The New Academy
Encyclopedia
The New Academy, or the New Exchange is a Caroline era stage play, a comedy written by Richard Brome
. It was first printed in 1659
.
. The play was entered into the Stationers' Register
on August 4, 1640
by the bookseller Andrew Crooke
, along with five other Brome plays. Yet the work did not see print until it was included in the 1659
Brome collection Five New Plays, issued by Crooke and Henry Brome (a bookseller who was not related to the dramatist). In the 1659 collection, each drama has its own title page; and three of the five, including The New Academy, are dated 1658 instead of 1659 on those pages. Some of the plays also have separate pagination; this may indicate that the plays were originally intended for individual publication — though scholarly opinion varies on this question.
(1635) and the Académie des inscriptions et belles-lettres
(1663); In England, the formation of the Royal Society
(1660), the earliest known Masonic
lodges, and the earliest schools for girls were varying expressions of this same trend.
Simultaneously, many more modest and more transitory institutions were coming into (and passing out of) existence. Schools to teach manners and social customs for the nouveau riche of expanding economies were a phenomenon of the era. James Shirley
's earliest extant play, Love Tricks
, centers on this phenomenon; it was first published in 1631 under its subtitle, The School of Compliment. Other Caroline dramatists and non-dramatic writers also commented on the trend. Brome includes views of this phenomenon in his plays The Sparagus Garden
and The Damoiselle
.
The most direct historical model for Brome's Academy was probably Francis Kynaston
's Museum Minervae, a school for training members of the gentry and aristocracy "in arms and arts." King Charles I
granted Kynaston a patent for his academy in June 1635, and in 1636 Kynaston published the school's constitution, which compared his intended school
with similar academies in Paris, Rome, and elsewhere. The Minervae was located on Bedford Street, just west of the new development at Covent Garden
(which Brome had treated in his earlier play The Weeding of Covent Garden
). Yet the bubonic plague
epidemic of 1636–37 was fatal to Kynaston's enterprise, which was defunct by 1639.
Brome's play touches upon the nexus of social education with money, in associating his "new academy" with the "New Exchange," an actual business institution of the period. The New Exchange was a mall of shops built on the Strand
in 1609, to complement and compete with the original Royal Exchange
, founded by Sir Thomas Gresham
in 1571. Brome does not exploit the New Exchange directly in his play; instead, he employs a more general concept of a "new exchange" of social and marital choices among the economically and socially mobile denizens of London.
(1632) is an obvious example, as are Shackerley Marmion
's Holland's Leaguer
(1631) and Thomas Nabbes
's Covent Garden (1633) and Tottenham Court (1634), among other plays of the time. The first publication of Ben Jonson
's Bartholomew Fair in 1631 may have acted as a spur to this type of drama. Several of Brome's plays fall naturally into the same category — in addition to The New Academy, The Weeding of Covent Garden
(c. 1632–33) and The Sparagus Garden
(1635) are good examples of "topographical comedy."
Matchill is a widower — a contented one, since he describes his late wife as a shrew. He has two children, a son named Philip and a daughter called Joyce. Many years before, Matchill had sent his son to live in France, in the household of a fellow merchant named Lafoy; and in turn Matchill accepted Lafoy's daughter Gabriella into his home. Suddenly, a letter arrives telling Matchill that Philip has died. Matchill blames Lafoy for his son's loss, and responds by turning Gabriella out of his house. Joyce protests vigorously at this; when the irascible merchant tells his daughter that she can accept his decision or join her friend in the cold world, Joyce loyally accompanies Gabriella. Lady Nestlecock offers the young women sanctuary in her home, and Strigood offers to escort them there; the three leave for that destination...and then disappear. The corrupted Cash also absconds at the same time.
