Of _Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay_ there are three quartos, dated 1594, 1630 and 1655. The first quarto was published by Edward White, and 14th May 1594, the play is entered by the publisher on the _Stationery Registers_. The two exemplars of this quarto are in the British Museum and in Bridgewater House. In Henslowe's _Diary, Friar Bacon_ heads the list of plays by my Lord Strange's men in an entry for 19th February 1592. At this time it was not a new play. Between this date and 6th May it was performed by Strange's men once every three weeks, and once a week between the following 10th January and 30th January. 1st April 1594, it was taken over by the original owners, the Queen's players, who were then acting with Sussex' players, and was performed 1st and 5th April at the Rose Theatre. Presumably it was sent to press by the Queen's men. At Christmas 1602 Middleton wrote a Prologue and Epilogue for a performance of the play by the Admiral's men at Court, for which he received five shillings. After this the play was probably kept in the possession of the Admiral's players, for the 1630 title-page indicates its performance by the Palsgrave's men. In no sense a plagiarism, the play is strictly a rival of Marlowe's _Dr. Faustus_, and it must have been performed within a year after Marlowe's play appeared in 1587. With _James IV._ it represents Greene's dramatic workmanship at its best. A few months after the appearance of the play it was parodied in _Fair Em, The Miller's Daughter of Manchester_. Greene's play is based on a romance written at the end of the sixteenth century, and probably accessible to both Greene and Marlowe. The "wall of brass" is common to both plays, and comes in each case directly from the source-book, the _Famous History of Friar Bacon_. This popular old story, of which the earliest extant edition is dated 1630, is now accessible in Thoms' _Early English Prose Romances_, Vol. I. To his source-material Greene added, probably out of his own head, the character of Margaret and her touching love-story. For the historical portions of the play there is no warrant in actual events.
_THE HONOURABLE HISTORY OF FRIAR BACON AND FRIAR BUNGAY_
_Enter_ PRINCE EDWARD _malcontented, with_ LACY, WARREN, ERMSBY, _and_ RALPH SIMNELL.