book did

not hold as against the author. He cites the case of Nashe’s _Pierce Pennilesse_, but there seems no special reason to assume that in this case, or in those of _Gorboduc_ and _Hamlet_, the authorized second editions were not made possible by an arrangement, very likely involving blackmail, with the pirate.

[607] Letter in Grosart, _Poems of Sidney_ (1877), i. xxiii. Pollard, _F. and Q._ 8, says that on other occasions Sidney’s friends approached the Lord Treasurer and the Star Chamber.

[608] Pollard, _F. and Q._ 7, 11. I am not sure that the appearance of Bacon’s name can be regarded as a recognition of the principle of author’s copyright. He may have been already in the High Commission; he was certainly in that of 1601.

[609] Pollard, _Sh. F._ 49, 51, speaks of Burby as ‘regaining the copyright’ by his publications, and as, moreover, saving his sixpences ‘as a license was only required for new books’. But surely there was no copyright, as neither Danter nor Burby paid for an entry. I take it that when, on 22 Jan. 1607, _R. J._ and _L. L. L._ were entered to Nicholas Ling, ‘by direccõn of a Court and with consent of Master Burby in wrytinge’, the entry of the transfer secured the copyright for the first time.

[610] Arber, iii. 37. The ink shows that there are two distinct entries.

[611] Fleay, _L. and W._ 40; Furness, _Much Ado_, ix.

[612] Pollard, _F. and Q._ 66; _Sh. F._ 44.

[613] Roberts did not print the 1603 _Hamlet_, although he did that of 1604; but it must have been covered by his entry of 1602, and this makes it a little difficult to regard him (or Blount in 1609) as the ‘agent’ of the Chamberlain’s.

[614] Pollard, _F. and Q._ 66; _Sh. F._ 45.

[615] There are analogies in _Taming of the Shrew_, _2, 3 Henry VI_, and _King John_, which were not entered in S. R. with the other unprinted plays in 1623, and were probably regarded as covered by copyright in the plays on which they were based, although, as a matter of fact, the _Troublesome Reign_ was itself not entered.

[616] Pollard, _Sh. F._ 53.

[617] They had risks to run. The Star Chamber fined and imprisoned William Buckner, late chaplain to the archbishop, for licensing Prynne’s _Histriomastix_ in 1633 (Rushworth, _Historical Collections_, ii. 234).

[618] _M. S. C._ i. 364; _Variorum_, iii. 159.

[619] Moseley’s _Epistle_ to F_{1} (1647) of Beaumont and Fletcher says, ‘When these _Comedies_ and _Tragedies_ were presented on the Stage, the _Actours_ omitted some _Scenes_ and Passages (with the _Authour’s_ consent) as occasion led them; and when private friends desir’d a Copy, they then (and justly too) transcribed what they Acted’.

[620] See _Epistles_ to Armin, _Two Maids of Moreclack_; Chapman, _Widow’s Tears_; Heywood, _Rape of Lucrece_, _Golden Age_; Marston, _Malcontent_; Middleton, _Family of Love_.

[621] Jonson, _E. M. O._ (1600), ‘As it was first composed by the Author B. I. Containing more than hath been publikely spoken or acted’; Barnes, _Devil’s Charter_ (1607), ‘As it was plaide.... But more exactly reuewed, corrected, and augmented since by the Author, for the more pleasure and profit of the Reader’; Webster, _Duchess of Malfi_ (1623), ‘with diuerse things Printed, that the length of the Play would not beare in the Presentment’.

[622] Pollard, _Sh. F._ 57; _F. and Q._ 117.

[623] The editors of the Shakespeare F_{1} claim that they are replacing ‘stolne, and surreptitious copies’ by plays ‘absolute in their numbers, as he conceiued them’, and that ‘wee haue scarse receiued from him a blot in his papers’; and those of the Beaumont and Fletcher F_{1} say they ‘had the Originalls from such as received them from the Authors themselves’ and lament ‘into how many hands the Originalls were dispersed’. The same name ‘original’ was used for the authoritative copy of a civic miracle-play; cf. _Mediaeval Stage_, ii. 143.