The jealous husband is a staple of English Renaissance drama
, and appears in Brome plays as in those of other writers (as with Brittleware in Sparagus Garden). In this play, Brome reverses the stereotype, and creates a husband who goes to the opposite extreme. Rafe Camelion is a "uxorious citizen" who dismisses every temptation to jealousy and possessivness; his wife Hannah complains that he leaves her exposed to the gossip of women and the solicitations of men. One such man is the libertine Valentine Askal, who plans on the seduction of Hannah Camelion. (When people address him as "Mr. Askal," it sounds like "Master Rascal.") His friend and companion Erasmus is, in contrast, the play's voice of reason and responsibility. Hannah seems to encourage Valentine's intention: she gives him money, ten and twenty pounds at a time.
Lady Nestlecock is being courted by Sir Swithin Whimlby, an elderly knight who frequently weeps over the loss of his first wife. The plan is that the knight will marry the lady and that her son Nehemiah will marry the knight's niece, Mistress Blythe Tripshort. Blythe, however, is the one sensible person here, and she loathes the thought of marrying Nehemiah, who still plays with children's toys. Matchill soon confronts his sister and her companions with the news that he has married his meek and rather brow-beaten serving-woman Rachel. The now-merry Matchill makes Sir Swithin laugh instead of weep; the old knight's merriment increases when the now-married Rachel reveals herself to be a vociferous and demanding wife, as shrewish as her predecessor. True to his name, Matchill has "match'd ill."
Meanwhile, Strigood, calling himself Lightfoot and presenting Joyce and Gabriella as his daughters, has started a school to teach "music, dancing, fashion, compliment" and the French language to London gentry. Cash is his henchman is this scheme, and the two girls are reluctant participants. News of the school, and its fair young women, spreads quickly, and the play's other characters come in groups to investigate its offerings. Papillion and Galliard, two young men freshly arrived from France, are particularly attracted to the young women; Strigood/Lighfoot is not above trying to sell the girls' virginities to the young men, though both the females and males resist this (the women, more diligently than the men). The four young people share strong mutual attractions, so that each female has trouble choosing between the males, and vice versa. The problem is that they are all most strongly attracted to their siblings — for Papillion and Galliard are actually Philip and Francis, the sons of Matchill and Lafoy.
The school demonstrates its services to its visitors, with songs and dances performed onstage. Its effects are not wholly fraudulent: under its influence, Lady Nestlecock and Rachel abandon their previous nastiness and learn to behave cordially to each other. Hannah Camelion uses Valentine to provoke her husband, finally, to jealousy: when Rafe Camelion learns that she's given the young man £50, his equanimity evaporates. Then Hannah reveals to both men that, far from being a potential target of seduction, she is Valentine's stepsister, and the money she dispenses to him is financial support from his stepfather.
Lafoy comes to London, and Matchill reproaches him for the loss of his son. Together they track down their daughters, so that all the characters now assemble at the school. Nehemiah is distressed to learn that he has lost Blythe Tripshort for good: she and Valentine's friend Erasmus have met, liked, and married without delay. The two fathers are shocked to find their sons and daughters; the quartet claim that they too have married, in what appears to be a double case of incest. When it turns out that the marriages have not actually occurred, both fathers are relieved enough to acquiesce to the alternative arrangement: a "new exchange" in which Philip/Papillion marries Gabriella, and Francis/Galliard marries Joyce. Other differences are compounded, faults forgiven, and financial allowances are bestowed. Strigood admits that he wrote the letter to Matchill that falsely claimed Philip's death, as a part of his manipulative schemes.
Richard Brome
Richard Brome was an English dramatist of the Caroline era.-Life:Virtually nothing is known about Brome's private life. Repeated allusions in contemporary works, like Ben Jonson's Bartholomew Fair, indicate that Brome started out as a servant of Jonson, in some capacity...
. It was first printed in 1659
1659 in literature
The year 1659 in literature involved some significant events.-Events:* Andrew Marvell becomes a member of Parliament.* Méric Casaubon edits John Dee's journal of angel magic.-New books:*Richard Baxter - The Holy Commonwealth...
