PLAYS AND PLAYWRIGHTS
Tragedy, comedy, history, pastoral, pastoral-comical,
historical-pastoral, tragical-historical,
tragical-comical-historical-pastoral, scene individable or poem
unlimited.--_Hamlet._
XXII
THE PRINTING OF PLAYS
[_Bibliographical Note._--The records of the Stationers’ Company
were utilized by W. Herbert in _Typographical Antiquities_
(1785–90), based on an earlier edition (1749) by J. Ames,
and revised, but not for the period most important to us, by
T. F. Dibdin (1810–19). They are now largely available at
first hand in E. Arber, _Transcript of the Registers of the
Stationers’ Company, 1554–1640_ (1875–94), and G. E. B. Eyre,
_Transcript of the Registers of the Worshipful Company of
Stationers, 1640–1708_ (1913–14). Recent investigations are to
be found in the _Transactions_ and other publications of the
Bibliographical Society, and in the periodicals _Bibliographica_
and _The Library_. The best historical sketches are H. R.
Plomer, _A Short History of English Printing_ (1900), E. G.
Duff, _The Introduction of Printing into England_ (1908, _C.
H._ ii. 310), H. G. Aldis, _The Book-Trade, 1557–1625_ (1909,
_C. H._ iv. 378), and R. B. McKerrow, _Booksellers, Printers,
and the Stationers’ Trade_ (1916, _Sh. England_, ii. 212). Of
somewhat wider range is H. G. Aldis, _The Printed Book_ (1916).
Records of individual printers are in E. G. Duff, _A Century
of the English Book Trade, 1457–1557_ (1905), R. B. McKerrow,
_Dictionary of Printers and Booksellers, 1557–1640_ (1910), and
H. R. Plomer, _Dictionary of Booksellers and Printers, 1641–67_
(1907). Special studies of value are R. B. McKerrow, _Printers
and Publishers’ Devices_ (1913), and _Notes on Bibliographical
Evidence for Literary Students_ (1914). P. Sheavyn, _The
Literary Profession in the Elizabethan Age_ (1909), is not very
accurate. The early history of the High Commission (1558–64) is
studied in H. Gee, _The Elizabethan Clergy and the Settlement of
Religion_ (1898). The later period awaits fuller treatment than
that in _An Account of the Courts Ecclesiastical_ by W. Stubbs
in the _Report of the Commission on Ecclesiastical Courts_
(1883), i. 21. J. S. Burn, _The High Commission_ (1865), is
scrappy.
For plays in particular, W. W. Greg, _List of English Plays_
(1900), gives the title-pages, and Arber the registration
entries. Various problems are discussed by A. W. Pollard,
_Shakespeare Folios and Quartos_ (1909) and _Shakespeare’s Fight
with the Pirates_ (1917, ed. 2, 1920), and in connexion with
the Shakespearian quartos of 1619 (cf. ch. xxiii). New ground
is opened by A. W. Pollard and J. D. Wilson, _The ‘Stolne and
Surreptitious’ Shakespearian Texts_ (_T. L. S._ Jan.–Aug. 1919),
and J. D. Wilson, _The Copy for Hamlet, 1603, and the Hamlet
Transcript, 1593_ (1918). Other studies are C. Dewischeit,
_Shakespeare und die Stenographie_ (1898, _Jahrbuch_, xxxiv.
170), B. A. P. van Dam and C. Stoffel, _William Shakespeare,
Prosody and Text_ (1900), _Chapters in English Printing,
Prosody, and Pronunciation_ (1902), P. Simpson, _Shakespearian
Punctuation_ (1911), E. M. Albright, ‘_To be Staied_’ (1915, _M.
L. A._ xxx. 451; cf. _M. L. N._, Feb. 1919), A. W. Pollard, _Ad
Imprimendum Solum_ (1919, _3 Library_, x. 57), H. R. Shipheard,
_Play-Publishing in Elizabethan Times_ (1919, _M. L. A._ xxxiv.
580); M. A. Bayfield, _Shakespeare’s Versification_ (1920); cf.
_T. L. S._ (1919–20).
The nature of stage-directions is considered in many works on
staging (cf. _Bibl. Note_ to ch. xviii), and in N. Delius,
_Die Bühnenweisungen in den alten Shakespeare-Ausgaben_ (1873,
_Jahrbuch_, viii. 171), R. Koppel, _Scenen-Einteilung und
Orts-Angaben in den Shakespeareschen Dramen_ (1874, _Jahrbuch_,
ix. 269), _Die unkritische Behandlung dramaturgischer Angaben
und Anordnungen in den Shakespeare-Ausgaben_ (1904, _E. S._
xxxiv. 1). The documents printed by Arber are so fundamental as
to justify a short description. Each of his vols. i-iv gives the
text, or most of the text, of four books, lettered A-D in the
Company’s archives, interspersed with illustrative documents
from other sources; vol. v consists of indices. Another series
of books, containing minutes of the Court of Assistants from
1603 onwards, remains unprinted (ii. 879). Book A contains the
annual accounts of the wardens from 1554 to 1596. The Company’s
year began on varying dates in the first half of July. From
1557 to 1571 the accounts include detailed entries of the books
for which fees were received and of the fines imposed upon
members of the Company for irregularities. Thereafter they are
abstracts only, and reference is made for the details of fees
to ‘the register in the clarkes booke’ (i. 451). Unfortunately
this book is not extant for 1571–6. After the appointment of
Richard Collins in place of George Wapull as clerk in 1575, a
new ‘booke of entrances’ was bought for the clerk (i. 475).
This is Book B, which is divided into sections for records of
different character, including book entries for 1576–95, and
fines for 1576–1605. There are also some decrees and ordinances
of the Court, most of which Arber does not print, and a few
pages of miscellaneous memoranda at the beginning and end (ii.
