Then we come to The Family of Love. It had long been thought to be an early work of Middleton. It recently has been ostracized in Taylor and Lavagnino’s edition of Middleton’s works on the grounds, as MacDonald Jackson explains in his canon essay, that it does not meet the Middleton mannerisms tests upon which the editors of that edition place so much faith. I have serious doubts, explained below, about the efficacy of those tests conclusively to identify Middleton’s authorship or lack thereof. Let’s assume, nevertheless, that Middleton did not write The Family of Love. In that case, the attribution of the play to him in Archer’s list presumably would have been based on the title page’s information that the play was performed by a children’s company, the Children of the King’s Revels. All of Middleton’s known plays in that early period were similarly written for children’s companies.
Two errors do appear on Archer’s list for which I know of no surviving basis. Both Hoffman and “Hieronimo, both parts” are attributed to Shakespeare. The former undoubtedly is the play for which Henslowe advanced the Lord Admiral’s money to pay Henry Chettle. The latter two probably are The Spanish Tragedy, which the list elsewhere correctly attributes to Kyd, and The First Part of Jeronimo, which seems to have some relationship with The Spanish Tragedy’s now lost prequel, The Spanish Comedy, also presumably by Kyd. In these cases Archer probably was relying on information handwritten on the title pages by overenthusiastic attributors. The plays’ printed title pages identify no authors. But by 1656 Shakespeare was a much admired playwright. Overenthusiasm for attributing plays to him also no doubt partly underlay misattributions to him on the list of Thomas Lord Cromwell, The Puritan, Arden of Feversham, and The Merry Devil of Edmonton.
None of the reasons for the errors on Archer’s list can explain attribution of The Revenger’s Tragedy to Cyril Tourneur. No compositor error is apparent. No author initials, or other information, that might have been misinterpreted appear on the quarto’s title page. And there was of course no then current overenthusiasm to identify plays as written by Cyril Tourneur.
The play’s title does vaguely resemble the title of Tourneur’s sole undisputed play, The Atheist’s Tragedy. It’s hard to imagine, however, that Archer’s sources were motivated by so gossamer a rationale to attribute The Revenger’s Tragedy to him. The title of Every Woman in Her Humor is, by contrast, identical in every respect save gender to the title of a play actually written by Jonson. If the resemblance of its title was a sufficient basis to attribute The Revenger’s Tragedy to Tourneur, we might better expect the play to be attributed to Beaumont and Fletcher, who were far better known. They wrote The Maid’s Tragedy. Their authorship of that play is correctly identified on the list. Chapman’s Byron’s Tragedy is also correctly attributed on the list. If not Beaumont and Fletcher, then, why not Chapman? No probable reason could have suggested to Archer’s sources Tourneur, not them, based on similarities of titles.
Next we must consider Kirkman’s 1661 list, as revised in 1671. Middleton partisans such as Jackson assert that Kirkman offers “no independent authority” for Tourneur’s authorship. Rather, Archer’s attribution to Tourneur is merely “uncritically repeated by Kirkman.” Those assertions are incorrect. Kirkman did consult Archer’s list. He repeats some of Archer’s errors, misattributing The Arraignment of Paris to Shakespeare, for example, an error which on Archer’s list seems to have resulted from compositor misreading of Archer’s intended lineation. But Kirkman clearly used additional sources of information, and he critically evaluated Archer’s attributions. Thus his list provides substantially independent authority.
Kirkman’s research allowed him to correct several errors on Archer’s list. On Archer’s list A Trick to Catch the Old One is misattributed to Shakespeare, apparently because of a compositor error similar to that for Arraignment. Kirkman correctly attributes the play to “Tho. Midleton.” Archer’s list names “Thomas Barker” as the author of Old Fortunatus. Kirkman correctly has Dekker. Archer’s list attributes “Hieronimo, both parts” to Shakespeare. Kirkman has no second part and leaves “Hieronymo 1st part” unattributed. Archer once correctly attributes Love’s Labor’s Lost to Shakespeare and once, apparently based upon an incorrect expansion of the initials in a now lost edition, to William Sampson. Kirkman attributes the play only to Shakespeare.
Perhaps most significantly to us, Archer’s list misattributes Every Woman in Her Humor to Jonson. Archer’s source presumably supplied this misinformation because the play’s title closely corresponds with that of a play actually written by Jonson. Kirkman corrects the error; he leaves Every Woman unattributed. Thus, he didn’t retain Archer’s attribution of Revenger’s Tragedy to Tourneur just because its title vaguely resembled that of The Atheist’s Tragedy.
Kirkman shows a fairly good sense of which plays were written by Shakespeare, and which probably were not. He lists the book of the play “Henry the 5th, with the battle of Agencourt,” almost certainly the play we know as The Famous Victories. But he identifies no author for the play, suggesting that he knew this was not Shakespeare’s famous play. He gives subordinate status to plays whose attribution to Shakespeare is doubtful, including misattributions he takes over from Archer. He places plays that appear in the First Folio, and whose authorship is therefore undoubted, at the top of his listings for each letter. Plays whose attributions to Shakespeare are more doubtful appear elsewhere in listings under the letter. Even Pericles is given such subordinate status, presumably because it wasn’t included in the First Folio. Discerning readers of Kirkman’s list could thus distinguish plays genuinely by Shakespeare from those only uncertainly attributed to him.
Kirkman also correctly attributes quite a number of plays that are left unattributed by Archer. Some of these are significant. Kirkman for the first time attributes The Phoenix to Middleton, an attribution now generally accepted, but for which there is no prior evidence. Greene, Harvey and Heywood all allude to Marlowe’s authorship of Tamburlaine, but Kirkman’s attribution of the play to Marlowe is the first time in surviving records that the attribution is made unambiguously. Kirkman similarly for the first time correctly attributes Edward IV and If You Know Not Me to Heywood. No reference to Heywood’s authorship appears in any edition of Edward IV, and only the initials “T.H.” appear under a forepiece in a late edition of If You Know Not Me.