as these to instruct them, and write for them; and no less of those
Poets to have such docile and excellent Actors to Act their Playes,
as a Field and Burbidge; of whom we may say, that he was a delightful
Proteus, so wholly transforming himself into his Part, and putting
off himself with his Cloathes, as he never (not so much as in the
Tyring-house) assum’d himself again until the Play was done: there
being as much difference between him and one of our common Actors, as
between a Ballad-singer who onely mouths it, and an excellent singer,
who knows all his Graces, and can artfully vary and modulate his
Voice, even to know how much breath he is to give to every syllable.
He had all the parts of an excellent Orator (animating his words
with speaking, and Speech with Action) his Auditors being never more
delighted then when he spoke, nor more sorry then when he held his
peace; yet even then, he was an excellent Actor still, never falling
in his Part when he had done speaking; but with his looks and gesture,
maintaining it still unto the heighth, he imagining Age quod agis,
onely spoke to him: so as those who call him a Player do him wrong,
no man being less idle then he, whose whole life is nothing else but
action; with only this difference from other mens, that as what is but
a Play to them, is his Business: so their business is but a play to him.
Now for the difference betwixt our Theaters and those of former times,
they were but plain and simple, with no other Scenes, nor Decorations
of the Stage, but onely old Tapestry, and the Stage strew’d with Rushes
(with their Habits accordingly) whereas ours now for cost and ornament
are arriv’d at the heighth of Magnificence.... For Scenes and Machines
they are no new invention, our Masks and some of our Playes in former
times (though not so ordinary) having had as good or rather better then
any we have now.
ii.
[Extracts from _Historia Histrionica: an Historical Account
of the English Stage, shewing the Ancient Use, Improvement,
and Perfection of Dramatick Representations in this Nation. In
a Dialogue of Plays and Players_ (1699). A facsimile reprint
was issued by E. W. Ashbee in 1872. The text is also given in
Dodsley^4, xv. I use, with a correction, the modernized text of
A. Lang, _Social England Illustrated_ (1903, Arber, _English
Garner_^2), 422. The _Historia Histrionica_ is ascribed to James
Wright, an antiquary and play-collector (1643–1713), who can
only have recorded what he learnt from others. He is, of course,
writing primarily of the Caroline, rather than the Elizabethan
or Jacobean period.]
_Truman._ I say, the actors that I have seen, before the Wars, Lowin,
Taylor, Pollard, and some others, were almost as far beyond Hart and
his company; as those were, beyond these now in being....
_Lovewit._ Pray, Sir, what master-parts can you remember the old
‘Blackfriars’ men to act, in Johnson’s, Shakespeare’s, and Fletcher’s
plays?
_Truman._ What I can at present recollect I’ll tell you. Shakespeare
(who, as I have heard, was a much better Poet than Player), Burbage,
Hemmings, and others of the older sort, were dead before I knew the
Town. But, in my time, before the Wars; Lowin used to act, with mighty
applause, Falstaff; Morose; Vulpone; and Mammon in the _Alchemist_;
Melancius in the _Maid’s tragedy_. And at the same time, Amyntor was
played by Stephen Hammerton: who was, at first, a most noted and
beautiful Woman-Actor; but afterwards he acted, with equal grace and
applause, a young lover’s part.
Taylor acted Hamlet incomparably well; Jago; Truewit, in the _Silent
Woman_; and Face, in the _Alchemist_.
Swanston used to play Othello.
Pollard and Robinson were Comedians. So was Shank; who used to act Sir
Roger in the _Scornful Lady_. These were of the ‘Blackfriars’....
_Truman._ Before the Wars, there were in being, all these Play
Houses at the same time.
The ‘Blackfriars’ and ‘Globe’ on the Bankside. A winter, and
summer house belonging to the same Company; called ‘The King’s
Servants’.
The ‘Cockpit’ or ‘Phoenix’ in Drury Lane; called ‘The Queen’s
Servants’.
