The theatrical activities of Thomas Ravenscroft (ca. 1590- ca. 1633), a chorister at St. Paul's under Edward Pearce, have from time to time been commented upon, particularly with respect to some Paul's boys’ plays performed at the turn of the century for which a few stage songs survive in three of his music publications: Pammelia (1609), Deuteromelia (1609), and A Brief Discourse (1614). A songbook heretofore overlooked by stage historians is his Melismata (1611), which includes still another stage song for a Paul's play, and this—hitherto apparently neither identified nor reproduced—is for Thomas Middleton's A Trick to Catch the Old One (Q 1608; S. R. October 7, 1607).

In an addition to Chapter VI, Book III of the 1588 edition of his Essais, Montaigne writes: ‘De mon temps, un Gentil-homme, en l'une de nos frontieres, impost de sa personne et ne trouvant cheval capable de son poids, ayant une querelle, marchoit par païs en coche de mesme cette peinture, et s'en trouvoit tres-bien.’ Although it is impossible to date this passage precisely, it is likely that Montaigne wrote it near the end of 1588, since in another addition a few sentences further on he speaks of Catherine de Medicis, who died early in 15 89, as though she were still living.

It is not ordinarily wise to draw readers’ attention to further developments of Shakespearean themes unless such developments may be said in some sense to throw interesting light on Shakespeare's particular treatment, or because the developments have worth-while intrinsic merits which may owe their very origin to the vogue sustained if not actually created by him. I should like to bring a thematic development before readers so that they may judge for themselves whether or no it fulfills either or both conditions as well as contributing to the variety of the analogues of the ‘bed-trick’ which has already been pointed out by scholars not necessarily claiming a possible source for Shakespeare but indicating the prevalence of such story material.