[624] The manuscripts of _Sir John Barnevelt_ (_Addl. MS._ 18653), _Believe As You List_ (_Egerton MS._ 2828), _The Honest Man’s Fortune_ (_Dyce MS._ 9), _The Faithful Friends_ (_Dyce MS._ 10), and _The Sisters_ (_Sion College MS._) appear to be play-house copies, with licensing corrections, and in some cases the licences endorsed, and some of them may be in the authors’ autographs; cf. Pollard, _Sh. F._ 59; Mönkemeyer, 72. Several of the copies in _Egerton MS._ 1994, described by F. S. Boas in _3 Library_ (July 1917), including that of _1 Richard II_, are of a similar type.

[625] Sir Henry Herbert noted in his office-book in 1633 (_Variorum_, iii. 208), ‘The Master ought to have copies of their new playes left with him, that he may be able to shew what he hath allowed or disallowed’, but it was clearly not the current practice. In 1640 (_Variorum_, iii. 241) he suppressed an unlicensed play, and noted, ‘The play I cald for, and, forbiddinge the playinge of it, keepe the booke’, which suggests that only one copy existed.

[626] Greg, _Henslowe Papers_, 155, prints it; cf. _1 Antonio and Mellida_, ind. 1, ‘Enter ... with parts in their hands’; _Wily Beguiled_, prol. 1, ‘Where are these paltrie Plaiers? stil poaring in their papers and neuer perfect?’ By derivation, the words assigned to an actor became his ‘part’; cf. Dekker, _News from Hell_ (1606, _Works_, ii. 144), ‘with pittifull action, like a Plaier, when hees out of his part’.

[627] In 1623 Herbert re-allowed _The Winter’s Tale_, ‘thogh the allowed booke was missinge’, and in 1625 _The Honest Man’s Fortune_, ‘the originall being lost’ (_Variorum_, iii. 229).

[628] Cf. App. N.

[629] The handing over of ‘papers’ is referred to in several letters to Henslowe; cf. _Henslowe Papers_, 56, 69, 75, 76, 81, 82.

[630] He sends Henslowe an instalment ‘fayr written’, and on another occasion says, ‘I send you the foule sheet and y^e fayr I was wrighting as your man can testify’ (_Henslowe Papers_, 72, 78).

[631] Pollard, _Sh. F._ 62.

[632] _Birth of Hercules_, 3, ‘Notae marginales inseruiant dirigendae histrion[ic]ae’; Nashe, _Summer’s Last Will and Testament_, 1813, ‘You might haue writ in the margent of your play-booke, Let there be a fewe rushes laide in the place where _Back-winter_ shall tumble, for feare of raying his cloathes: or set downe, Enter _Back-winter_, with his boy bringing a brush after him, to take off the dust if need require. But you will ne’re haue any wardrobe wit while you live. I pray you holde the booke well, that we be not _non plus_ in the latter end of the play.’

[633] ‘Exit’ and ‘Exeunt’ soon became the traditional directions for leaving the stage, but I find ‘Exite omnes’ in Peele, _Edw. I_, 1263.

[634] Mönkemeyer, 73.

[635] _T. N. K._ I. iii. 69, ‘2 Hearses ready with Palamon: and Arcite: the 3 Queenes. Theseus: and his Lordes ready’, i.e. ready for I. iv, which begins 42 lines later; and again I. iv. 29, ‘3 Hearses ready’, for I. v, beginning 24 lines later. So too _Bussy D’Ambois_ (1641, not 1607 ed.), I. i. 153, ‘Table, Chesbord and Tapers behind the Arras’, ready for I. ii.

[636] _A Shrew_, ind. i, ‘San.’ for speaker; _The Shrew_ (F_{1}), ind. i. 88, ‘Sincklo’ for speaker; _3 Hen. VI_ (F_{1}), I. ii. 48, ‘Enter Gabriel’; III. i. 1, ‘Enter Sinklo, and Humfrey’; _R. J._ (Q_{2}), IV. v. 102, ‘Enter Will Kemp’; _M. N. D._ (F_{1}), V. i. 128, ‘Tawyer with a Trumpet before them’; _1 Hen. IV_ (Q_{1}), I. ii. 182 (text, not s.d.), ‘Falstaffe, Haruey, Rossill, and Gadshil, shall rob those men that we haue already waylaid’ (cf. II. ii); _2 Hen. IV_ (Q_{1}), V. iv. 1, ‘Enter Sincklo and three or foure officers’; _M. Ado_ (F_{1}), II. iii. 38, ‘Enter Prince, Leonato, Claudio and Iacke Wilson’; _M. Ado_ (Q and F), IV. ii, ‘Cowley’ and ‘Kemp’ for speakers; _T.N.K._ v. 3, ‘T. Tucke: Curtis’, IV. ii. 75, ‘Enter Messenger, Curtis’; _1 Antonio and Mellida_, IV. i. 30, ‘Enter Andrugio, Lucio, Cole, and Norwood’; for other examples, cf. pp. 227, 271, 285, 295, 330, and vol. iv, p. 43. The indications of speakers by the letters E. and G. in _All’s Well_, II. i; III. i, ii, vi, may have a similar origin. The names of actors are entered in the ‘plots’ after those of the characters represented (cf. _Henslowe Papers_, 127).