The Private House in Salisbury Court; called ‘The Prince’s
Servants’.
The ‘Fortune’ near White Cross Street: and the ‘Red Bull’ at
the upper end of St. John’s Street. The two last were mostly
frequented by citizens, and the meaner sort of people.
All these Companies got money, and lived in reputation: especially
those of the ‘Blackfriars’, who were men of grave and sober behaviour.
_Lovewit._ Which I much admire at. That the Town, much less than
at present, could then maintain Five Companies; and yet now Two can
hardly subsist.
_Truman._ Do not wonder, but consider! That though the Town was then,
perhaps, not much more than half so populous as now; yet then the
prices were small (there being no scenes), and better order kept among
the company that came: which made very good people think a play an
innocent diversion for an idle hour or two; the plays being then, for
the most part, more instructive and moral.... It is an argument of the
worth of the Plays and Actors of the last Age, and easily inferred that
they were much beyond ours in this, to consider that they could support
themselves merely from their own merit, the weight of the matter, and
goodness of the action; without scenes and machines....
_Lovewit._ I have read of one Edward Alleyn.... Was he one of the
‘Blackfriars’?
_Truman._ Never, as I have heard; for he was dead before my time.
He was Master of a Company of his own; for whom he built the ‘Fortune’
playhouse from the ground: a large round brick building....
_Lovewit._ What kind of Playhouses had they before the Wars?
_Truman._ The ‘Blackfriars’, ‘Cockpit’, and ‘Salisbury Court’
were called Private Houses; and were very small to what we see now.
The ‘Cockpit’ was standing since the Restoration; and Rhodes’s Company
acted there for some time.
_Lovewit._ I have seen that.
_Truman._ Then you have seen the other two, in effect; for they
were all three built almost exactly alike, for form and bigness. Here
they had ‘Pits’ for the gentry, and acted by candlelight.
The ‘Globe’, ‘Fortune’, and ‘Bull’ were large houses, and lay partly
open to the weather: and there they always acted by daylight....
_Truman._ Plays were frequently acted by Choristers and Singing
Boys; and several of our old Comedies have printed in the title-page,
Acted by the Children of Paul’s (not the School, but the Church);
others, By the Children of Her Majesty’s Chapel. In particular,
_Cynthia’s Revels_ and the _Poetaster_ were played by them;
who were, at that time, famous for good action.... Some of the Chapel
Boys, when they grew men, became Actors at the ‘Blackfriars’. Such were
Nathan Field and John Underwood.
iii.
[Extracts from John Downes, _Roscius Anglicanus, or, an
Historical Review of the Stage_ (1708), reprinted by Joseph
Knight (1886). An earlier reprint is in F. G. Waldron, _Literary
Museum_ (1792). Downes became prompter to the Duke of York’s men
under Sir William Davenant at Lincoln’s Inn Fields in 1662.]
In the Reign of King _Charles_ the First, there were Six Play Houses
allow’d in Town: The _Black-Fryars_ Company, His Majesty’s Servants;
The Bull in St. _John’s-street_; another in _Salisbury Court_; another
call’d the _Fortune_; another at the _Globe_; and the Sixth at the
Cock-Pit in _Drury-Lane_; all which continu’d Acting till the beginning
of the said Civil Wars. The scattered Remnant of several of these
Houses, upon King _Charles’s_ Restoration, Fram’d a Company who Acted
again at the Bull, and Built them a New House in _Gibbon’s Tennis
Court_ in _Clare-Market_; in which Two Places they continu’d Acting all
1660, 1661, 1662 and part of 1663. In this time they Built them a New
Theatre in _Drury Lane_....
Sir _William_ [Davenant] in order to prepare Plays to Open his Theatre,
it being then a Building in _Lincoln’s-Inn Fields_, His Company
Rehearsed the First and Second Part of the Siege of _Rhodes_; and the
Wits at _Pothecaries-Hall_: And in Spring 1662, Open’d his House with
the said Plays, having new Scenes and Decorations, being the first that
e’re were Introduc’d in _England_.
