Scholars have dated the play to c. 1614, based on allusions to contemporary events – notably to the dragon that was reportedly seen in Sussex in August 1614.
[3][4] The play was entered into the Stationers' Register on 25 April 1639, as a solo work by Fletcher, and was published in quarto later that year, the text printed by Thomas Cotes for the booksellers Andrew Crooke and William Cooke.
For the third epigraph to "Sketch Sixth," the story "Barrington Isle and the Buccaneers," Melville slightly misquotes, or adapts for his own purposes, Valentine's "How bravely now I live, how jocund, how near the first inheritance, without fears, how free from title-troubles!"
Valentine is a young gentleman who has wasted his estate; in what seems overt and willful irresponsibility, he has mortgaged his lands to live the life of a fashionable man about town.
His Uncle tries to persuade him to behave more responsibly, to do something to repair his fortunes – even to the extreme of marrying a wealthy woman; but Valentine will not listen.
This provokes a confrontation between Valentine and Lady Hartwell; he employs his usual slanders and screeds against her, but is astonished when she stands her ground and equals him, indeed betters him, in a battle of words and wits.
Isabella sends a purse full of coin to Francisco, anonymously, through her sister's follower Shorthose; but the young man tracks down the source and seeks her out to thank her in person.