.
Performance and publication
The New Academy was premiered onstage in 16361636 in literature
The year 1636 in literature involved some significant events.-Events:*January 31 - The King's Men perform Shakespeare's Julius Caesar at St. James's Palace.*February - James Shirley's The Duke's Mistress is performed at St...
. The play was entered into the Stationers' Register
Stationers' Register
The Stationers' Register was a record book maintained by the Stationers' Company of London. The company is a trade guild given a royal charter in 1557 to regulate the various professions associated with the publishing industry, including printers, bookbinders, booksellers, and publishers in England...
on August 4, 1640
1640 in literature
The year 1640 in literature involved some significant events.-Events:*January 21 - Salmacida Spolia, a masque written by Sir William Davenant and designed by Inigo Jones, is performed at Whitehall Palace — the final royal masque of the Caroline era.*March 17 - Henry Burnell's play Landgartha...
by the bookseller Andrew Crooke
Andrew Crooke and William Cooke
Andrew Crooke and William Cooke were London publishers of the mid-17th-century. In partnership and individually, they issued significant texts of English Renaissance drama, most notably of the plays of James Shirley....
, along with five other Brome plays. Yet the work did not see print until it was included in the 1659
1659 in literature
The year 1659 in literature involved some significant events.-Events:* Andrew Marvell becomes a member of Parliament.* Méric Casaubon edits John Dee's journal of angel magic.-New books:*Richard Baxter - The Holy Commonwealth...
Brome collection Five New Plays, issued by Crooke and Henry Brome (a bookseller who was not related to the dramatist). In the 1659 collection, each drama has its own title page; and three of the five, including The New Academy, are dated 1658 instead of 1659 on those pages. Some of the plays also have separate pagination; this may indicate that the plays were originally intended for individual publication — though scholarly opinion varies on this question.
Background
The seventeenth century century saw an explosion of new social institutions and organizations, as the late-Renaissance societies of Western Europe moved decisively away from Medieval social organization toward modern forms. The first scientific and philosophical organizations were founded in many places, along with new educational institutions. France saw the founding of the Académie françaiseAcadémie française
L'Académie française , also called the French Academy, is the pre-eminent French learned body on matters pertaining to the French language. The Académie was officially established in 1635 by Cardinal Richelieu, the chief minister to King Louis XIII. Suppressed in 1793 during the French Revolution,...
(1635) and the Académie des inscriptions et belles-lettres
Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres
The Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres is a French learned society devoted to the humanities, founded in February 1663 as one of the five academies of the Institut de France.-History:...
(1663); In England, the formation of the Royal Society
Royal Society
The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, known simply as the Royal Society, is a learned society for science, and is possibly the oldest such society in existence. Founded in November 1660, it was granted a Royal Charter by King Charles II as the "Royal Society of London"...
(1660), the earliest known Masonic
Freemasonry
Freemasonry is a fraternal organisation that arose from obscure origins in the late 16th to early 17th century. Freemasonry now exists in various forms all over the world, with a membership estimated at around six million, including approximately 150,000 under the jurisdictions of the Grand Lodge...
lodges, and the earliest schools for girls were varying expressions of this same trend.
Simultaneously, many more modest and more transitory institutions were coming into (and passing out of) existence. Schools to teach manners and social customs for the nouveau riche of expanding economies were a phenomenon of the era. James Shirley
James Shirley
James Shirley was an English dramatist.He belonged to the great period of English dramatic literature, but, in Lamb's words, he "claims a place among the worthies of this period, not so much for any transcendent genius in himself, as that he was the last of a great race, all of whom spoke nearly...
's earliest extant play, Love Tricks
Love Tricks
Love Tricks, or The School of Complement is a Caroline stage play by James Shirley, his earliest known work.-Performance:Love Tricks was licensed for performance by Sir Henry Herbert, the Master of the Revels, on February 10, 1625; it was performed by the Lady Elizabeth's Men at the Cockpit Theatre...