APPENDIX K
ACADEMIC PLAYS
[The academic drama only lies on the fringe of my subject, but
I have included notes on extant English plays in chapters xxiii
and xxiv, and give below, for the sake of convenience, a list
of these, and another of those Latin plays which there is any
positive evidence for assigning to the period 1558–1616 and to
English authorship. Fuller treatment will be found in G. B.
Churchill and W. Keller, _Die lateinischen Universitäts-Dramen
in der Zeit der Königin Elisabeth_ (1898, _Jahrbuch_, xxxiv.
220); G. C. Moore Smith, _Notes on Some English University
Plays_ (1908, _M. L. R._ iii. 141), and _Plays performed in
Cambridge Colleges before 1583_ (1909, _Fasciculus J. W. Clark
dicatus_, 265); L. B. Morgan, _The Latin University Drama_
(1911, _Jahrbuch_, xlvii. 69); and F. S. Boas, _University
Plays_ (1910, _C. H._ vi. 293, with full bibliography), and
_University Drama in the Tudor Age_ (1914). Further material
from Cambridge archives is in preparation by G. C. Moore
Smith. In addition to the plays given in this list, some are
incorporated in the description of _The Christmas Prince_ (cf.
ch. xxiv, s.a. 1607–8.]
ENGLISH PLAYS
_Albumazar._
By T. Tomkis.
_Antipoe._
By F. Verney.
_Birth of Hercules._
Anon.
_Caesar’s Revenge._
Anon.
_Claudius Tiberius Nero._
Anon.
_Club Law._
Anon.
_Lingua._
By T. Tomkis.
_Narcissus._
Anon.
_1, 2, 3 Parnassus._
Anon.
_Queen’s Arcadia._
By S. Daniel.
_Ruff, Cuff and Band._
Anon.
_Sicelides._
By P. Fletcher.
_Timon_
Anon.
_Work for Cutlers._
Anon.
LATIN PLAYS
_Adelphe._
By S. Brooke (q.v.).
_Atalanta._
_Harl. MS._ 6924, with dedication to Laud, President of St.
John’s, Oxford, 1611–21, signed by Philip Parsons, of St.
John’s, B.A. 1614, M.A. 1618.
_Bellum Grammaticale._
_S. R._ 1634, April 17. ‘A booke called Bellum grammaticale
&c by Master Spense’, authorized by Herbert. _John Spenser_
(Arber, iv. 317).
1635. Bellum Grammaticale sive Nominum Verborumque discordia civilis
Tragico-Comoedia. Summo cum applausu olim apud Oxonienses in Scaenam
producta et nunc in omnium illorum qui ad Grammaticam animos appellant
oblectamentum edita. _B. A. and T. Fawcet, impensis Joh. Spenceri._
_Editions_ of 1658, 1698, 1718, 1726, 1729, and in J. Bolte (1908,
_Andrea Guarnas B. G. und seine Nachahmungen_, 106).
A performance was given before Elizabeth at Ch. Ch., Oxford, on 24
Sept. 1592, with a prologue and epilogue by Gager, which are printed
with his _Meleager_. But the play was not new, for Sir John Harington,
who records the 1592 performance in his _Metamorphosis of Ajax_ (1596),
127, had already named ‘the Oxford Bellum Grammaticale’ as ‘full of
harmeles myrth’ in his _Apologie of Poetrie_ (1591). The ‘Master
Spense’ of the S. R. entry may be a confusion with the publisher’s
name. Wood, _Ath. Oxon._ ii. 533, was told by Richard Gardiner of Ch.
Ch. that the author was Leonard Hutten, who took his B.A. from Ch. Ch.
in 1578, and his M.A. in 1582. He was known as a dramatist by 26 Sept.
1583, when Gager wrote of him (Boas, 256),
Seu scribenda siet Comoedia, seu sit agenda,
Primum Huttone potes sumere iure locum.
