FIELD, NATHAN (1587-1633), son of the Puritan rector of Cripplegate, London, was baptized on Oct. 17, 1587. He was a schoolboy at St. Paul's grammar school when he became (1600) one of the "children" of the Chapel Royal, and he remained con nected with that company or the Queen's Revels until 1613, when the company was absorbed in the Lady Elizabeth's players. He played in Ben Jonson's pieces, and took the title role in Chap man's Bussy d'Ambois (16o6). He left the company in 1615, and joined the King's Men. He seems to have left this company in 1619, and about this time married. A Nathaniel Field died on Feb. 20, 1633, in the parish of Blackfriars, but he had a brother named Nathaniel, to whom the entry probably refers. His name comes 17th on the list of 26 players, "the principal actors in all these Playes," in the 1623 Shakespeare folio.
The two plays printed under Nat. Field's name are: A Woman is a Weathercock (acted 16o9?, pr. 161I) and Amends for Ladies (acted 1611, pr. 1618). To Field is assigned a share in Mass inger's Fatal Dowry (pr. 1632), and he is credited by some critics with a share in some of the Beaumont and Fletcher plays.
His two plays were reprinted in J. P. Collier's Five Old Plays (1833), in Hazlitt's edition of Dodsley's Old Plays, and in Nero and other Plays (Mermaid series, i888), with an introduction by A. W. Verity.