33–49, 884–6). Book C, bought ‘for the entrance of copies’ in
1594–5 (i. 572), has similar memoranda (iii. 35–8, 677–98). It
continues the book entries, and these alone, for 1595–1620. Book
D continues them for 1620–45. Arber’s work stops at 1640. Eyre
prints a transcript by H. R. Plomer of the rest of D and of
Books E, F, and G, extending to 1708.]
A historian of the stage owes so much of his material to the printed
copies of plays, with their title-pages, their prefatory epistles, and
their stage-directions, that he can hardly be dispensed from giving
some account of the process by which plays got into print. Otherwise
I should have been abundantly content to have left the subject with a
reference to the researches of others, and notably of that accomplished
bibliographer, my friend Mr. A. W. Pollard, to whom in any event the
debt of these pages must be great. The earliest attempts to control
the book-trade are of the nature of commercial restrictions, and
concern themselves with the regulation of alien craftsmanship.[513]
But when Tudor policy had to deal with expressions of political and
religious opinion, and in particular when the interlude as well as the
pamphlet, not without encouragement from Cranmer and Cromwell, became
an instrument of ecclesiastical controversy, it was not long before the
State found itself committed to the methods of a literary censorship.
We have already followed in detail the phases of the control to which
the spoken play was subjected.[514] The story of the printed play
was closely analogous; and in both cases the ultimate term of the
evolution, so far as our period is concerned, was the establishment of
the authority of the Master of the Revels. The printing and selling
of plays, however, was of course only one fragment of the general
business of book-production. Censorship was applied to many kinds of
books, and was also in practice closely bound up with the logically
distinct problem of copyright. This to the Elizabethan mind was a
principle debarring one publisher from producing and selling a book in
which another member of his trade had already a vested interest. The
conception of a copyright vested in the author as distinct from the
publisher of a book had as yet hardly emerged.
The earliest essay in censorship in fact took the form of an extension
of the procedure, under which protection had for some time past been
given to the copyright in individual books through the issue of a
royal privilege forbidding their republication by any other than the
privileged owner or printer.[515] Three proclamations of Henry VIII
against heretical or seditious books, in 1529, 1530, and 1536, were
followed in 1538 by a fourth, which forbade the printing of any English
book except with a licence given ‘upon examination made by some of his
gracis priuie counsayle, or other suche as his highnes shall appoynte’,
and further directed that a book so licensed should not bear the words
‘Cum priuilegio regali’ without the addition of ‘ad imprimendum solum’,
and that ‘the hole copie, or els at the least theffect of his licence
and priuilege be therwith printed’.[516] The intention was apparently
to distinguish between a merely regulative privilege or licence to
print, and the older and fuller type of privilege which also conveyed
a protection of copyright. Finally, in 1546, a fifth proclamation
laid down that every ‘Englishe boke, balet or playe’ must bear the
names of the printer and author and the ‘daye of the printe’, and that
an advance copy must be placed in the hands of the local mayor two
days before publication.[517] It is not quite clear whether these
requirements were intended to replace, or merely to reinforce, that of
a licence. Henry’s proclamations lost their validity upon his death
in 1547, but the policy of licensing was continued by his successors.
Under Edward VI we get, first a Privy Council order of 1549, directing
that all English books printed or sold should be examined and allowed
by ‘M^r Secretary Peter, M^r Secretary Smith and M^r Cicill, or the
one of them’, and secondly a proclamation of 1551, requiring allowance
‘by his maiestie, or his priuie counsayl in writing signed with his
maiesties most gratious hand or the handes of sixe of his sayd priuie
counsayl’.[518] Mary in her turn, though with a different emphasis
on the kind of opinion to be suppressed, issued three proclamations
against heretical books in 1553, 1555, and 1558, and in the first of
these limited printers to books for which they had ‘her graces speciall
licence in writynge’.[519] It is noteworthy that both in 1551 and in
1553 the printing and the playing of interludes were put upon exactly
the same footing.
Mary, however, took another step of the first importance for the
further history of publishing, by the grant on 4 May 1557 a charter of
incorporation to the London Company of Stationers.[520] This was an
old organization, traceable as far back as 1404.[521] By the sixteenth
century it had come to include the printers who manufactured, as
well as the stationers who sold, books; and many, although not all
of its members, exercised both avocations. No doubt the issue of the
charter had its origin in mixed motives. The stationers wanted the
status and the powers of economic regulation within their trade which
it conferred; the Government wanted the aid of the stationers in
establishing a more effective control over the printed promulgation of
inconvenient doctrines. This preoccupation is clearly manifested in the
preamble to the charter, with its assertion that ‘seueral seditious
and heretical books’ are ‘daily published’; and the objects of both
parties were met by a provision that ‘no person shall practise or
exercise the art or mystery of printing or stamping any book unless
the same person is, or shall be, one of the society of the foresaid
mystery of a stationer of the city aforesaid, or has for that purpose
obtained our licence’. This practically freed the associated stationers
from any danger of outside competition, and it immensely simplified
the task of the heresy hunters by enlisting the help of the Company
against the establishment of printing-presses by any but well-known
and responsible craftsmen. Registration is always half-way towards
regulation. The charter did not, however, dispense, even for the
members of the Company, with the requirement of a licence; nor did it
give the Company any specific functions in connexion with the issue of
licences, and although Elizabeth confirmed her sister’s grant on 10
November 1559, she had already, in the course of the ecclesiastical
settlement earlier in the year, taken steps to provide for the
continuance of the old system, and specifically laid it down that
the administration of the Company was to be subordinate thereto. The
licensing authority rested ultimately upon the _Act of Supremacy_, by
which the power of ecclesiastical jurisdiction for the ‘reformation,
order, and correction’ of all ‘errors, heresies, schisms, abuses,
offences, contempts, and enormities’ was annexed to the Crown, and the
Crown was authorized to exercise its jurisdiction through the agency of
a commission appointed under letters patent.[522] This Act received the
royal assent on 8 May 1559, together with the _Act of Uniformity_ which
established the Book of Common Prayer, and made it an offence ‘in any
interludes, plays, songs, rhymes, or by other open words’ to ‘declare
or speak anything in the derogation, depraving, or despising’ of that
book.[523] In the course of June followed a body of _Injunctions_,
