Among the low comedians Robert Armin must not be forgotten. He attracted Tarlton's attention when a mere boy. The veteran comedian adopted him and taught him. I know not whether he, or Kempe, was the true successor to that unrivalled buffoon. He is described by some rhymester as--
Honest gamesome Robert Armin, That tickles the spleen like a harmless vermin.
I have already mentioned Nathan Field the player: he was also Nathan Field the dramatist. He brought into the latter profession the carelessness about money that belonged to the former. There are indications--only indications, it is true--that there was in him something of the temperament of a Micawber, or a Harold Skimpole, a constitutional inability to understand the meaning of addition and subtraction or the translation of money into its equivalent in eating and drinking. He took a wife when he was no longer quite young, and he became jealous. Hence the epigram, 'De Agello et Othello:'
Field is, in sooth, an actor: all men know it; And is the true Othello of the poet: I wonder if 'tis true, as people tell us, That like the character he is most jealous. If it be so, and many living sweare it, It takes not little from the actor's merit, Since, as the Moor is jealous of his wife, Field can display the passion to the life.
Who remembers John Schanke? He, like Kempe and Armin, carried on the traditions of low comedy. He was great in the invention of 'jigs.' A notable 'jig' was that called 'Schanke's Ordinary,' in which several performers took part. There is an odd story told by Collier of a 'Schanke, a player.' It was in the year 1642. There came galloping to London three of the Lord General's officers with the news that there had been a great battle in which the London Companies had been cut to pieces, and 20,000 men had fallen on both sides. They spread their news as they rode through the villages: they spread it abroad in the city. It was ascertained on inquiry that there had not been any battle at all, but that those three men--Captain Wilson, Lieutenant Whitney, and one Schanke, a player--were simply runaways. Therefore they were all clapped in the Gatehouse, and brought to undergo punishment according to martial law 'for their base cowardliness.'