The source was the Latin prose narrative _Bellum Grammaticale_ (1511)
of Andrea Guarna. Ralph Radclif (_c._ 1538) seems to have also treated
the theme, but not necessarily in dramatic form (_Mediaeval Stage_, ii.
197).
_Britanniae Primitiae, sive S. Albanus Protomartyr_ (_c._
1600).
_Bodl. Rawl. Poet. MS._ 215. The Bodleian Catalogue dates
the MS. _c._ 1600. The play, described in _Jahrbuch_,
xlvii. 75, is a fragment only, probably written in some Jesuit
seminary on the Continent, but with an English interest. There
seems to be nothing specifically English in the theme of
_Sanguis Sanguinem sive Constans Fratricida Tragoedia_,
which is in the same MS.
_Caesar Interfectus_ (_c._ March 1582).
Epilogue of a play by Richard Edes (q.v.) at Ch. Ch., Oxford.
_Dido_ (12 June 1583).
By W. Gager (q.v.).
_Euribates Pseudomagus._
_Camb. Emmanuel MS._ 3. 1. 17. ‘Authore M^r Cruso Caii
Colle: Cantabr.’
Aquila Cruso entered Gonville and Caius in 1610.
_Fatum Vortigerni._
_Lansd. MS._ 723, f. 1. ‘Fatum Vortigerni seu miserabilis
vita et exitus Vortigerni regis Britanniae vna complectens
aduentum Saxonum siue Anglorum in Britanniam.’
Keller puts the play at the end of the sixteenth century, and
thinks it influenced by _Richard III_.
_Fortunia_ (March 1615).
See s.v. _Susenbrotus_.
_Herodes._
_Camb. Univ. MS._ Mm. I. 24, with dedication by William
Goldingham, B.A. 1567 and Fellow of Trinity Hall 1571, to ‘D.
Thomae Sackuilo, Equiti aurato, Domino de Buckhurst.’ Sackville
became Lord Buckhurst 1567 and K.G. 1588.
_Hispanus_ (March 1597).
_Bodl. Douce MS._ 234, f. 15^v. This was ‘in diem
comitialem anno domini 1596’, and the actor-list is composed
of members of St. John’s, Cambridge (Boas, 398). The MS. has
the note ‘Summus histrio-didascalus Mr. Pratt’ and a possible
indication of authorship in the mutilated name ‘orrell’, which
may stand for Roger Morrell, Fellow of St. John’s.
_Hymenaeus_ (March 1579).
_St. John’s Cambridge MS._ S. 45; _Caius Cambridge
MS._ 62.
_Edition_ by G. C. Moore Smith (1908).
The actor-list agrees closely with that of Legge’s _Ricardus
III_, and points to St. John’s, Cambridge, in 1579 (Boas,
393). The source is Boccaccio’s _Decamerone_, which suggests
the possible authorship of A. Fraunce (q.v.), who used the
_Decamerone_ for his contemporary _Victoria_.
_Ignoramus_ (8 March 1615).
By G. Ruggle (q.v.).
_Labyrinthus_ (March 1603?).
By W. Hawkesworth (q.v.).
_Laelia_ (1 March 1595).
_Lambeth MS._ 838.
_Edition_ by G. C. Moore Smith (1910).--_Dissertation_: G. C.
Moore Smith, _The Cambridge Play ‘Laelia_’ (1911, _M. L. R._ vi.
382).
The production is assigned by Fuller, _Hist. of Cambridge_
(ed. Nichols), 217, to a visit by the Earl of Essex to Cambridge
as Chancellor of the University in 1597–8. Moore Smith has,
however, shown that it almost certainly belongs to an earlier
visit, and took place at Queens’ College on 1 March 1595. The
chief evidence is the reference in Rowland Whyte’s account of
the _Device_ by Essex or Bacon (q.v.) for 17 Nov. 1595 to
‘Giraldy’ and ‘Pedantiq’, as played at Cambridge. These may
fairly be taken to be the Gerardus and the pedant Petrus of
_Laelia_. The actors of these two parts are identified with
George Meriton and George Mountaine, Fellows of Queens’, by John
Weever, _Epigrammes_ (1599), iv. 19.
