The Country Captain

The Country Captain, alternatively known as Captain Underwit, is a Caroline era stage play written by William Cavendish, 1st Duke of Newcastle, and first published in 1649. It has attracted critical attention primarily for the question of James Shirley's participation in its authorship. Date and performance The play's date of authorship and its performance history are not known in detail; it was performed at the Blackfriars Theatre by the King's Men, and is plausibly dated to c. 1639–40. The Country Captain was revived early in the Restoration period. Samuel Pepys saw it performed on 21 October 1661. In his Diary he called it "so silly a play as in all my life I never saw" – though this negative verdict did not prevent Pepys from seeing the play again on 25 November that year, on 14 August 1667 and on 14 May 1668. Texts The play was first printed in a duodecimo volume that included Newcastle's play The Variety, issued by the booksellers Humphrey Moseley and Humphrey Robinson in 1649. That first edition attributes the plays only to "a person of honor," though Newcastle's authorship is stated in 17th-century sources. The Country Captain also exists in a manuscript, Harleian MS. 7650 in the collection of the British Museum; the MS. is judged to be in the hand of Edward Knight, the prompter of the King's Men. The two texts are very similar though not identical; the manuscript appears to be the original authorial version, while the printed text shows the cuts and changes that adjusted the play for stage performance.