DAY, JOHN (1574-1640?), English dramatist, was born at Cawston, Norfolk, in 1574, and educated at Ely. He became a sizar of Caius College, Cambridge, in 1592, but was expelled in the next year for stealing a book. As early as 1598 he became one of Henslowe's playwrights, collaborating with Henry Chettle, William Haughton, Thomas Dekker, Richard Hathway, and Wentworth Smith, but his almost incessant activity seems to have left him poor enough, to judge by the small loans, of five shillings and even two shillings, that he obtained from Henslowe. The first play in which Day appears as part-author is The Con quest of Brute, with the finding of the Bath (1598), which, with most of his journeyman's work, is lost. The Ile of Guls (printed 1606), a prose comedy founded upon Sir Philip Sidney's Arcadia, contains in its light dialogue much satire to which the key is now lost. In 1607 Day produced, with William Rowley and George Wilkins, The Travailes of the Three English Brothers, which detailed the adventures of Sir Thomas, Sir Anthony and Robert Shirley. The work on which Day's reputation chiefly rests is the Parliament of Bees. This exquisite masque, or rather series of pastoral eclogues, is entirely occupied with "the doings, the births, the wars, the wooings" of bees. The bees hold a par liament under Prorex, the Master Bee, and various complaints are preferred against the humble-bee, the wasp, the drone, and other offenders. This satirical allegory of affairs ends with a royal progress of Oberon, who distributes justice to all. There is no earlier edition of The Parliament of Bees than that in 164i, but a persistent tradition has assigned the piece to 1607. In 1608 Day published two comedies, Law Trickes; or, Who Would have Thought it? and Humour out of Breath. The date of his death is unknown, but an elegy on him by John Tatham, the city poet, was published in 164o. The six dramas by John Day which we possess show a delicate fancy and dainty inventiveness all his own. The beauty and ingenuity of The Parliament of Bees were noted and warmly extolled by Charles Lamb ; and Day's work has since found many admirers.
His works, edited by A. H. Bullen, were printed at the Chiswick Press in 1881. The same editor included The Maydes Metamorphosis in vol. i. of his Collection of Old Plays. The Parliament of Bees and Humour out of Breath were printed in Nero and other Plays (Mer maid Series, 1888), with an introduction by Arthur Symons. An appreciation by Mr. A. C. Swinburne appeared in The Nineteenth Century (Oct. 1897).