[637] _Alphonsus_, prol. 1, ‘after you haue sounded thrise’; 1938, ‘Exit Venus. Or, if you can conueniently, let a chaire come down from the top of the stage’; _James IV_, 1463, ‘Enter certaine Huntsmen, if you please, singing’; 1931, ‘Enter, from the widdowes house, a seruice, musical songs of marriages, or a maske, or what prettie triumph you list’; _Three Lords and Three Ladies of London_, sig. C, ‘Here Simp[licitie] sings first, and Wit after, dialoguewise, both to musicke if ye will’; _Locrine_, I. i. 1, ‘Let there come foorth a Lion running after a Beare or any other beast’; _Death of R. Hood_, III. ii, ‘Enter or aboue [Hubert, Chester]’; _2 Hen. VI_, IV. ii. 33, ‘Enter Cade [etc.] with infinite numbers’; IV. ix. 9, ‘Enter Multitudes with Halters about their Neckes’; _T. A._ I. i. 70, ‘as many as can be’; _Edw. I_, 50, ‘Enter ... and others as many as may be’; _Sir T. More_, sc. ix. 954, ‘Enter ... so many Aldermen as may’; _What You Will_, v. 193, ‘Enter as many Pages with torches as you can’.

[638] Mönkemeyer, 63, 91.

[639] Pollard, _Sh. F._ 79.

[640] e.g. _R. J._ (Q_{1}), III. i. 94, ‘Tibalt vnder Romeos arme thrusts Mercutio in and flyes’; III. ii. 32, ‘Enter Nurse wringing her hands, with the ladder of cordes in her lap’; IV. v. 95, ‘They all but the Nurse goe foorth, casting Rosemary on her and shutting the Curtens’.

[641] Cf. ch. xxi, pp. 133, 136.

[642] Pollard, _Sh. F._ 71; Van Dam and Stoffel, _William Shakespeare, Prosody and Text_, 274; _Chapters on English Printing, Prosody, and Pronunciation_.

[643] R. B. McKerrow, introd. xiv, to Barnes, _Devil’s Charter_.

[644] Pollard, _Sh. F._ 74; cf. his introd. to _A New Shakespeare Quarto_ (1916).

[645] Epistles to Heywood, _Rape of Lucrece_; Marston, _Malcontent_, _Fawn_; Middleton, _Family of Love_. In _Father Hubburd’s Tales_ Middleton says, ‘I never wished this book a better fortune than to fall into the hands of a truespelling printer’. Heywood, in an Epistle to _Apology for Actors_ (1612), praises the honest workmanship of his printer, Nicholas Okes, as against that of W. Jaggard, who would not let him issue _errata_ of ‘the infinite faults escaped in my booke of _Britaines Troy_, by the negligence of the Printer, as the misquotations, mistaking of sillables, misplacing halfe lines, coining of strange and neuer heard of words’.

[646] ‘Proofs’ and ‘revises’ had come into use before 1619, for Jaggard, criticized by Ralph Brooke for his ill printing of Brooke’s _Catalogue of Nobility_ (1619), issued a new edition as _A Discoverie of Errors in the First Edition of the Catalogue of Nobility_ (1622), regretting that his workmen had not given Brooke leave to print his own faulty English, and saying, ‘In the time of this his vnhappy sicknesse, though hee came not in person to ouer-looke the Presse, yet the Proofe, and Reuiewes duly attended him, and he perused them (as is well to be iustifyed) in the maner he did before’; cf. p. 261.

[647] Cf. pp. 106, 107, 117, 127.

