been acted by the Queen's company
in 1584. He admits, however, that it does not appear in the list of the
Queen's men's plays for this year, and later on infers from other
evidence that the allusion to twenty-six years from Queen Mary's time
probably referred to the first date of publication, which is unknown,
but which he places, tentatively, in 1584. "That it was played by the
Queen's men," he writes, "is shown under the next play,--_The Three
Lords and Three Ladies_,--which is an amplification of the preceding
play performed shortly after Tarleton's death in about 1588." Mr. Fleay
writes further: "If I rightly understand the allusions, Tarleton acted
in _Wit and Will_ in 1567-68. The allusion to Tarleton's picture shows
that _Tarleton's Jests_, in which his picture appears, had already been
published. The statement that Simplicity (probably acted by Wilson
himself), Wit, and Will had acted with Tarleton, proves that the present
play was acted by the Queen's men."

In arguing to place Robert Wilson as a member of Strange's company in
1588-89, Mr. Fleay borrows both premises and inference from the facts to
support his theory. He is no doubt right in dating the original
composition of _The Three Ladies of London_ before 1584, and probably
also in attributing all of these plays to Wilson, but, seeing that they
were all Burbage properties in 1589-90, is it not evident that _The
Three Ladies of London_ was an old Leicester play produced by Wilson
before 1582-83, when he and Burbage left that company, and either that
Burbage then retained possession of it, or, that it was brought to
Strange's men by Pope, Kempe, and Bryan in 1589? Mr. Fleay admits that
_The Three Lords and Three Ladies_ is merely an amplification of _The
Three Ladies_ made after Tarleton's death, which occurred in 1588. It
seems apparent, then, that the scriptural phraseology noticeable in _The
Three Ladies_, _The Three Lords and Three Ladies_, and _Fair Em_, which
led Mr. Fleay to impute the last to Wilson's pen, and also to connect
him as a writer and an actor with Lord Strange's company in 1589-90, is
the work of the "theological poet" indicated by Greene and Nashe as
having had a hand in _Fair Em_ in 1589. It is also evident that the
actors who took the parts of Simplicity, Wit, and Will,--in _The Three
Lords and Three Ladies_,--who had formerly acted with Tarleton, were
Kempe, Pope, and Bryan, Strange's men, who were all formerly Leicester's
men. It i