M.T. Gent. Micro-Cynicon. Sixe Snarling Satyres. Insatiat. Prodigall. Insolent. Cheating. Iuggling. Wise. London: Thomas Creede 1599. 18mo.

The author of the Micro-Cynicon, that legendary collection of tantrumulous plays, is identified only by his initials M.T. This has led most scholars to suggest the author of this rare volume is the playwright Thomas Middleton (1580-1627), author of such bawdy comedies as A Trick to Catch the Old One (c. 1605), A Chaste Maid in Cheapside (1611) and (in collaboration with Thomas Dekker) The Honest Whore (1604). Such supposition, though based solely on the use of common initials, still can not be disproved after four hundred years. It should be noted that Lowndes*, however, lists under M.T. such diverse titles as 'A Discourse of Trade from England to the East Indies' (1621) and 'The Silkworms and their flies' (1599), neither of which is attributed to Middleton. Later evidence*, in fact, suggests that the plays were written by none other than Dr. John Dee (1527-1608), royal astrologer, magician and alchemist. It is known that Dee's mansion in Mortlake, which he bought in 1571, housed one of the largest libraries in Europe, containing many books and manuscripts that were mostly destroyed by mobs fearing Dee as a "devil-worshipper". It is relevant that a suggestion has been made, in ignorance, that Dee at some point translated a book known at the Necronomicon*. This is, in fact, a late 20th century myth (and a rather badly propagated one at that), the title being a fictitious invention of reclusive author H.P. Lovecraft (1890-1937). It would be beneficial to assume, however, that the theory originates in a confusion with the Micro-Cynicon, and that Lovecraft, through his pursuit of arcane matters, had learned something of its history.

It seems likely, then, that the Micro-Cynicon was written at some point during Dee's residency in Mortlake, representing, as Eggleton suggests, a "distillation of the wisdoms of [Dee's] library, a representation in narrative form of such diverse arcana as the Kabbalah, alchemy, crystalogy and Enochian magic." How the plays came to be published remains a mystery, though published they were in 1599, nine years before Dee's eventual death at the age of 81.

The first recorded performance of the Micro-Cynicon occurs in 1624, twenty-five years after it was first published. The acting company involved was not under royal license, indeed was little more than a house of ill repute based across the river, where many of the theatres - and, for lack of a better word, whorehouses - prospered. The results were disastrous. It seems reasonable to suggest, as Eggleton does, that the narrative power of the play worked an insidious change on the players. At midnight, drunk and possessed, the players accosted a Mr. Trat as he was walking in the street and, in the words of a news-sheet of the time, with "their hands already smoking in his blood, did cut up his carcass, unbowel and quarter it; then did they bum his head and privy members, parboil his flesh and salt it up, that so the sudden stink and putrefaction being hindered, the murderers might the longer be free from [discovery]"*. Indeed, "The crying Murther: Contayning the cruell and most horrible Butcher of Mr. Trat", records that the four murderers were hanged and died "obstinate and unrepenting sinners". The acting company fades from history, as does the Micro-Cynicon for another thirty one years. This episode is usually referred to as the Insatiat episode.

In 1654, the Prodigall episode took place. Following a performance of the play by a seminary school of trainee priests - itself an unheard of event due to the church's ban on play acting - disturbing reports have begun to circulate. It appeared the young novices were abandoning the school at night, each taken to walking in Whitehall, in the words they themselves uttered on the small stage, in a "Nymphes attire, / Whose rowling eye sets gazers harts on fire: / Whose cherry lip, black brow & smiles procure / Lust burning buzzards to the tempting lure." While cases of male prostitution of the period are well documented, this episode was erased with brutal force by the church, to the extent that broadsheets and other contemporary reports of the event were forcefully suppressed by Church authorities. The seminary itself was shut down and burned. It is nearly fifty years later that a record is first made of a new building in its place, a dressmakers.

Other episodes followed. On May 5th, 1697, an unnamed actor's wife became so distressed with his behaviour following a Micro-Cynicon rehearsal that "In Leaden-Hall Market she found him, and there/ The cause of her grief she did freely declare. Though justly reproved, yet so Angry he grew,/ That at her with violence his Knife he then threw."* The actor was later hanged.

There are no known contemporary copies of the Micro-Cynicon. The only known edition apart from Creede's first in 1599 was published on the Isle of Wight in 1842 by the Beldornie Press, edited by Edward Vernon Utterson, who himself attributes the work, erroneously, to Middleton. Only twelve copies were made, one of which is at the British Library* (it does not have a copy of the original edition).

A known book collector, Utterson did not seem to suffer any ill effects from the book's production, and a series of mysterious ship wrecks around the island in the middle of the 19th century is not generally attributed to any known Micro-Cynicon performances.

Indeed, a certain weakening of Dee's legacy has been felt since the beginning of the 20th century. Where Lowndes lists two known copies of the 1599 edition, and where Utterson was able to reproduce the text in his 12 copy edition, none are currently known, apart from the one supposedly in the British Library. Significantly, several web sites claiming to contain an "e-text" version of the plays routinely return various error messages, from "204: No Content" to "404: File Not Found" and "500: Internal Server Error". There are no recorded incidents of the play being performed since the 1902 Boschof incident, so called after the South African town of the Orange Free State where, following a school production of the play (in Afrikaans!) - the textual source of which remains a mystery - where strange sounds and lights were heard and seen in the skies for several days after. Nor is the so-called Iuggling episode, in which a circus train on the way from Indiana to Hammond in the United States was hit by a troop train on June 22nd, 1918, considered an authentic episode of a Micro-Cynicon performance. If a copy of the book did exist (which is doubtful), it was destroyed in the accident and buried together with the 750 performers who perished.

The most diligent researcher by far into the curious history of the Micro-Cynicon has been George Eggleton, a one-time actor, lecturer and book dealer who, in a manner befitting the great Charles Fort himself, worked diligently to compile a lucid and far-reaching history and bibliographical database on the plays. His work, however, was never published, and at his untimely death the manuscript passed through several hands before reaching the newly-established Micro-Cynicon Society of Great Britain. Believing that sufficient time has passed to once again perform the plays, the society proposes to stage a new production, details of which will be published soon, and we pleased to invite the reader to join us for this debut performance.

Note: This paper was found among the personal effects of James Turner, secretary of the MCS-GB, after his tragic demise earlier this year. He is survived by his wife ,Jilly, and two sons.

1. Lowndes, William Thomas. The Bibliographer’s Manual of English Literature. London: Henry G. Bohn 1864. In six volumes.
2. Eggleton, George. Unpublished manuscript (1932).
3. See, for example, Dilworth, James. “Dee, John”. http://www.themystica.com/mystica/articles/d/dee_john.html, 24/07/02.
4. Stephens, Mitchell . A History of News. New York: Viking 1988. P. 113.
5. The Euing Collection of English Broadside Ballads. Glasgow: 1971. P. 360.
6. Shelf mark C.32.b.12.

The End

Story copyright Lavie Tidhar, published by the Fortean Bureau
http://www.forteanbureau.com