Sebastian Westcott, the Children of Paul’s, and ‘The Marriage of Wit and Science’ by Trevor Lennam, and: Four Tudor Interludes ed. by J.A.B. Somerset (review)

HUMANITIES 379 and satire, but he also read and copied serious religious writing. And, like a local antiquarian, he collected pieces with Glastonbury associations ; these Rigg edits in an appendix, having edited others in various journals during the last decade or so; and the entire manuscript is edited as his Oxford D.Phil. thesis. The bulk of this monograph is taken up with printing the beginnings and ends of the various texts and with detailed descriptive and bibliographical entries about each. More such indices could prove very valuable to historians of thought and culture of the fifteenth century. Taken as a pair, the books suggest the strengths and weaknesses of the series 'Oxford English Monographs,' to which they belong. The Glastonbury book will serve a multitude of purposes well and may be thought to point in the proper direction for future consideration of works of its period. The marmoreal preservation of the Lollard texts seems to have no real value beyond itself. (PHILLIP w. ROGERS) Trevor Lennam, Sebastian Westcott, the Children ofPaul's, and 'The Marriage of Wit and Science.' Toronto and Buffalo: University of Toronto Press 1975, xviii, 220, $15.00; J.A.B. Somerset, editor, Four Tudor Interludes. Athlone Renaissance Library , London: Athlone Press of the University of London 1974, viii, 184, cloth $12.00, paper $5.25 Sebastian Westcott (c 1515-82), John Redford's successor as master of the Paul's Boys, presented at least thirty-two plays at court in the years 1551-81, a remarkably lengthy period in office, for Westcott's recusancy got him excommunicated in 1563 and jailed in 1577. Despite his importance in English theatre history, only eight of these play-titles are known, just one text among them survives, the location of Paul's playhouse is obscure, and contemporary allusions to his productions are few. Trevor Lennam's comprehensive book begins, even so, with a forty-page essay on Westcott family history from county archives, state papers, St Paul's Cathedral muniments, official petitions, law suits, and wills. The results are substantial and impressive: we know much about Westcott the official. Working on H.N. Hillebrand's The Child Actors (1926) and Arthur Brown's recent discoveries, Lennam adds details of Westcott's Devon years, notably his employment in 1540 by Chulmleigh churchwardens and a possible term as clerk of the Crediton choristers. Lennam's most profitable digging may be into St Paul's records: they include Michael Shaller's 'Notebook' (1554, 1566-88), which records Westcott's income and property as Paul's Vicar Choral and Almoner. Lennam suggests the Paul's theatre may have been located in Westcott's rented houses in Paternoster Row, Sermon Lane, and Carter Lane (rather . than in St Gregory's Church, as Hillebrand tentatively argued). 380 LETTERS IN CANADA The Westcott study ends with Lennam's twenty-page calendar of Paul's Boys' performances 1551-81: this collects and critically analyses data from Albert Feuilleral's editions of revels accounts, E.K. Chambers's listing of the court's declared accounts, J.R. Dasent's Acts of the Privy Council, Henry Machyn's Diary, and other records. While generally reliable , this chronicle has some flaws. Lennam's Feuillerat transcriptions lack accuracy; a few factual errors also occur - three plays, not two, are recorded for winter 1563/4 (p 59) and in the 1 January 1577 entry read Thomas Blagrave for Edward Buggyn (pp 65-6); Lennam never mentions the invaluable 1961 David Cook-F.P. Wilson edition of the declared accounts' dramatic records 1558-1642 (Malone Society Collections Volume VI (1961 [1962]), though Chambers's transcriptions are inexact and his facts occasionally controverted by Cook and Wilson (for example, they cite, for 1558-60, a payment of £6.13s 4d to the Queen's 'Enterlude players,' whereas Chambers notes £13.6s 8d to 'players of entirludes'). Lennam omits, as well, warrant dates for payments and some performance times (the 1 January 1569 and 2 February 1575 plays occurred at night). Finally, Lennam too readily accepts a Hedon, Yorks., payment of two shillings to 'the pawlle players' temp. Edward VI as evidence that the Paul's Boys toured north (p 40, n35): the players...