Beschreibung:

Stephens (John). Essayes and Characters, Ironicall, and Instructive. The second impression. With a new Satyre in defence of Common Law and Lawyers: Mixt with reproofe against their common enemy. With many new characters, & divers other things added; & everything amended, by John Stephens the yonger, of Lincolnes Inne Gent., printed by E: Allde for Phillip Knight, and are to be solde at his shop in Chancery lane over against the Rowles, 1615, A-Y8, Aa-Dd8, Ee1-4, 19 unnumbered preliminary pages & 434 pages of main text, neat contemporary ownership signature of ROB: Gord: to title, with price paid to top margin, contemporary limp vellum, hand-title in brown ink to spine 'Steephens Essayes', ties lacking, rubbed and some marks, small 8vo (Qty: 1) STC 23250; Pforzheimer 989; Gwendolen Murphy, English Character Books, pp. 29-31 (and p. 19 for the sixth edition of Overbury's Characters containing the attack on Stephens for calling actors 'rogues'). Published in the same year as the first edition, this collection of Theophrastian characters is the principal work by John Stephens, although he was also the author of a play entitled Cynthia's Revenge, or Menander's Extasy, which was published surreptitiously in 1639 with commendatory verses by Ben Jonson. This second impression or edition includes for the first time the 'Satyr In Defence of Common Law and Lawyers', and a riposte to the sixth and enlarged edition of Sir Thomas Overbury's Characters... together with... The Wife, itself issued in 1615 with a new piece entitled 'An Excellent Actor', in which the writer attacks John Stephens' literary abilities: 'the imitating Characterist is extreame idle in calling them Rogues... I would let his malicious ignorance understand, that Rogues are not to be imploide as maine ornaments to his Maiesties Reuels; but the itch of bestriding the Presse, or getting vp on the wodden Pacolet, hath defiled more innocent paper the ever did Laxative Physicke'. This additional piece, as well as 31 other additions is widely attributed to the playwright John Webster. In Stephens's Characters, besides the coxcomb, gamester, begging scholar, gaoler, informer, mercenary poet, huntsman, falconer, farmer, hostess, tapster, lawyer's clerk, scrivener and witch, is the 'common player' which derides the professional actor: 'a common player is a slow payer, seldom a purchaser, never a puritan. The Statute hath done wisely to acknowledg him a Rogue errant, for his chiefe essence is, A daily Counterfeit... When he doth hold conference upon the stage; and should looke directly in his fellows face; hee turnes about his voice into the assembly for applause-sake, like a Trumpeter in the fields, that shifts places to get an eccho' (pages 295-97). This second edition is also significant for the addition of the 'Essay the fourth entituled Reproofe. Or a defence for common Law & Lawyers...', which is a poetical reply to George Ruggle's play Ignoramus, acted twice before King James in March and May of that year, much to the annoyance of the legal profession, who were the subject of the play's ridicule.