Five New Plays, Viz. The [Surprisal, Committee,] Comedies. And The [Indian-Queen, Vestal-Virgin, Duke of Lerma] Tragedies. As they were Acted by His Majesty’s Servants at the Theatre-Royal. Written by the Honourable Sir Robert Howard. The Second Edition Corrected.

Howard, Sir Robert. (1626-1698) Five New Plays, Viz. The [Surprisal, Committee,] Comedies. And The [Indian-Queen, Vestal-Virgin, Duke of Lerma] Tragedies. As they were Acted by His Majesty's Servants at the Theatre-Royal. Written by the Honourable Sir Robert Howard. The Second Edition Corrected.

London: Printed for Henry Herringman, and are to be Sold by Jacob Tonson, Daniel Browne, Thomas Bennet, and Richard Wellington, 1700.

Sir Robert Howard:

Large Quatro, 11.25 x 7 in. Second edition. A-Z4, Aa-Kk4. The frontispiece bears a fine engraved portrait of Sir Robert Howard. This is a good copy, somewhat browned internally throughout with the occasional worm in the first 80 pages and sometimes affecting single letters but not objectionable. William Morehead's bookplate is pasted inside the front board. The very nice paneled and speckled contemporary binding has been rebacked. The gilt-tool of the Signet Society is present on the center panel of both boards. Additionally, the library coat of arms for William Morehead, esq. is present.

"Solicitors in Scotland were previously known as "writers"; Writers to the Signet were the solicitors entitled to supervise use of the King's Signet, the private seal of the early Kings of Scots. Records of that use date back to 1369. In 1532, the Writers to the Signet were included as Members in the newly established College of Justice, along with the Faculty of Advocates and the Clerks of the Court of Session. The Society was established in 1594, when the King's Secretary, as Keeper of the Signet, gave commissions to a Deputy Keeper and 18 other writers.

Writers to the Signet began as clerks to the Keeper of the Signet and were afforded the privileges of freedom from taxation by the Burgh of Edinburgh, exemption from military duty, and rights of audience before the bar of the College of Justice. Writers were involved in drawing up summonses to the Court of Session. Writers were, however, de jure prohibited from acting as procurators but de facto this was often ignored.

In 1599 it was proposed that the Faculty of Advocates and the Society of Writers be merged into a single organisation, with the Writers against it. Such an idea was again proposed in 1633 which the Writers again opposed.

In civil actions in the Court of Session, a pursuer is required to have his writ stamped with the Signet to give him authority from the Queen to serve the writ on the defender. That conferral, called "passing the Signet," was previously carried out by the Signet Office, the administration of which was one of the Society's responsibilities. In 1976 the Signet Office was merged into the General Department of the Court of Session and the Society was relieved of any responsibility for it. Nevertheless, the requirement of "passing the Signet" survived.

"Sir Robert Howard, sixth son of the first Earl of Berkshire, was the brother of the dramatists Edward and James Howard, and had a sister Elizabeth who became the wife of John Dryden. He collaborated with Dryden in The Indian Queen, and his own most successful play was his comedy The Committee. Howard soon left writing plays for the more serious business of politics. He had been elected to Parliament in 1660, was made Auditor of the Receipt in the Exchequer in 1673, and subsequently held various other employments connected with the public finance. […] In The Committee Sir Robert Howard found part of his theme in the activities of a sequestration committee in the Commonwealth period. This play owes much of its vitality to its portrayal of middle-class vulgarity, its Jonsonian types such as Mrs. Day and the clerk Obadiah, and its comic Irish servant Teague (played to perfection by John Lacy); but its two high-spirited Cavaliers involved with two attractive young women gave this comedy the focus on persons of quality necessary to please a Restoration audience. Howard and his like could afford to be merry in 1662 about the discredited Puritans, but it is to his credit that he should have written such a good-natured play, gay and lively without ever becoming indecent, and satirical without losing its tone of easy contempt. The Committee remained popular for many years." (Sutherland)

Wing H-2994; MacDonald 68c.