go by default. It is possible that in ll. 11-12, they refer to a
performance that in vindication of this claim they had given at Court,
while, as further evidence of their priority of interest, they remind
the audience of the actors belonging to the company who had appeared in
the title-role. Nathaniel Field (l. 15), born in 1587, had as a boy been
one of the "Children of the Queen's Revels," and had performed in
Jonson's _Cynthia's Revels_, 1600, and _Poetaster_, 1601. He seems to
have joined the King's players soon after 1614, and his name appears in
the list of "the principall actors in all these playes" prefixed to the
first Shakespearean Folio of 1623. Not long after this period, Field,
who by his _Woman is a Weathercock_ (1612) and his _Amends for Ladies_
(1618) had made a reputation as a dramatist as well as an actor, is
believed to have retired from the stage, though he lived till 1633. If,
however, he did not appear as Bussy till after 1614, when the play had
already been at least seven years, perhaps considerably longer, on the
boards, it can scarcely be said with truth that his "action first did
give it name" (l. 16). His successor in the part, whom the "gray beard"
(l. 18) of advancing years had now disqualified, cannot be identified;
but the "third man" (l. 21) is probably Ilyard Swanston, who, according
to Fleay (_Biog. Chron. of Drama_, vol. I, p. 60), was one of the
"King's men" from 1625 to 1642. His impersonation of Bussy is
favourably referred to by Edmund Gayton in his _Festivous Notes upon Don
Quixote_ (1654), p. 25 and his previous role of "Richard" (l. 23) may
have been that of Ricardo in Massinger's _Picture_, which he had played
in 1629 (cf. Phelps, _Geo. Chap._ p. 125). The earlier editors thought
that Charles Hart was here alluded to, but Wright in his _Historia
Histrionica_ states it was the part of the Duchess in Shirley's
_Cardinal_, licensed 1641, that first gave him any reputation. Hence he
cannot at this date have performed Bussy; his fame in the part was made
after the Restoration (cf. Introduction, p. xxv).

=5-6=, 1-33. =Fortune . . . port.= This opening speech of Bussy
illustrates the difficult compression of Chapman's style and the
diversion of his thought from strictly logical sequence by his excessive
use of simile. He begins (ll. 1-4) by emphasising the paradoxical
character of human affairs, in which only those escape poverty who are
abnormal, while it is among the necessitous th