INTRODUCTION The Biography of John Ford. If the greatness of many of the Elizabethans were to be estimated by the amount of biographical material left by them as footprints on the sands of time, a mighty reconsideration would have to be made of our critical estimates of many leading writers. Of even the glory of British letters himself what do we know, save that he was born at Stratford, was a player and a dramatist in London, bought certain properties in his native town, and died there in his 53rd year? Literary men and, most of all, playwrights, were in those days looked askance at. The world of that day reserved its biographic favours for the warriors and the statesmen and the navigators; the men who were thought to be doing something to build up the material greatness of England. Pathetic in the extreme is it to read nowadays the dedication by some of the writers and dramatists to the 'great ones' of their age, in which the men of the pen literally grovelled before the men of the sword and the Senate House. Yet how stands the balance now? The whirligig of time has assuredly brought in his revenges, for these same soldiers and senators would to-day be as absolutely and irrevocably forgotten as are the leaves and flowers of the spacious times of Great Elizabeth, were it not for the mention made of them in connection with the works of those despised writers and dramatists. vii We Ford is no exception to the general rule above quoted. know very little about him, save that he was born the second son of Thomas Ford, Esq., of Ilsington, in North-west Devonshire, where his paternal ancestors had been established for many generations, and that he was baptized in Ilsington Church, in that county, April 17, 1586. On the mother's side he was the grandson of Lord Chief Justice Popham. Of his early years and education, of his youthful predilections, of his studies and sports we know nothing, save that when 16 he repaired to London and was admitted to the Middle Temple. He appears from some contemporary references to have practised law with a fair measure of success, for he more than once refers to business relations with noblemen, suggestive of intercourse with them of a kind both close and confidential. His legal vocations, however, did not prevent him engaging in literary work, and in the year 1606 he published Fame's Memorial, an elegiac poem on the death of the Earl of Devonshire, dedicating it to the Countess. This was followed in the same year by a pamphlet entitled Honour Triumphant, in which he sought to vindicate the honour of all fair ladies in the four following dicta: (1) Knights in ladies' service have no free-will; (2) Beauty is the maintainer of valour ; (3) A fair lady was never false; (4) Perfect lovers are alone wise. In 1613 Ford produced a comedy, An Ill Beginning has a Good End, but no information is extant as to how it was received. He was evidently at this time doing a good deal of journeyman dramatic work, cobbling up old plays and adapting them to present wants and conditions. In 1615 Ford wrote a sketch of his friend, Sir Thomas Overbury, who had been poisoned two years before, at the instance of |