intended as a code of ecclesiastical discipline to be promulgated at
a series of diocesan visitations held by commissioners under the _Act
of Supremacy_. One of these _Injunctions_ is directly concerned with
the abuses of printers of books.[524] It begins by forbidding any book
or paper to be printed without an express written licence either from
the Queen herself or from six of the Privy Council, or after perusal
from two persons being either the Archbishop of Canterbury or York, the
Bishop of London, the Chancellor of Oxford or Cambridge, or the Bishop
or Archdeacon for the place of printing. One of the two must always be
the Ordinary, and the names of the licensers are to be ‘added in the
end’ of every book. This seems sufficiently to cover the ground, but
the _Injunction_ goes on to make a special reference to ‘pamphlets,
plays and ballads’, from which anything ‘heretical, seditious, or
unseemly for Christian ears’ ought to be excluded; and for these it
prescribes a licence from ‘such her majesty’s commissioners, or three
of them, as be appointed in the city of London to hear and determine
divers causes ecclesiastical’. These commissioners are also to punish
breaches of the _Injunction_, and to take and notify an order as
to the prohibition or permission of ‘all other books of matters of
religion or policy, or governance’. An exemption is granted for books
ordinarily used in universities or schools. The Master and Wardens
of the Stationers’ Company are ‘straitly’ commanded to be obedient
to the _Injunction_. The commission here referred to was not one of
those entrusted with the diocesan visitations, but a more permanent
body sitting in London itself, which came to be known as the High
Commission. The reference to it in the _Injunction_ reads like an
afterthought, but as the principal members of this commission were
the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Bishop of London, there is not
so much inconsistency between the two forms of procedure laid down as
might at first sight appear. The High Commission was not in fact yet in
existence when the _Injunctions_ were issued, but it was constituted
under a patent of 19 July 1559, and was renewed from time to time by
fresh patents throughout the reign.[525] The original members, other
than the two prelates, were chiefly Privy Councillors, Masters of
Requests, and other lawyers. The size of the body was considerably
increased by later patents, and a number of divines were added. The
patent of 1559 conferred upon the commissioners a general power to
exercise the royal jurisdiction in matters ecclesiastical. It does not
repeat in terms the provisions for the ‘allowing’ of books contained
in the _Injunctions_, but merely recites that ‘divers seditious books’
have been set forth, and empowers the commissioners to inquire into
them.
The _Injunctions_ and the Commission must be taken as embodying the
official machinery for the licensing of books up to the time of
the well-known Star Chamber order of 1586, although the continued
anxiety of the government in the matter is shown by a series of
proclamations and orders which suggest that no absolutely effective
method of suppressing undesirable publications had as yet been
attained.[526] Mr. Pollard, who regards the procedure contemplated
by the _Injunctions_ as ‘impossible’, believes that in practice the
Stationers’ Company, in ordinary cases, itself acted as a licensing
authority.[527] Certainly this is the testimony, as regards the
period 1576–86, of a note of Sir John Lambe, Dean of the Arches, in
1636, which is based wholly or in part upon information derived from
Felix Kingston, then Master of the Company.[528] Kingston added the
detail that in the case of a divinity book of importance the opinion
of theological experts was taken. Mr. Pollard expresses a doubt
whether Lambe or Kingston had much evidence before them other than
the registers of the Company which are still extant, and to these we
are in a position to turn for confirmation or qualification of their
statements.[529] Unfortunately, the ordinances or constitutions under
which the master and wardens acted from the time of the incorporation
have not been preserved, and any additions made to these by the Court
of Assistants before the Restoration have not been printed.[530] We
have some revised ordinances of 1678–82, and these help us by recording
as of ‘ancient usage’ a practice of entering all publications, other
than those under letters patent, in ‘the register-book of this
company’.[531] It is in fact this register, incorporated from 1557 to
1571 in the annual accounts of the wardens and kept from 1576 onwards
as a subsidiary book by the clerk, which furnishes our principal
material. During 1557–71 the entries for each year are collected
under a general heading, which takes various forms. In 1557–8 it is
‘The entrynge of all such copyes as be lycensed to be prynted by the
master and wardyns of the mystery of stacioners’; in 1558–9 simply
‘Lycense for pryntinge’; in 1559–60, for which year the entries are
mixed up with others, ‘Receptes for fynes, graunting of coppyes and
other thynges’; in 1560–1 ‘For takynge of fynes for coppyes’. This
formula lasts until 1565–6, when ‘The entrynge of coopyes’ takes its
place. The wording of the individual entries also varies during the
period, but generally it indicates the receipt of a money payment in
return for a license.[532] In a very few cases, by no means always
of divinity books, the licence is said to be ‘by’, or the licence or
perhaps the book itself, to be ‘authorized’ or ‘allowed’ or ‘perused’
or ‘appointed’ by the Bishop of London; still more rarely by the
Archbishop of Canterbury or by both prelates; once by the Archbishops
of Canterbury and York; once by the Council.[533]
Richard Collins, on his appointment as Clerk of the Company in 1575,
records that one of his duties was to enter ‘lycences for pryntinge
of copies’ and one section of his register is accordingly devoted to
this purpose.[534] It has no general heading, but the summary accounts
of the wardens up to 1596 continue to refer to the receipts as ‘for
licencinge of copies’.[535] The character of the individual entries
between 1576 and 1586 is much as in the account books. The name of
a stationer is given in the margin and is followed by some such
formula as ‘Receyved of him for his licence to prynte’ or more briefly
‘Lycenced vnto him’, with the title of the book, any supplementary
information which the clerk thought relevant, and a note of the payment
made. Occasional alternatives are ‘Allowed’, ‘Admitted’, ‘Graunted’
or ‘Tolerated’ ‘vnto him’, of which the three first appear to have
been regarded as especially appropriate to transfers of existing
copyrights;[536] and towards the end of the period appears the more
important variant ‘Allowed vnto him for his copie’.[537] References
to external authorizers gradually become rather more frequent,
although they are still the exception and not the rule; the function
is fulfilled, not only by the bishop, the archbishop, or the Council,
but also upon occasion by the Lord Chancellor or the Secretary, by
individual Privy Councillors, by the Lord Mayor, the Recorder or the
Remembrancer of the City, and by certain masters and doctors, who
may be the ministers mentioned by Felix Kingston, and who probably
held regular deputations from a proper ecclesiastical authority as
‘correctors’ to the printers.[538] It is certain that such a post was
held in 1571 by one Talbot, a servant of the Archbishop of Canterbury.
