ere published anonymously, led Mr. Fleay
to credit all of them to Wilson, in which--excluding _Fair Em_--he was
probably correct. All of these plays, with the exception of _The
Pedlar's Prophecy_, were either Burbage's or Admiral's properties. _The
Three Lords and Three Ladies_ was published for Richard Jones in 1590,
and _The Cobblers Prophecy_ for Cuthbert Burbie in 1594. All plays
published for Richard Jones were formerly old Admiral's properties, and
nearly all the early plays published for Cuthbert Burbie old Burbage
properties. _Fair Em_, while not published until 1631, records on the
title-page that it was acted by Lord Strange's company. _The Pedlar's
Prophecy_ was, however, published by Thomas Creede, all of whose
publications Mr. Fleay has found were old Queen's properties. Admitting,
then, that all of these plays were written by Robert Wilson, the latter
play must have been written by him for the Queen's company later than
1582-83, when he left Leicester's company. It appears probable also that
the earlier plays--_The Three Ladies_ and _The Cobbler's Prophecy_--were
written for Leicester's company before that date, and retained by
Burbage when he severed his connection with Leicester's men, or else,
that they were retained by Leicester's men as company properties and
brought to Strange's men in 1588-89 by Kempe, Pope, and Bryan, when
their old company disbanded. It is evident, then, _The Three Lords and
Three Ladies_, which Mr. Fleay admits is merely an amplification of the
old play of _The Three Ladies_, which he dates as being first published
in 1584, was a revision made when all these plays became Strange's
properties, and that the scriptural parallels between _The Three Lords
and Three Ladies_, _The Three Ladies_, and _Fair Em_, which are quite
absent in _The Pedlar's Prophecy_--the only one of these plays ascribed
in the publication itself to Wilson--are due to the revisionary efforts
of the "theological poet" referred to by Greene as doing such work for
Strange's company, and as having had a hand in _Fair Em_, which was
acted in about 1590, in which year _The Three Lords and Three Ladies_,
which shows similar scriptural characteristics, was published. From a
time reference in the earlier form of this play--_The Three Ladies_--in
the first scene, "not much more than twenty-six years, it was in Queen
Mary's time," Mr. Fleay arbitrarily dates from the last year of Mary's
reign, and concludes that it may have