Your entertaine (nor can I passe away)
Of Essex with farre-famed Laelia;
Nor fore the Queen your service on Queens day.
Conceivably this may also attribute authorship of the play
and the device. The play is an adaptation of the Italian _Gl’
Ingannati_ (_c._ 1531) through _Les Abusez_ (1543) of Charles
Estienne. It is possible that, directly or indirectly, it
influenced _Twelfth Night_.
_Leander_ (March 1598).
By W. Hawkesworth (q.v.).
_Machiavellus_ (1597).
_Bodl. Douce MS._ 234, f. 40^v, dated ‘Anno Dmni 1597, Decemb.
9’.
A note in Douce’s hand assigns the authorship to [Nathaniel]
Wiburne, who, like the other actors, was of St. John’s,
Cambridge, in 1597 (Boas, 398).
_Melanthe_ (1615).
By S. Brooke (q.v.).
_Meleager_ (Feb. 1582)
By W. Gager (q.v.).
_Nero_ (1603).
By M. Gwynne (q.v.).
_Oedipus._
By W. Gager (q.v.).
_Panniculus Hippolyto Assutus_ (8 Feb. 1592).
By W. Gager (q.v.).
_Parthenia._
_Emmanuel, Cambridge, MS._ 1. 3. 16. Greg, _Pastoral Poetry and
Pastoral Drama_, 368, thinks the handwriting later than 1600.
_Pastor Fidus_ (> 1605).
_Cambridge Univ. Libr. MS._ Ff. ii. 9. ‘Il pastor fido, di
signor Guarini ... recitata in Collegio Regali Cantabrigiae’,
with _Prologus_ and _Argumentum_. _T. C. C. MS._
R. 3. 37.
Greg, _Pastoral_, 247, points out that this must be the
‘Fidus Pastor, which was sometimes acted by King’s College men
in Cambridge’, out of which a contemporary observer thought
that Daniel’s _Queen’s Arcadia_ (q.v.) was drawn. It is a
translation of Guarini’s _Il Pastor Fido_ (1590).
_Pedantius_ (1581).
_Caius College, Cambridge, MS._ 62. ‘Paedantius comoedia
acta in collegio Sanctae et individuae Trinitatis authore M^{ro}
Forcet.’
_T. C. C. MS._ R. 17 (9).
_S. R._ 1631, Feb. 9. ‘A Comedy in Lattyn called
Pedantius’, authorized by Austen. _Milborne_ (Arber, iv.
248).
1631. Pedantius Comoedia, Olim Cantabrig. Acta in Coll. Trin.
Nunquam antehac Typis evulgata. _W. S. Impensis Roberti
Mylbourne._
[Engravings of Dromodotus and Pedantius. Introductory lines,
‘Pedantius de Se’. The title-page has an engraved border
dated 1583, already used for W. Alexander’s _Monarchicke
Tragedies_ (1616).]
_Edition_ by G. C. Moore Smith (1905, _Materialien_,
viii).
The introductory line, ‘Ante quater denos vixi Pedantius
annos’, suggests production in 1591, but the play cannot
have been very recent when Sir John Harington, in a note to
his translation of _Orlando Furioso_ (1591), Bk. xiv, cited
a ‘pretie conceit’ of ‘our Cambridge Comedie Pedantius (at
whiche I remember the noble Earle of Essex that now is, was
present)’. In his _Apologie of Poetrie_, prefixed to the
translation, Harington also says (G. Smith, _Elizabethan
Critical Essays_, ii. 210), ‘How full of harmeles myrth is our
Cambridge _Pedantius_? and the Oxford _Bellum Grammaticale_?’