On the other hand the clerk, at first tentatively and then as a matter
of regular practice, begins to record the part taken by the master and
wardens. The first example is a very explicit entry, in which the book
is said to be ‘licensed to be printed’ by the archbishop and ‘alowed’
by the master and a warden.[539] But the formula which becomes normal
does not dwell on any differentiation of functions, and merely states
the licence as being ‘under the hands of’ the wardens or of one of them
or the master, or of these and of some one who may be presumed to be
an external corrector. To the precise significance of ‘under the hands
of’ I must return. Increased caution with regard to dangerous books
is also borne witness to during this period by the occasional issue
of a qualified licence. In 1580 Richard Jones has to sign his name
in the register to a promise ‘to bring the whole impression’ of _The
Labyrinth of Liberty_ ‘into the Hall in case it be disliked when it
is printed’.[540] In 1583 the same stationer undertakes ‘to print of
his own perill’.[541] In 1584 it is a play which is thus brought into
question, Lyly’s _Sapho and Phao_, and Thomas Cadman gets no more than
‘yt is graunted vnto him yat yf he gett ye commedie of Sappho laufully
alowed vnto him, then none of this cumpanie shall interrupt him to
enjoye yt’. Other entries direct that lawful authority must be obtained
before printing, and in one case there is a specific reference to the
royal _Injunctions_.[542] Conditions of other kinds are also sometimes
found in entries; a book must be printed at a particular press, or the
licence is to be voided if it prove to be another man’s copy.[543] The
caution of the Stationers may have been motived by dissatisfaction
on the part of the government which finally took shape in the issue
of the Star Chamber order of 23 June 1586. This was a result of the
firmer policy towards Puritan indiscipline initiated by Whitgift and
the new High Commission which he procured on his succession to the
primacy in 1583.[544] It had two main objects. One, with which we are
not immediately concerned, was to limit the number of printers and
their presses; the other, to concentrate the censorship of all ordinary
books, including plays, in the hands of the archbishop and the bishop.
It is not clear whether the prelates were to act in their ordinary
capacity or as High Commissioners; anyhow they had the authority of
the High Commission, itself backed by the Privy Council, behind them.
The effect of the order is shown in a bustle amongst the publishers
to get on to the register a number of ballads and other trifles which
they had hitherto neglected to enter, and in a considerable increase
in the submissions of books for approval, either to the prelates
themselves, or to persons who are now clearly acting as ecclesiastical
deputies.[545] On 30 June 1588 an official list of deputies was issued
by the archbishop, and amongst these were several who had already
authorized books before and after 1586. These deputies, and other
correctors whose names appear in the register at later dates, are as a
rule traceable as episcopal chaplains, prebendaries of St. Paul’s, or
holders of London benefices.[546] Some of them were themselves members
of the High Commission. Occasionally laymen were appointed.[547] The
main work of correction now fell to these officials, but books were
still sometimes allowed by the archbishop or bishop in person, or by
the Privy Council or some member of that body.
The reaction of the changes of 1586–88 upon the entries in the register
is on the whole one of degree rather than of kind. Occasionally the
wording suggests a differentiation between the functions of the wardens
and those of the ecclesiastical licensers, but more often the clerk
contents himself with a mere record of what ‘hands’ each book was
under.[548] Some shifting of the point of view is doubtless involved in
the fact that ‘Entered vnto him for his copie’ and ‘Allowed vnto him
for his copie’ now become the normal formulas, and by 1590–1 ‘Licenced
vnto him’ has disappeared altogether.[549] But a great number of books,
including most ballads and pamphlets and some plays, are still entered
without note of any authority other than that of the wardens, and about
1593 the proportion of cases submitted to the ecclesiastical deputies
sensibly begins to slacken, although the continuance of conditional
entries shows that some caution was exercised. An intervention of the
prelates in 1599 reversed the tendency again.[550] As regards plays
in particular, the wardens received a sharp reminder, ‘that noe
playes be printed except they be allowed by suche as haue authority’;
and although they do not seem to have interpreted this as requiring
reference to a corrector in every case, conditional entries of plays
become for a time numerous.[551] They stop altogether in 1607, when the
responsibility for play correction appears to have been taken over,
presumably under an arrangement with the prelates, by the Master of
the Revels.[552] Henceforward and to the end of Buck’s mastership,
nearly all play entries are under the hands not only of the wardens,
but of the Master or of a deputy acting on his behalf. Meanwhile, for
books other than plays, the ecclesiastical authority succeeded more
and more in establishing itself, although even up to the time of the
Commonwealth the wardens never altogether ceased to enter ballads and
such small deer on their own responsibility.