, centers on this phenomenon; it was first published in 1631 under its subtitle, The School of Compliment. Other Caroline dramatists and non-dramatic writers also commented on the trend. Brome includes views of this phenomenon in his plays The Sparagus Garden
The Sparagus Garden
The Sparagus Garden is a Caroline era stage play, a comedy by Richard Brome. It was the greatest success of Brome's career, and one of the major theatrical hits of its period.-Performance and publication:...
and The Damoiselle
The Damoiselle
The Damoiselle, or the New Ordinary is a Caroline era stage play, a comedy by Richard Brome that was first published in the 1653 Brome collection Five New Plays, issued by Humphrey Moseley, Richard Marriot, and Thomas Dring.-Date and performance:...
.
The most direct historical model for Brome's Academy was probably Francis Kynaston
Francis Kynaston
Sir Francis Kynaston or Kinaston was an English courtier and poet, noted for his translation of Geoffrey Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde into Latin verse ; he also made a Latin translation of Henryson's The Testament of Cresseid.-Life:He was born at Oteley, near Ellesmere, Shropshire, eldest son...
's Museum Minervae, a school for training members of the gentry and aristocracy "in arms and arts." King Charles I
Charles I of England
Charles I was King of England, King of Scotland, and King of Ireland from 27 March 1625 until his execution in 1649. Charles engaged in a struggle for power with the Parliament of England, attempting to obtain royal revenue whilst Parliament sought to curb his Royal prerogative which Charles...
granted Kynaston a patent for his academy in June 1635, and in 1636 Kynaston published the school's constitution, which compared his intended school
Proposals for an English Academy
During the early part of the 17th century, and persisting in some form into the early 18th century, there were a number of proposals for an English Academy: some form of learned institution, conceived as having royal backing and a leading role in the intellectual life of the nation...
with similar academies in Paris, Rome, and elsewhere. The Minervae was located on Bedford Street, just west of the new development at Covent Garden
Covent Garden
Covent Garden is a district in London on the eastern fringes of the West End, between St. Martin's Lane and Drury Lane. It is associated with the former fruit and vegetable market in the central square, now a popular shopping and tourist site, and the Royal Opera House, which is also known as...
(which Brome had treated in his earlier play The Weeding of Covent Garden
The Weeding of Covent Garden
The Weeding of the Covent Garden, or the Middlesex Justice of Peace, alternatively titled The Covent Garden Weeded, is a Caroline era stage play, a comedy written by Richard Brome that was first published in 1659...
). Yet the bubonic plague
Bubonic plague
Plague is a deadly infectious disease that is caused by the enterobacteria Yersinia pestis, named after the French-Swiss bacteriologist Alexandre Yersin. Primarily carried by rodents and spread to humans via fleas, the disease is notorious throughout history, due to the unrivaled scale of death...
epidemic of 1636–37 was fatal to Kynaston's enterprise, which was defunct by 1639.
Brome's play touches upon the nexus of social education with money, in associating his "new academy" with the "New Exchange," an actual business institution of the period. The New Exchange was a mall of shops built on the Strand
Strand, London
Strand is a street in the City of Westminster, London, England. The street is just over three-quarters of a mile long. It currently starts at Trafalgar Square and runs east to join Fleet Street at Temple Bar, which marks the boundary of the City of London at this point, though its historical length...
in 1609, to complement and compete with the original Royal Exchange
Royal Exchange
Royal Exchange may refer to:*Royal Exchange, Belfast a major mixed-use regeneration scheme in the North East Quarter of Belfast City Centre*Royal Exchange, Manchester, a 19th century classical building, home of the Royal Exchange Theatre...
, founded by Sir Thomas Gresham
Thomas Gresham
Sir Thomas Gresham was an English merchant and financier who worked for King Edward VI of England and for Edward's half-sisters, Queens Mary I and Elizabeth I.-Family and childhood:...
in 1571. Brome does not exploit the New Exchange directly in his play; instead, he employs a more general concept of a "new exchange" of social and marital choices among the economically and socially mobile denizens of London.
