o make Room for
others; the Company having then plenty of new Poets" (ed. Montague
Summers, London, n.d., pp. 33-34). "After the Tempest, came the Siege of
_Constantinople_, Wrote by Mr. _Nevill Pain_" (_ibid._, p. 35).
Langbaine's _An Account of the English Dramatick Poets_ (1691) gives no
author for _The Siege of Constantinople_, but says of _The Fatal
Jealousy_ that it is "ascribed by some to Mr. Pane" (p. 531) and of _The
Morning Ramble_ that this "Play is said to be written by One Mr. _Pane_,
and may be accounted a good Comedy" (p. 541).

We do not have to depend on the early historians of the English drama
for certain knowledge that Payne was for a time a dramatist. Though his
brief excursion into the theater must later have seemed to him a minor
episode in his life, Payne's enemies were aware of the fact that he was
a playwright and have written their knowledge into the record of his
treasonable activities. For example, the author of a burlesque life of
Payne, which contains, so far as I know, the only connected account of
his activities, makes this useful remark: "Then [after his return from
Ireland in 1672] he composes a Tragedy of a certain Emperour of
Constantinople, whom he never knew; but in whose person he vilifies a
certain Prince [Charles II], whom he very well knows" (_Modesty
Triumphing over Impudence_ ... 1680, pp. 18-19).

As an agent of the Catholic party, Payne had excellent reasons for
wishing to keep his affairs well veiled. What we know of his life has
had to be pieced together from information found in state papers, court
records, and "histories" of the branches of the damnable Popish plots.*
The date of his birth is not known, nor of his death, unless Summers was
correct in giving it (without supporting evidence) as 1710 (_The Works
of Aphra Behn_, 1915, V, 519).

[Footnote: For this biographical sketch of Payne I have drawn
on my "Henry Nevil Payne, Dramatist and Jacobite Conspirator,"
published in _The Parrott Presentation Volume_, Princeton, 1935,
pp. 347-381.]

Payne's first opportunity to serve the Catholic party came, apparently,
in 1670, when he went to Ireland in the employ of Sir Elisha Leighton,
who was private secretary to the new lord lieutenant, Lord Berkeley. By
April 1672 Berkeley's pro-Catholic rule had so alienated the city
council of Dublin that he was ordered to return to England and the Earl
of Essex was sent out in his place. From Essex we learn that Pa