A little more may be gleaned from the ‘Fynes for breakinge of good
orders’, which like the book entries were recorded by the wardens in
their annual accounts up to 1571 and by the clerk in his register
from 1576 to 1605.[553] But many of these were for irregularities in
apprenticeship and the like, and where a particular book was concerned,
the book is more often named than the precise offence committed in
relation to it. The fine is for printing ‘contrary to the orders of
this howse’, ‘contrary to our ordenaunces’, or merely ‘disorderly’.
Trade defects, such as ‘stechyng’ of books, are sometimes in question,
and sometimes the infringement of other men’s copies.[554] But the
character of the books concerned suggests that some at least of the
fines for printing ‘without lycense’, ‘without aucthoritie’, ‘without
alowance’, ‘without entrance’, ‘before the wardyns handes were to yt’
were due to breaches of the regulations for censorship, and in a few
instances the information is specific.[555] The book is a ‘lewde’ book,
or ‘not tolerable’, or has already been condemned to be burnt, or the
printing is contrary to ‘her maiesties prohibicon’ or ‘the decrees
of the star chamber’.[556] More rarely a fine was accompanied by the
sequestration of the offending books, or the breaking up of a press,
or even imprisonment. In these cases the company may have been acting
under stimulus from higher powers; in dealing with a culprit in 1579,
they direct that ‘for his offence, so farre as it toucheth ye same
house only, he shall paye a fine’.[557]
Putting together the entries and the fines, we can arrive at an
approximate notion of the position occupied by the Stationers’ Company
as an intermediary between the individual stationers and the higher
powers in Church and State. That it is only approximate and that many
points of detail remain obscure is largely due to the methods of
the clerk. Richard Collins did not realize the importance, at least
to the future historian, of set diplomatic formulas, and it is by
no means clear to what extent the variations in the phrasing of his
record correspond to variations in the facts recorded. But it is my
impression that he was in substance a careful registrar, especially as
regards the authority under which his entries were made, and that if
he did not note the presence in any case of a corrector’s ‘hand’ to
a book, it is fair evidence that such a hand was not before him. On
this assumption the register confirms the inference to be drawn from
the statements of Lambe and Kingston in 1636, that before 1586 the
provision of the _Injunctions_ for licensing by the High Commission for
London was not ordinarily operative, and that as a rule the only actual
licences issued were those of the Stationers’ Company, who used their
own discretion in submitting books about which they felt doubtful to
the bishop or the archbishop or to an authorized corrector.[558] That
books licensed by the Company without such reference were regarded as
having been technically licensed under the _Injunctions_, one would
hesitate to say. Licence is a fairly general term, and as used in the
Stationers’ Register it does not necessarily cover anything more than
a permit required by the internal ordinances of the Company itself.
Certainly its officials claimed to issue licences to its members for
other purposes than printing.[559] What Lambe and Kingston do not
tell us, and perhaps ought to have told us, is that, when the master
and wardens did call in the assistance of expert referees, it was not
to ‘ministers’ merely chosen by themselves that they applied, but
to official correctors nominated by the High Commission, or by the
archbishop or bishop on its behalf. Nor must it be supposed that no
supervision of the proceedings of the company was exercised by the High
Commission itself. We find that body writing to the Company to uphold
a patent in 1560.[560] It was upon its motion in 1566 that the Privy
Council made a Star Chamber order calling attention to irregularities
which had taken place, and directing the master and wardens to search
for the offenders.[561] And its authority, concurrent with that of the
Privy Council itself, to license books, is confirmed by a letter of
the Council to the company in 1570.[562] So much for the period before
1586. Another thing which Lambe and Kingston do not tell us, and which
the register, if it can be trusted, does, is that the effective change
introduced by the Star Chamber of that year was only one of degree and
not of kind. It is true that an increasing number of books came, after
one set-back, to be submitted to correctors; that the clerk begins to
lay emphasis in his wording upon entrance rather than upon licence;
that there are some hints that the direct responsibility of the wardens
was for a kind of ‘allowance’ distinct from and supplementary to that
of censorship. But it does not appear to be true that, then or at any
later time, they wholly refused to enter any book except after taking
cognizance of an authority beyond their own.
In fact the register, from the very beginning, was not purely, or
perhaps even primarily, one of allowances. It had two other functions,
even more important from the point of view of the internal economy
of the Company. It was a fee-book, subsidiary to the annual accounts
of the wardens, and showing the details of sums which they had to
return in those accounts.[563] And it was a register of copyrights.
A stationer brought his copy to the wardens and paid his fee, in
order that he might be protected by an official acknowledgement of his
interest in the book against any infringement by a trade competitor. No
doubt the wardens would not, and under the ordinances of the company
might not, give this acknowledgement, unless they were satisfied that
the book was one which might lawfully be printed. But copyright was
what the stationer wanted, for after all most books were not dangerous
in the eyes even of an Elizabethan censorship, whereas there would be
little profit in publishing, if any rival were at liberty to cut in
and reprint for himself the result of a successful speculation. It is
a clear proof of this that the entrances include, not only new books,
but also those in which rights had been transferred from one stationer
to another.[564] Obviously no new allowance by a corrector would be
required in such cases. And as regards copyright and licence alike,
the entry in the register, although convenient to all concerned, was
in itself no more than registration, the formal putting upon record
of action already taken upon responsible authority. This authority
did not rest with the clerk. In a few cases, indeed, he does seem to
have entered an unimportant book at his own discretion.[565] But his
functions were really subordinate to those of the wardens, as is shown
by his practice from about 1580, of regularly citing the ‘hands’ or
signed directions of those officers, as well as of the correctors, upon
which he was acting. These ‘hands’ are not in the register, and there
is sufficient evidence that they were ordinarily endorsed upon the
manuscript or a printed copy of the book itself.[566] Exceptionally
there might be an oral direction, or a separate letter or warrant of
approval, which was probably preserved in a cupboard at the company’s
hall.[567] Here too were kept copies of prints, although not, I
think, the endorsed copies, which seem to have remained with the
stationers.[568] I take it that the procedure was somewhat as follows.
