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stage-play, which is what it is. I haven’t the time to detail other aspects of the piece, like the severed limbs made of wax, the dance in the
lunatic asylum, the poisoned nightshirt, the bleeding head, and the torn-out heart. It’s a tragedy of a rather ridiculous sort and it all ends in tears, with a pile of mangled corpses,
comprising the guilty and the innocent. Comprising just about every character in fact. The last ones to die are Virginia (the tainted heroine) and Vindice (the not insensitive villain), with words
of undying love on their lips. This is the most affecting part of the action, even if my eyes stayed dry. Indeed the love between brother and sister, sinful though it is, is well suggested
throughout.
    This play, called
The World’s Diseas’d
, was written by the aforementioned friend of mine, Richard Milford.
    “It’s a good title, Richard,” I’d said to him. “It captures the spirit of the thing. You have painted a sick world.”
    “I merely show mankind his face in the mirror, you know,” said Richard. He might have been talking about a species quite distinct from himself.
    Richard Milford had made great strides since his early association with the Chamberlain’s Company. He came from near the town of Warwick, the same part of the country as William
Shakespeare, and it was sometimes said that he was treading in the master’s footsteps. His first play, the first to be performed at least, was
A Venetian Whore
. I’d caught him
out in a little bit of borrowing here, since I’d come across a similar piece in the manuscript-chest at the Globe playhouse and we fell out over this sharp practice. 1 But the borrowing went undetected by anyone else, it seemed, and
A Venetian Whore
was mounted to general acclaim. This success seemed to open a creative vein in him. He
speedily drafted a play about a murder in a garden (this one was all his own work, he assured me) and he even brought out a volume of poems called – with artful simplicity –
A
Garland
. Richard was possessed by literary ambitions and he knew that an enduring reputation was to be gained through verse, especially lyrical lines about love and transience, rather than
through the more ephemeral effusions of the stage.
    We were on good terms once more, the rift over
A Venetian Whore
having long since closed. He was a friend, although I could never take him entirely seriously – or not as seriously
as he took himself.
    Either because he trusted my judgement and sought my approval or perhaps because he wanted to prove that the work of his hand was truly the product of his brain, Richard was in the habit of
presenting me with early copies of his most recent pieces. So it was that I’d seen a ‘foul paper’ copy of
The World’s Diseas’d.
I knew it was genuine. The foul
paper was the earliest stage of finished composition, before the material was sent to a scrivener to make fair copies, and this one was covered with sufficient splotches and crossings-out to attest
to the author’s struggle to express himself. Anyway I’d read this piece many weeks before the Chamberlain’s were due to present it on stage. At least I assumed that our Company
was going to do it, Richard having established himself as something of a favourite with our audiences. But Milford told me that one or two of the seniors were doubtful about the new play. They
didn’t like the incest in
The World’s Diseas’d
and considered that it might be offensive. Richard was baffled.
    “After all, the brother and sister in my piece are punished,” he said. “They die in the end.”
    “So does everyone else,” I said.
    “Of course everybody dies. It’s a tragedy.”
    “What’s the problem then?”
    “It is rather that Master Burbage and Master Heminges object to the fact that my Vindice and my Virginia are without conscience in their love.”
    “Your lovers don’t say ‘sorry’ often enough.”
    “You have hit it, Nicholas. I might have a brother