[648] e.g. _Cynthia’s Revels_ (F_{1}), ‘The Scene Gargaphie’; _Philaster_ (F_{2}), ‘The scene being in Cicilie’; _Coxcomb_ (F_{2}), ‘The Scene; England, France’ (but in fact there are no scenes in France!).

[649] _The Marriage of Wit and Wisdom_ has no acts, but nine scenes. The latish _Jacob and Esau_, _Respublica_, _Misogonus_, _Conflict of Conscience_ have acts and scenes.

[650] _Ralph Roister Doister_, _Gammer Gurton’s Needle_, _Gorboduc_, _Gismund of Salerne_, _Misfortunes of Arthur_, _Jocasta_, _Supposes_, _Bugbears_, _Two Italian Gentlemen_, _Glass of Government_, _Promos and Cassandra_, _Arraignment of Paris_; so, too, as a rule, University plays. _Dido_ and _Love and Fortune_, like the later private theatre plays, show acts only.

[651] _Devil’s Charter_, _Duchess of Malfi_, _Philotas_, _Sir Giles Goosecap_, _The Turk_, _Liberality and Prodigality_, Percy’s plays, _The Woman Hater_, _Monsieur Thomas_, _2 Antonio and Mellida_.

[652] Acts and scenes are marked in _Tamburlaine_ and _Locrine_; acts, or one or more of them only, sometimes with the first scene, in _Jack Straw_, _Battle of Alcazar_, _Wounds of Civil War_, _King Leire_, _Alphonsus_, _James IV_, _Soliman and Perseda_, _Spanish Tragedy_, _John a Kent and John a Cumber_; a few scenes without acts in _Death of Robin Hood_. These exceptions may indicate neo-classic sympathies in the earlier group of scholar playwrights; some later plays, e.g. of Beaumont and Fletcher, have partial divisions. The acts in _Spanish Tragedy_ and _Jack Straw_ are four only; _Histriomastix_, a private theatre play, has six. Where there are no formal divisions, they are sometimes replaced by passages of induction or dumb-shows.

[653] Cf. ch. xxi.

[654] Pollard, _F. and Q._ 124; _Sh. F._ 79.

[655] Creizenach, 248.

[656] _Melville’s Diary_ (Bannatyne Club), 22.

[657] R. Hudson, _Memorials of a Warwickshire Parish_, 141.

[658] Lodge, _Defence of Plays_, 7.

[659] Collier, _Memoirs of Alleyn_, 133.

[660] _Plays Confuted_, 167

[661] _School of Abuse_, 40.

[662] Lodge, _Defence of Plays_, 28.

[663] _Plays Confuted_, 165.

[664] _Repentance_ (Grosart, xii. 177).

[665] Grosart, xii. 134.

[666] Ibid. viii. 128.

[667] Ibid. vii. 7.

[668] App. M; cf. E. Köppel (_Archiv_, cii. 357); W. Bang (_E. S._ xxviii. 229).

[669] Grosart, vi. 86, 119.

[670] Grosart, vi. 31.

[671] Sig. A 3^v. _Farewell to Folly_ was entered on S. R. on 11 June 1587 (Arber, ii. 471), but the first extant edition of 1591 was probably the first published, and the use of the term ‘Martinize’ in the preface dates it as at least post-1589 (cf. Simpson, ii. 349).

[672] Grosart, xi. 75.

[673] _Strange News_ (Nashe, i. 271); cf. _Pierce Penniless; his Supplication to the Devil_ (Nashe, i. 198) and _Have With You to Saffron Walden_ (Nashe, iii. 130). The passage about ‘make-plays’ is in an Epistle only found in some copies of _The Lamb of God_ (Nashe, v. 180).

[674] This allusion is not in the extant 1592 editions of the pamphlet (Grosart, xi. 206, 258).

[675] Ed. Grosart, i. 167.

[676] Ed. McKerrow, i. 247.

[677] Ed. Gosart, ii. 222, 322.

[678] Ed. McKerrow, iii. 131.

[679] Arber, ii. 620.

[680] App. C, No. xlviii.

Transcriber’s Notes:

1. Obvious printers’, punctuation and spelling errors have been corrected silently.

2. Original spelling has been retained where appropriate.

3. Some hyphenated and non-hyphenated versions of the same words have been retained as in the original.

4.Superscripts are represented using the caret character, e.g. D^r. or X^{xx}. Subscripts are shown as X{x}.

5. Italics are shown as _xxx_.