The stationer would bring his book to a warden together with the fee or
some plausible excuse for deferring payment to a later date. The warden
had to consider the questions both of property and of licence. Possibly
the title of each book was published in the hall, in order that any
other stationer who thought that he had an interest in it might make
his claim.[569] Cases of disputed interest would go for determination
to the Court of Assistants, who with the master and wardens for the
year formed the ultimate governing body of the company, and had
power in the last resort to revoke an authority to print already
granted.[570] But if no difficulty as to ownership arose, and if the
book was already endorsed as allowable by a corrector, the warden would
add his own endorsement, and it was then open to the stationer to take
the book to the clerk, show the ‘hands’, pay the fee if it was still
outstanding, and get the formalities completed by registration.[571]
If, however, the warden found no endorsement by a corrector on the
copy, then there were three courses open to him. He might take the
risk of passing an obviously harmless book on his own responsibility.
He might refuse his ‘hand’ until the stationer had got that of the
corrector. Or he might make a qualified endorsement, which the clerk
would note in the register, sanctioning publication so far as copyright
was concerned, but only upon condition that proper authority should
first be obtained. The dates on the title-pages of plays, when compared
with those of the entries, suggest that, as would indeed be natural,
the procedure was completed before publication; not necessarily before
printing, as the endorsements were sometimes on printed copies.[572]
Several cases of re-entry after a considerable interval may indicate
that copyright lapsed unless it was exercised within a reasonable time.
As a rule, a play appeared within a year or so after it was entered,
and was either printed or published by the stationer who had entered
it, or by some other to whom he is known, or may plausibly be supposed,
to have transferred his interest. Where a considerable interval exists
between the date of an entry and that of the first known print, it is
sometimes possible that an earlier print has been lost.[573]
I do not think that it can be assumed that the absence of an entry in
the register is evidence that the book was not duly licensed, so far
as the ecclesiastical authorities were concerned. If its status was
subsequently questioned, the signed copy could itself be produced.
Certainly, when a conditional entry had been made, requiring better
authority to be obtained, the fulfilment of the condition was by
no means always, although it was sometimes, recorded. Possibly the
‘better authority’ was shown to the warden rather than the clerk.
On the other hand, it is certain that, under the ordinances of the
Company, publication without entrance exposed the stationer to a
fine, and it is therefore probable that entrance was also necessary
to secure copyright.[574] Sometimes the omission was repaired on the
occasion of a subsequent transfer of interest. So far as plays are
concerned, there seems to have been greater laxity in this respect
as time went on. Before 1586, or at any rate before 1584, there are
hardly any unentered plays, if we make the reasonable assumption
that certain prints of 1573 and 1575 appeared in the missing lists
for 1571–5.[575] Between 1584 and 1615 the number is considerable,
being over fifty, or nearly a quarter of the total number of plays
printed during that period. An examination of individual cases does
not disclose any obvious reason why some plays should be entered and
others not. The unentered plays are spread over the whole period
concerned. They come from the repertories of nearly all the theatres.
They include ‘surreptitious’ plays, which may be supposed to have been
printed without the consent of the authors or owners, but they also
include plays to which prefaces by authors or owners are prefixed. They
were issued by publishers of good standing as well as by others less
reputable; and as a rule their publishers appear to have been entering
or not entering, quite indifferently, at about the same date. To this
generalization I find an exception, in Thomas Archer, who printed
six plays without entry between 1607 and 1613 and entered none.[576]
The large number of unentered plays is rather a puzzle, and I do not
know the solution. In some cases, as we shall see, the publishers
may have preferred not to court publicity for their enterprises by
bringing them before the wardens. In others they may merely have been
unbusinesslike, or may have thought that the chances of profit hardly
justified the expenditure of sixpence on acquiring copyright. Yet many
of the unentered plays went through more than one edition, including
_Mucedorus_, a book of enduring popularity, and they do not appear to
have been particularly subject to invasion by rival publishers. I will
leave it to Mr. Pollard.
These being the conditions, let us consider what number and what kinds
of plays got into print. It will be convenient to deal separately
with the two periods 1557–85 and 1586–1616. The operations of the
Company under their charter had hardly begun before Mary died. The
Elizabethan printing of plays opens in 1559 and for the first five
years is of a retrospective character. Half a dozen publishers, led
by John King, who died about 1561, and Thomas Colwell, who started
business in the same year, issued or entered seventeen plays. Of these
one is not extant. One is a ‘May-game’, perhaps contemporary. Five are
translations; four are Marian farces of the school of Udall, one a
_débat_ by John Heywood, and five Protestant interludes of the reigns
of Henry and Edward, roughly edited in some cases so as to adapt them
to performance under the new queen.[577] One more example of earlier
Tudor drama, _Ralph Roister Doister_, in addition to mere reprints,
appeared after 1565.[578] And with that year, after a short lull of
activity, begins the genuine Elizabethan harvest, which by 1585 had
yielded forty-two plays, of which thirty-nine are extant, although
two only in the form of fragments. On analysis, the greater number
of these, seventeen in all, fall into a group of moral interludes,
often controversial in tone, and in some cases approximating, through
the intermingling of concrete with abstract personages, on the one
hand to classical comedy, on the other to the mediaeval miracle-play.
There are also twelve translations or adaptations, including two from
Italian comedy. There is one neo-classical tragedy. And there are
nine plays which can best be classified as histories, of which seven
have a classical and two a romantic colouring.[579] It is of interest
to compare this output of the printing-press with the chronicle of
Court performances over the same years which is recorded in the Revels
Accounts.[580] Here we get, so far of course as can be judged from
a bare enumeration of titles, fourteen morals, twenty-one classical
histories, mainly shown by boys, twenty-two romantic histories, mainly
shown by men, and perhaps three farces, two plays of contemporary
realism, with one ‘antick’ play and two groups of short dramatic
episodes. It is clear that the main types are the same in both lists.