Place realism
The New Academy is one of a group of plays from the 1630s that show strong tendencies toward what critics have called "place realism," the exploitation of actual contemporaneous locations and institutions in their settings and plots. Such plays can be found scattered throughout the seventeenth century (to cite only the most pertinent historical period); yet a surprising number of them cluster in this single decade. Shirley's Hyde ParkHyde Park (play)
Hyde Park is a Caroline era comedy of manners written by James Shirley, and first published in 1637.Hyde Park was licensed for performance by Sir Henry Herbert, the Master of the Revels, on April 20, 1632, and acted at the Cockpit Theatre by Queen Henrietta's Men...
(1632) is an obvious example, as are Shackerley Marmion
Shackerley Marmion
Shackerley Marmion , also Shakerley, Shakerly, Schackerley, Marmyon, Marmyun, or Mermion, was an early 17th-century dramatist, often classed among the Sons of Ben, the followers of Ben Jonson who continued his style of comedy...
's Holland's Leaguer
Holland's Leaguer
Holland's Leaguer is a Caroline era stage play, a comedy written by Shackerley Marmion. It premiered onstage in 1631 and was first published in 1632...
(1631) and Thomas Nabbes
Thomas Nabbes
Thomas Nabbes was an English dramatist.He was born in humble circumstances in Worcestershire, and educated at Exeter College, Oxford in 1621...
's Covent Garden (1633) and Tottenham Court (1634), among other plays of the time. The first publication of Ben Jonson
Ben Jonson
Benjamin Jonson was an English Renaissance dramatist, poet and actor. A contemporary of William Shakespeare, he is best known for his satirical plays, particularly Volpone, The Alchemist, and Bartholomew Fair, which are considered his best, and his lyric poems...
's Bartholomew Fair in 1631 may have acted as a spur to this type of drama. Several of Brome's plays fall naturally into the same category — in addition to The New Academy, The Weeding of Covent Garden
The Weeding of Covent Garden
The Weeding of the Covent Garden, or the Middlesex Justice of Peace, alternatively titled The Covent Garden Weeded, is a Caroline era stage play, a comedy written by Richard Brome that was first published in 1659...
(c. 1632–33) and The Sparagus Garden
The Sparagus Garden
The Sparagus Garden is a Caroline era stage play, a comedy by Richard Brome. It was the greatest success of Brome's career, and one of the major theatrical hits of its period.-Performance and publication:...
(1635) are good examples of "topographical comedy."
Synopsis
The play's plot centers on the complicated and disputacious family of a successful London merchant named Matchill. He has a sister, the widowed Lady Nestlecock, the doting mother of a simpleton son, Nehemiah Nestlecock; and a half-brother, the ne'er-do-well Strigood. Strigood has spent his way through his own patrimony; Matchill refuses financial help to the spendthrift. Strigood has an answer to this rejection: he has drawn Matchill's apprentice Cash into the fashionable gallants' world of gambling and drinking. To afford this style of life, Cash spends his master's money, some of which finds its way into Strigood's pockets.Matchill is a widower — a contented one, since he describes his late wife as a shrew. He has two children, a son named Philip and a daughter called Joyce. Many years before, Matchill had sent his son to live in France, in the household of a fellow merchant named Lafoy; and in turn Matchill accepted Lafoy's daughter Gabriella into his home. Suddenly, a letter arrives telling Matchill that Philip has died. Matchill blames Lafoy for his son's loss, and responds by turning Gabriella out of his house. Joyce protests vigorously at this; when the irascible merchant tells his daughter that she can accept his decision or join her friend in the cold world, Joyce loyally accompanies Gabriella. Lady Nestlecock offers the young women sanctuary in her home, and Strigood offers to escort them there; the three leave for that destination...and then disappear. The corrupted Cash also absconds at the same time.
