SOURCE: Peery, William. “The Noble Soldier and The Parliament of Bees.” Studies in Philology 48 (April 1961): 219-33.

In this essay, Peery argues that Day's Parliament of Bees predates Thomas Dekker's The Noble Soldier, clearing Day from the charge that he adapted, and in the process debased, Dekker's work.

Characters 4 and 5 of John Day's The Parliament of Bees contain extended passages significantly parallel to passages in The Noble Soldier, a play attributed to Day's friend and collaborator, Dekker. Day's editor, A. H. Bullen, in 1881 proposed the following explanation of this phenomenon:

With the exception of Characters 1, 11, and 12, which were plainly written for the occasion, the Masque¹ seems to have been made up of scenes, more or less revised, contributed to the Wonder of a Kingdom, the Spanish Souldier, and other plays …²

This view was for long accepted by later writers.³ On it F. G. Fleay rests his claim that Day...