875, p. 267.
21 New England's First Fruits, in respect to the Progress of Learning in the Colledge at Cambridge in Massachusetts-bay . . . London, 1643, p. 13.
22 The Steward's Book of Thomas Chesholme, p. 323. This manuscript is in the archives of the Harvard College Library.
23 J. L. Sibley, Biographical Sketches of Graduates of Harvard University, Cambridge, 1873, i, p. 577.
24 George Chalmers, Political Annals of the Present United Colonies, London, 1780, Bk. i, pp. 263-264.
25 Josiah Quincy, History of Harvard University, Cambridge, 1846, I, p. 3.
26 Op. cit., pp. 14-16.
27 Dennis, op. cit., i, 49.
28 Albert Matthews, Harvard Commencement Days, 1642-1916. Publications of the Colonial Society of Massachusetts, xviii, p. 379, conjectures that August 13th was the commencement date in 1661.
29 John Crowne, Dramatic Works, ed. J. Maidment and W. H. Logan, Edinburgh, 1873-74, iv, p. 348.
30 John Crowne, Henry the Sixth, the First Part. With the Murder of Humphrey Duke of Gloucester. As it is Acted at the Dukes Theatre, London, 1681. See the dedication.
31 Crowne, Dramatic Works, iii, p. 376.
32 Notes and Observations on the Empress of Morocco, Or some of the Errata's to be Printed instead of the Sculptures with the Second Edition of that Play, London, 1674.
33 F. C. Brown, Elkanah Settle, His Life and Works, Chicago, 1910, pp. 57-58.
34 Calendar of State Papers, Colonial, 1677-80, pp. 319, 384-385, 435-436.
35 Ibid., pp. 477, 492.
36 Dennis, op. cit., i, pp. 49-50.
37 Ibid., i, pp. 51-52.
38 Crowne, Dramatic Works, iv, p. 350.
39 Calendar of State Papers, Colonial, 1700, pp. 344-345, 430, 445, 474, 663-664.
40 Calendar of Treasury Papers, 1702-1707, p. 218.
41 Op. cit., viii, p. 215.
42 Calendar of Treasury Papers, 1702-1707, p. 474.
43 The “Burrial” Book of the church of St. Giles-in-the-Fields. Oldys in his manuscript annotations in a copy of Langbaine's Account of the English Dramatic Poets, cited above, stated that Crowne was buried in St. Giles-in-the-Fields. Sir William Musgrave in his Obituary Prior to 1800, ii, p. 116 (Publications of the Harleian Society, xlv, 1900) recorded Crowne's death date as 1712, but failed to give the source of his information. It may be interesting to note in passing that St. Giles is the burial place of such well-known literary figures of the seventeenth century as James Shirley, Andrew Marvel, and Sir Roger L'Estrange.
44 The Gentleman's Magazine, xv (1745), p. 99.