The jealous husband is a staple of English Renaissance drama
English Renaissance theatre
English Renaissance theatre, also known as early modern English theatre, refers to the theatre of England, largely based in London, which occurred between the Reformation and the closure of the theatres in 1642...
, and appears in Brome plays as in those of other writers (as with Brittleware in Sparagus Garden). In this play, Brome reverses the stereotype, and creates a husband who goes to the opposite extreme. Rafe Camelion is a "uxorious citizen" who dismisses every temptation to jealousy and possessivness; his wife Hannah complains that he leaves her exposed to the gossip of women and the solicitations of men. One such man is the libertine Valentine Askal, who plans on the seduction of Hannah Camelion. (When people address him as "Mr. Askal," it sounds like "Master Rascal.") His friend and companion Erasmus is, in contrast, the play's voice of reason and responsibility. Hannah seems to encourage Valentine's intention: she gives him money, ten and twenty pounds at a time.
Lady Nestlecock is being courted by Sir Swithin Whimlby, an elderly knight who frequently weeps over the loss of his first wife. The plan is that the knight will marry the lady and that her son Nehemiah will marry the knight's niece, Mistress Blythe Tripshort. Blythe, however, is the one sensible person here, and she loathes the thought of marrying Nehemiah, who still plays with children's toys. Matchill soon confronts his sister and her companions with the news that he has married his meek and rather brow-beaten serving-woman Rachel. The now-merry Matchill makes Sir Swithin laugh instead of weep; the old knight's merriment increases when the now-married Rachel reveals herself to be a vociferous and demanding wife, as shrewish as her predecessor. True to his name, Matchill has "match'd ill."
Meanwhile, Strigood, calling himself Lightfoot and presenting Joyce and Gabriella as his daughters, has started a school to teach "music, dancing, fashion, compliment" and the French language to London gentry. Cash is his henchman is this scheme, and the two girls are reluctant participants. News of the school, and its fair young women, spreads quickly, and the play's other characters come in groups to investigate its offerings. Papillion and Galliard, two young men freshly arrived from France, are particularly attracted to the young women; Strigood/Lighfoot is not above trying to sell the girls' virginities to the young men, though both the females and males resist this (the women, more diligently than the men). The four young people share strong mutual attractions, so that each female has trouble choosing between the males, and vice versa. The problem is that they are all most strongly attracted to their siblings — for Papillion and Galliard are actually Philip and Francis, the sons of Matchill and Lafoy.
The school demonstrates its services to its visitors, with songs and dances performed onstage. Its effects are not wholly fraudulent: under its influence, Lady Nestlecock and Rachel abandon their previous nastiness and learn to behave cordially to each other. Hannah Camelion uses Valentine to provoke her husband, finally, to jealousy: when Rafe Camelion learns that she's given the young man £50, his equanimity evaporates. Then Hannah reveals to both men that, far from being a potential target of seduction, she is Valentine's stepsister, and the money she dispenses to him is financial support from his stepfather.
Lafoy comes to London, and Matchill reproaches him for the loss of his son. Together they track down their daughters, so that all the characters now assemble at the school. Nehemiah is distressed to learn that he has lost Blythe Tripshort for good: she and Valentine's friend Erasmus have met, liked, and married without delay. The two fathers are shocked to find their sons and daughters; the quartet claim that they too have married, in what appears to be a double case of incest. When it turns out that the marriages have not actually occurred, both fathers are relieved enough to acquiesce to the alternative arrangement: a "new exchange" in which Philip/Papillion marries Gabriella, and Francis/Galliard marries Joyce. Other differences are compounded, faults forgiven, and financial allowances are bestowed. Strigood admits that he wrote the letter to Matchill that falsely claimed Philip's death, as a part of his manipulative schemes.
External links
- Richard Brome Online http://www.hrionline.ac.uk/brome/ contains a scholarly edition of this play, including textual and critical introductions.