HEYWOOD

heywood, thomas (d. c. 1650), english dramatist and miscellaneous author, was a native of lincolnshire, born about 1575, and said to have been educated at cambridge and to have become a fellow of peterhouse. heywood is mentioned by philip henslowe as having written a book or play for the lord admiral's company of actors in october 1596; and in 1598 he was regularly engaged as a player in the company, in which he presumably had a share, as no wages are mentioned. he was also a member of other companies, of lord southampton's, of the earl of derby's and of the earl of worcester's players, afterwards known as the queen's servants. in his preface to the _english traveller_ (1633) he describes himself as having had "an entire hand or at least a main finger in two hundred and twenty plays." of this number, probably considerably increased before the close of his dramatic career, only twenty-three survive. he wrote for the stage, not for the press, and protested against the printing of his works, which he said he had no time to revise. he was, said tieck, the "model of a light and rapid talent," and his plays, as might be expected from his rate of production, bear little trace of artistic elaboration. charles lamb called him a "prose shakespeare"; professor ward, one of heywood's most sympathetic editors, points out that this epigrammatic statement can only be accepted with reservations. heywood had a keen eye for dramatic situations and great constructive skill, but his powers of characterization were not on a par with his stagecraft. he delighted in what he called "merry accidents," that is, in coarse, broad farce; his fancy and invention were inexhaustible. it was in the domestic drama of sentiment that he won his most distinctive success. for this he was especially fitted by his genuine tenderness and his freedom from affectation, by the sweetness and gentleness for which lamb praised him. his masterpiece, _a woman kilde with kindnesse_ (acted 1603; printed 1607), is a type of the _comedie larmoyante_, and _the english traveller_ (1633) is a domestic tragedy scarcely inferior to it in pathos and in the elevation of its moral tone. his first play was probably _the foure prentises of london: with the conquest of jerusalem_ (printed 1615, but acted some fifteen years earlier). this may have been intended as a burlesque of the old romances, but it is more likely that it was meant seriously to attract the apprentice public to whom it was dedicated, and its popularity was no doubt aimed at in beaumont and fletcher's travesty of the city taste in drama in their _knight of the burning pestle_. the two parts of _king edward the fourth_ (printed 1600), and of _if you know not me, you know no bodie; or, the troubles of queene elizabeth_ (1605 and 1606) are chronicle histories. his other comedies include: _the royall king, and the loyall subject_ (acted c. 1600; printed 1637); the two parts of _the fair maid of the west; or, a girle worth gold_ (two parts, printed 1631); _the fayre maid of the exchange_ (printed anonymously 1607); _the late lancashire witches_ (1634), written with richard brome, and prompted by an actual trial in the preceding year; _a pleasant comedy, called a mayden-head well lost_ (1634); _a challenge for beautie_ (1636); _the wise-woman of hogsdon_ (printed 1638), the witchcraft in this case being matter for comedy, not seriously treated as in the lancashire play; and _fortune by land and sea_ (printed 1655), with william rowley. the five plays called respectively _the golden_, _the silver_, _the brazen_ and _the iron age_ (the last in two parts), dated 1611, 1613, 1613, 1632, are series of classical stories strung together with no particular connexion except that "old homer" introduces the performers of each act in turn. _loves maistresse; or, the queens masque_ (printed 1636) is on the story of cupid and psyche as told by apuleius; and the tragedy of the _rape of lucrece_ (1608) is varied by a "merry lord," valerius, who lightens the gloom of the situation by singing comic songs. a series of pageants, most of them devised for the city of london, or its guilds, by heywood, were printed in 1637. in vol. iv. of his _collection of old english plays_ (1885), mr a. h. bullen printed for the first time a comedy by heywood, _the captives, or the lost recovered_ (licensed 1624), and in vol. ii. of the same series, _dicke of devonshire_, which he tentatively assigns to the same hand. besides his dramatic works, twelve of which were reprinted by the "shakespeare society," and were published by mr john pearson in a complete edition of six vols. with notes and illustrations in 1874, he was the author of _troia britannica, or great britain's troy_ (1609), a poem in seventeen cantos "intermixed with many pleasant poetical tales" and "concluding with an universal chronicle from the creation until the present time"; _an apology for actors, containing three brief treatises_ (1612) edited for the shakespeare society in 1841; [greek: gynaikeion] _or nine books of various history concerning women_ (1624); _england's elizabeth, her life and troubles during her minority from the cradle to the crown_ (1631); _the hierarchy of the blessed angels_ (1635), a didactic poem in nine books; _pleasant dialogue, and dramas selected out of lucian_, &c. (1637; ed. w. bang, louvain, 1903); and _the life of merlin surnamed ambrosius_ (1641). see a. w. ward, _history of english dram. lit._ ii. 550 seq. (1899); the same author's introduction to _a woman killed with kindness_ ("temple dramatists," 1897); j. a. symonds in the introduction to _thomas heywood_ in the "mermaid" series (new issue, 1903).