SHIRLEY, JAMES

born September 1596, London, Eng.buried Oct. 29, 1666, London English poet and dramatist, one of the leading playwrights in the decade before the closing of the theatres by Parliament in 1642. Shirley was educated at the University of Cambridge and after his ordination became master of the St. Albans Grammar School. About 1624 he moved to London and became a playwright. His first play, The Schoole of Complement, was performed in 1625 at the Phoenix, Drury Lane. When the theatres closed in 1636 as a precaution against further spread of the plague, Shirley became dramatist for St. Werburgh's Theatre in Dublin. He returned to London in 1640, succeeding Philip Massinger as dramatist for the King's Men at the Blackfriars Theatre. After the English Civil Wars (164251) he returned to teaching and published two Latin grammars and some nondramatic verse and masques. Thirty-one plays, five masques, and a moral allegory by Shirley are extant. He wrote plays in most of the current modes. Among the best are the mildly satirical comedies of fashionable London life: The Wittie Faire One and The Lady Of Pleasure, his most polished comedy of manners, were performed between 1626 and 1635. His best tragedies, both on dark, Italianate themes, are The Traytor (1631) and The Cardinal (1641). His elaborate masque, The Triumph of Peace (1634), was performed at the Inns of Court, with scenery by Inigo Jones and music by William Lawes.