But only one of the printed plays, _Orestes_, actually appears in the
Court records, although _Damon and Pythias_, _Gorboduc_, _Sapho and
Phao_, _Campaspe_, and _The Arraignment of Paris_ were also given at
Court, and the Revels Accounts after all only cover comparatively few
years out of the whole period.[581] And there is a great discrepancy in
the proportions in which the various types are represented. The morals,
which were obsolescent at Court, are far more numerous in print than
the classical and romantic histories, which were already in enjoyment
of their full vogue upon the boards. My definite impression is that
these early printed morals, unlike the prints of later date, were in
the main not drawn from the actual repertories of companies, but were
literary products, written with a didactic purpose, and printed in the
hope that they would be bought both by readers and by schoolmasters in
search of suitable pieces for performance by their pupils. They belong,
like some similar interludes, both original and translated, of earlier
date, rather to the tradition of the humanist academic drama, than to
that of the professional, or even quasi-professional, stage. There are
many things about the prints which, although not individually decisive,
tend when taken in bulk to confirm this theory. They are ‘compiled’,
according to their title-pages; sometimes the author is declared a
‘minister’ or a ‘learned clerke’.[582] Nothing is, as a rule, said
to indicate that they have been acted.[583] They are advertised, not
only as ‘new’, ‘merry’, ‘pretty’, ‘pleasant’, ‘delectable’, ‘witty’,
‘full of mirth and pastime’, but also as ‘excellent’, ‘worthy’,
‘godly’, ‘pithy’, ‘moral’, ‘pityfull’, ‘learned’, and ‘fruitfull’,
and occasionally the precise didactic intention is more elaborately
expounded either on the title-page or in a prologue.[584] They are
furnished with analyses showing the number of actors necessary to take
all the parts, and in one case there is a significant note that the
arrangement is ‘most convenient for such as be disposed, either to
shew this comedie in priuate houses, or otherwise’.[585] They often
conclude with a generalized prayer for the Queen and the estates of
the realm, which omits any special petition for the individual lord
such as we have reason to believe the protected players used.[586]
The texts are much better than the later texts based upon acting
copies. The stage-directions read like the work of authors rather
than of book-keepers, notably in the use of ‘out’ rather than of ‘in’
to indicate exits, and in the occasional insertion both of hints for
‘business’ and of explanatory comments aimed at a reader rather than
an actor.[587] It should be added that this type of play begins to
disappear at the point when the growing Calvinist spirit led to a sharp
breach between the ministry and the stage, and discredited even moral
play-writing amongst divines. The latest morals, of which there are
some even during the second period of play-publication, have much more
the look of rather antiquated survivals from working repertories.[588]
The ‘May-game’ of _Robin Hood_ seems to me to be of a literary origin
similar to that of the contemporary ‘morals’.
Towards the end of the period a new element is introduced with Lyly and
Peele, who, like Edwardes before them, were not divines but secular
scholars, and presumably desired a permanent life for their literary
achievements. The publication of Lyly’s plays for Paul’s carries us
on into the period 1586–1616, and the vaunting of their performance
before the Queen is soon followed by that of other plays, beginning
with _The Troublesome Reign of John_, as publicly acted in the City
of London. During 1586–1616 two hundred and thirty-seven plays in
all were published or at least entered on the Stationers’ Register,
in addition to thirteen printed elsewhere than in London. Of many of
these, and of some of those earlier published, there were one or more
reprints. It is not until the last year of the period that the first
example of a collective edition of the plays of any author makes its
appearance. This is _The Workes of Benjamin Jonson_, which is moreover
in folio, whereas the prints of individual plays were almost invariably
in quarto.[589] A second volume of Jonson’s _Works_ was begun in 1631
and completed in 1640. Shakespeare’s plays had to wait until 1623
for collective treatment, Lyly’s until 1632, Marston’s until 1633,
and Beaumont and Fletcher’s until 1647 and 1679, although a partial
collection of Shakespearian plays in quarto has been shown to have
been contemplated and abandoned in 1619.[590] Of the two hundred and
thirty-seven plays proposed for publication two hundred and fourteen
are extant. Twenty-three are only known by entries in the Stationers’
Register, and as plays were not always entered, it is conceivable that
one or two may have been published, and have passed into oblivion. Of
the two hundred and fourteen extant plays, six are translations from
the Latin, Italian, or French, and seven may reasonably be suspected of
being merely closet plays, intended for the eye of the reader alone.
The other two hundred and one may be taken to have undergone the
test of actual performance. Six were given by amateurs, at Court or
elsewhere, and eleven, of which three are Latin and eight English, are
University plays. So far as the professional companies are concerned,
the repertories which have probably been best preserved, owing to
the fact that the poets were in a position to influence publication,
are those of the boys. We have thirty-one plays which, certainly or
probably, came to the press from the Chapel and Queen’s Revels boys,
twenty-five from the Paul’s boys, and eight from the King’s Revels
boys. To the Queen’s men we may assign eleven plays, to Sussex’s three,
to Pembroke’s five, to Derby’s four, to Oxford’s one, to Strange’s or
the Admiral’s and Henry’s thirty-two, to the Chamberlain’s and King’s
thirty-four, to Worcester’s and Anne’s sixteen, to Charles’s one.
Some of these had at earlier dates been played by other companies.
Fifteen plays remain, not a very large proportion, which cannot be
safely assigned.[591] There are twenty-seven manuscript English plays
or fragments of plays or plots of plays, and twenty-one Latin ones,
mostly of a university type, which also belong to the period 1586–1616.