Harington, who again cites ‘our _Pedantius_ of Cambridge’ in his
_Metamorphosis of Ajax_ (1596), 126, was with Essex at Cambridge
during 1578–81, and Moore Smith has shown that the production
at Trinity was probably on 6 Feb. 1581, shortly before the
defeat of Gabriel Harvey by Anthony Wingfield of Trinity for
the Public Oratorship of Cambridge. There can be little doubt
that Harvey was the butt of _Pedantius_, and hardly more that
Wingfield was concerned in this satire. Nashe has two allusions
to the matter. In _Strange News_ (1593) he says that Harvey’s
verses were ‘miserably flouted at in M. _Winkfields_ Comoedie of
_Pedantius_ in Trinitie Colledge’ (_Works_, i. 303). In _Have
With You to Saffron-Walden_ (1596) he says, ‘Ile fetch him aloft
in Pedantius, that exquisite Comedie in Trinitie Colledge;
where, vnder the cheife part, from which it tooke his name, as
namely the concise and firking finicaldo fine School-master,
hee was full drawen & delineated from the soale of the foote to
the crowne of his head’, and goes on to enumerate the principal
traits of Harvey touched off by the actors, who ‘borrowed his
gowne to playe the Part in, the more to flout him’ (_Works_,
iii. 80). So far, we are left a little uncertain whether the
main authorship is to be ascribed, with Nashe in _Strange News_,
to Anthony Wingfield, or, with the _Caius MS._, to Edward
Forsett, both of whom were Fellows of Trinity in 1581. Moore
Smith has, however, shown in _T. L. S._ (10 Oct. 1918) that
Forsett refers to ‘Pedantio meo’ in the epistle to an unprinted
_Concio_ of his among the MSS. of St. John’s, Cambridge. For an
absurd attempt to assign the authorship to Bacon, largely on the
ground of some non-existent pigs in the title-page border, cf.
E. A. [E. G. Harman], _The Shakespeare Problem_ (1909), and _T.
L. S._ (27 March, 17 April, 1 May, 1919). Modern ascriptions
to Thomas Beard and to Walter Hawkesworth seem to rest on
misunderstandings.
_Perfidus Hetruscus._
_Bodl. Rawlinson MS._ C. 787.
_Physiponomachia_ (1609–11).
_Bodl. MS._ 27639.
Dedicated to John Buckeridge, President of St. John’s, Oxford,
1605–11, by Christopher Wren, father of the architect, who took
his B.A. from St. John’s in 1609.
_Psyche et Filii Ejus._
_Bodl. Rawl. Poet. MS._ 171, f. 60.
This is a Jesuit play, on the heresy of England.
Lugentis Angliae faciem dum Poeta pingeret.
Moore Smith (_M. L. R._ iii. 143), who is responsible
for the title, thinks that it was written at the seminary of
Valladolid, perhaps in Elizabeth’s reign.
_Richardus Tertius_ (March 1580).
By T. Legge (q.v.).
_Romeus et Julietta_ (c. 1615).
_Sloane MS._ 1775, f. 242.
According to H. de W. Fuller in _M. P._ iv (1906), 41, this is
a fragment based on A. Brooke’s _Romeus and Juliet_, probably a
student’s exercise, with corrections. It is datable by two poems
in the same hand on the royal visit to Cambridge in 1615.
_Roxana_ (_c._ 1592).
By W. Alabaster (q.v.).
_Sapientia Solomonis_ (1565–6).
_Addl. MS._ 20061. ‘Sapientia Solomonis: Drama Comicotragicum.’
This is an expanded version of the _Sapientia Solomonis_ of Sixt
Birck (1555). A performance is recorded at Trinity, Cambridge,
in 1559–60 (Boas, 21, 387), but the prologue and epilogue to
this version make it clear that it was acted before Elizabeth
and the _inclita princeps Cecilia_, i. e. Cecilia of Sweden, who
was in England during 1565–6 (cf. ch. i), by a
puellorum cohors
Nutrita magnificis tuis e sumptibus.
