A New Trick to Cheat the Devil is an early seventeenth-century stage play, a comedy written by Robert Davenport that was first printed in 1639.
This prefatory note describes the play as "an Orphant, and wanting the Father which first begot it...." This seems to indicate that Davenport was dead by 1639; but other evidence suggests that he was still alive.
In the following year, two plays, Nathanael Richards's Messalina and Thomas Rawlins's The Rebellion, were printed with commendatory poems written by Davenport.
The earliest evidence for Davenport's career as a dramatist comes from 1624; the period from 1624 to its publication in 1639 has been regarded as the range of possible dates for New Trick.
in Act IV, scene 1, the Devil says "I was first father to this yellow Sterch...." This is an allusion to the fashion for wearing ruffs and cuffs dyed yellow, which was strongly associated with Mistress Anne Turner, the woman executed for her role in the murder of Sir Thomas Overbury on 15 November 1615.
It is a "prodigal son" drama, one of a long series of plays that trace the fall and recovery of a protagonist in the manner of the Biblical parable.
As in his other plays, Davenport draws plot materials in New Trick from folklore and from previous dramas, more so than from the formal prose literature of his day.
Influence from Shakespeare is plain and evident;[7] A passage in I,2 that is rich in classical allusions draws heavily upon Ovid.
Anne, in deep psychological distress, reproaches everyone in her circle, father, mother, lordly future husband and others, for their faults; they think she has lost her reason.
When the Host suddenly and unexpectedly returns, the Hostess hides the food and the Constable – all of which Friar John witnesses.
Of course, the friar exposes the real Constable in his hiding place, and the Host gives the would-be adulterer a vigorous beating before the man escapes.