SHIRLEY (or SHERLEY),

See also:

• JAMES
• JAMES (Gr. 'IlrKw,l3or, the Heb. Ya`akob or Jacob)
• JAMES (JAMES FRANCIS EDWARD STUART) (1688-1766)
• JAMES, 2ND EARL OF DOUGLAS AND MAR(c. 1358–1388)
• JAMES, DAVID (1839-1893)
• JAMES, EPISTLE OF
• JAMES, GEORGE PAYNE RAINSFOP
• JAMES, HENRY (1843— )
• JAMES, JOHN ANGELL (1785-1859)
• JAMES, THOMAS (c. 1573–1629)
• JAMES, WILLIAM (1842–1910)
• JAMES, WILLIAM (d. 1827)

JAMES (1596-1666)  , English dramatist, was born in London in September 1596 . He belonged to the great period of English dramatic literature, but, in Lamb's words, he " claims a place among the worthies of this period, not so much for any transcendent genius in himself, as that he was the last of a great race, all of whom spoke nearly the same language and had a set of moral feelings and notions in common." His career of playwriting extended from 1625 to the suppression of stage plays by parliament in 1642 . He was educated at Merchant Taylors' school, St John's College, Oxford, and Catherine Hall, Cambridge, where he took his B.A. degree in or before 1618 . His first poem, Echo, or the Unfortunate Lovers (of which no copy is known, but which is probably the same as Narcissus of 1646), was published in 1618 . After proceeding to M.A. he was, Wood says, " a minister of God's word in or near St Albans." In consequence apparently of his conversion to the Roman Catholic faith he left his living, and was master of St Albans grammar school from 1623-1625 . His first play, Love Tricks, seems to have been written while he was teaching at St Albans . He removed in 1625 to London, where he lived in Gray's Inn, and for eighteen years from that time he was a prolific writer for the stage, producing more than thirty regular plays, tragedies and comedies, and showing no sign of exhaustion when a stop was put to his occupation by the Puritan edict of 1642 . Shirley's sympathies were with the king in his disputes with parliament and he received marks of special favour from the queen . He made a bitter attack on Prynne, who had attacked the stage in Histriomastix; and, when in 1634 a special masque was presented at Whitehall by the gentlemen of the Inns of Court as a practical reply to Prynne, Shirley supplied the text—The Triumph of Peace . Between 1636 and 164o Shirley went to Ireland, under the patronage apparently of the earl of Kildare . Three or four of his plays were produced by his friend John Ogilby in Dublin in the theatre in Werburgh Street, the first ever built in Ireland and at the time of Shirley's visit only one year old . On the outbreak of war he seems to have served with the earl of Newcastle, but when the king's fortunes began to decline he returned to London .

He owed something to the kindness of

Thomas Stanley, but supported himself chiefly by teaching, publishing some educational works under the Common-wealth . Besides these he published during the period of dramatic eclipse four small volumes of poems and plays, in- 1646, 1653, 1655 and 1659 . He"was a drudge" for Ogilby in his translations of the Iliad and the Odyssey, and survived into the reign of Charles II., but, though some of his comedies were revived, he did not again attempt to write for the stage . Wood says that he and his second wife died of fright and exposure after the great fire, and were buried at St Giles's-in-the-Fields on the 29th of October 1666 . Shirley was born to great dramatic wealth, and he handled it freely . He constructed his own plots out of the abundance of materials that had been accumulated during thirty years of unexampled dramatic activity . He did not strain after novelty of situation or character, but worked with confident ease and buoyant copiousness on the familiar lines, contriving situations on the west bank of the river, is Port Herald, whence a railway runs past Chiromo to Blantyre . Below Port Herald the Shire is navigable all the year round . See ZAMBEZI and BRITISH CENTRAL AFRICA .