These were the Westminster boys, who gave the play in 1565–6
(cf. ch. xii). The elaborately bound and decorated MS. bears
Elizabeth’s initials in several places, and was evidently the
‘book’ officially provided for her.
_Scyros_ (3 March 1613).
By S. Brooke (q.v.).
_Silvanus_ (13 Jan. 1597).
_Bodl. Douce MS._ 234. ‘Acta haec fabula 13º Januarii an.
dmi. 1596.’
The actor-list belongs to St. John’s, Cambridge, and is headed
by the name of [Francis] Rollinson, whose authorship has been
unjustifiably assumed.
_Solymannidae_ (5 March 1582).
_Lansd. MS._ 723. ‘Solymannidae, Tragoedia ... 1581 Martii
5º.’
_Susenbrotus_ or _Fortunia_ (March 1615).
_Bodl. Rawl. Poet. MS._ 195, f. 79. ‘Susenbrotus Comoedia.
Acta Cantabrigiae in Collegio Trin. coram Rege Jacobo & Carolo
principe Anno 1615.’
_Bridgewater MS._ ‘Fortunia.’
The accounts of the royal visit of 7–11 March 1615 do not
mention the play, and the date of this visit would be ‘1614’.
It may be the unnamed play given by Cambridge men, not at
Cambridge, but at Royston in March 1616; the actors are ‘extra
Lyceum’, cf. ch. iv.
_Tomumbeius_ (> 1603).
_Bodl. Rawl. Poet. MS._ 75. ‘Tomumbeius siue Sultanici in
Aegypto Imperii Euersio. Tragoedia noua auctore Georgio Salterno
Bristoënsi.’
Nothing is known of George Salterne, and a dedication to
Elizabeth is hardly sufficient to indicate a production before
her at Bristol during the progress of 1574.
_Ulysses Redux_ (5 Feb. 1592).
By W. Gager (q.v.).
_Vertumnus_ (29 Aug. 1605).
By M. Gwynne (q.v.).
_Victoria_ (_c._ 1580–3).
By A. Fraunce (q.v.).
_Zelotypus_ (1606).
_Emmanuel, Cambridge, MS._ 3. 1. 17; _T. C. C. MS._ R.
3, 9.
The actor-list points to St. John’s, Cambridge, in 1606.
APPENDIX L
PRINTED PLAYS
[_Preliminary Note._--This is a chronological abstract of plays,
printed or entered for printing in the Stationers’ Register,
of which either the entry or the possible date of production
falls in 1558–1616. Some of the later plays are only included
in deference to the conjectures of others as to their early
origin in whole or in part. The list is little more than an
index; details must be sought in chh. xxiii and xxiv. I think it
is nearly self-explanatory. The plays marked T. in col. 1 are
those of which the first entry in the Register is in connexion
with a transfer of copyright; the name in col. 4 is then that
of the transferrer. Titles of non-extant plays are marked with
inverted commas in col. 3; some of them (cf. App. M) may not
really relate to plays at all. The symbol (s) in col. 6 is used
where the imprint indicates, not that a play is printed ‘for’ a
stationer, but that it is ‘to be sold by’ a stationer; it is not
quite clear how far the two formulae are equivalent. The most
important notes in col. 7 are those in italics, which indicate
direct evidence afforded by the entry or first title-page as
to companies by which the plays had been acted. I have added
from other sources additional ascriptions which seem certain
or reasonably probable, and sometimes omitted even title-page
evidence where it obviously relates to production by a company
of later origin than 1616. The notes in col. 8 must not be taken
as attributions of authorship, but merely as guides to the
relevant sections in ch. xxiii or to ch. xxiv. The brackets in
this column indicate that the plays, being pre-Elizabethan, are
dealt with in App. X of _The Mediaeval Stage_. Some statistics,
based on this list, of the output of plays from the Elizabethan
press, will be found in ch. xxii.]
DATE OF DATE OF
ENTRY. PRINT. TITLE. ENTERER. PRINTER. PUBLISHER. SOURCE. AUTHOR.
(1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7) (8)