There are fifty-one plays which were certainly or probably produced
before 1616, but were not printed until later, many of them in the
Shakespeare and Beaumont and Fletcher folios. And there are some
twenty-two others, which exist in late prints, but may be wholly, or
more often partially, of early workmanship. The resultant total of
three hundred and seven is considerable, but there is reason to suppose
that it only represents a comparatively small fraction of the complete
crop of these thirty pullulating dramatic years. Of over two hundred
and eighty plays recorded by Henslowe as produced or commissioned by
the companies for whom he acted as banker between 1592 and 1603, we
have only some forty and perhaps revised versions of a few others.[592]
Thomas Heywood claimed in 1633 to have had ‘an entire hand, or at least
a maine finger’, in not less than two hundred and twenty plays, and
of these we can only identify or even guess at about two score, of
which several are certainly lost. That any substantial number of plays
got printed, but have failed to reach us, is improbable. From time
to time an unknown print, generally of early date, turns up in some
bibliographical backwater, but of the seventy-five titles which I have
brought together under the head of ‘Lost Plays’ some probably rest
upon misunderstandings and others represent works which were not plays
at all, while a large proportion are derived from late entries in the
Stationers’ Register by Humphrey Moseley of plays which he may have
possessed in manuscript but never actually proceeded to publish.[593]
Some of the earlier unfulfilled entries may be of similar type. An
interesting piece of evidence pointing to the practically complete
survival at any rate of seventeenth-century prints is afforded in a
catalogue of his library of plays made by Sir John Harington in or
about 1610.[594] Harington possessed 129 distinct plays, as well as
a number of duplicates. Only 9 of these were printed before 1586. He
had 14 out of 38 printed during 1588–94, and 15 out of 25 printed
during 1595–99. His absence in Ireland during 1599 probably led him
to miss several belonging to that year, and his most vigorous period
as a collector began with 1600. During 1600–10 he secured 90 out of
105; that is to say exactly six-sevenths of the complete output of
the London press. I neglect plays printed outside London in these
figures. There is only one play among the 129 which is not known to us.
Apparently it bore the title _Belinus and Brennus_.
It is generally supposed, and I think with justice, that the acting
companies did not find it altogether to their advantage to have
their plays printed. Heywood, indeed, in the epistle to his _English
Traveller_ (1633) tells us that this was sometimes the case.[595]
Presumably the danger was not so much that readers would not become
spectators, as that other companies might buy the plays and act them;
and of this practice there are some dubious instances, although at any
rate by Caroline times it had been brought under control by the Lord
Chamberlain.[596] At any rate, we find the Admiral’s in 1600 borrowing
40_s._ ‘to geue vnto the printer, to staye the printing of Patient
Gresell’.[597] We find the King’s Revels syndicate in 1608 entering
into a formal agreement debarring its members from putting any of the
play-books jointly owned by them into print. And we find the editor
and publisher of _Troilus and Cressida_, although that had in fact
never been played, bidding his readers in 1609 ‘thanke fortune for the
scape it hath made amongst you; since by the grand possessors wills I
beleeue you should have prayd for them rather than beene prayd’. The
marked fluctuation in the output of plays in different years is capable
of explanation on the theory that, so long as the companies were
prosperous, they kept a tight hold on their ‘books’, and only let them
pass into the hands of the publishers when adversity broke them up, or
when they had some special need to raise funds. The periods of maximum
output are 1594, 1600, and 1607. In 1594 the companies were reforming
themselves after a long and disastrous spell of plague; and in
particular the Queen’s, Pembroke’s, and Sussex’s men were all ruined,
and their books were thrown in bulk upon the market.[598] It has been
suggested that the sales of 1600 may have been due to Privy Council
restrictions of that year, which limited the number of companies, and
forbade them to play for more than two days in the week.[599] But it is
very doubtful whether the limitation of days really became operative,
and many of the plays published belonged to the two companies, the
Chamberlain’s and the Admiral’s, who stood to gain by the elimination
of competitors. An alternative reason might be found in the call for
ready money involved by the building of the Globe in 1599 and the
Fortune in 1600. The main factor in 1607 was the closing of Paul’s and
the sale of the plays acted there.
Sometimes the companies were outwitted. Needy and unscrupulous
stationers might use illegitimate means to acquire texts for which
they had not paid as a basis for ‘surreptitious’ or ‘piratical’
prints.[600] A hired actor might be bribed to disclose his ‘part’ and
so much as he could remember of the ‘parts’ of others. Dr. Greg has
made it seem probable that the player of the Host was an agent in
furnishing the text of the _Merry Wives_.[601] A player of Voltimand
and other minor parts may have been similarly guilty as regards
_Hamlet_.[602] Long before, the printer of _Gorboduc_ had succeeded in
‘getting a copie thereof at some yongmans hand that lacked a little
money and much discretion’. Or the poet himself might be to blame.
Thomas Heywood takes credit in the epistle to _The Rape of Lucrece_
that it had not been his custom ‘to commit my playes to the presse’,
like others who ‘have vsed a double sale of their labours, first to the
stage, and after to the presse’. Yet this had not saved his plays from
piracy, for some of them had been ‘copied only by the eare’ and issued
in a corrupt and mangled form. A quarter of a century later, in writing
a prologue for a revival of his _If You Know not Me, You Know Nobody_,
he tells us that this was one of the corrupt issues, and adds that
Some by Stenography drew
The plot: put it in print: (scarce one word trew).
Modern critics have sought in shorthand the source of other ‘bad’ and
probably surreptitious texts of plays, and one has gone so far as to
trace in them the peculiarities of a particular system expounded in
the _Characterie_ (1588) of Timothy Bright.[603] The whole question
of surreptitious prints has naturally been explored most closely in
connexion with the textual criticism of Shakespeare, and the latest
investigator, Mr. Pollard, has come to the conclusion that, in spite of
the general condemnation of the Folio editors, the only Shakespearian
Quartos which can reasonably be labelled as surreptitious or as
textually ‘bad’ are the First Quartos of _Romeo and Juliet_, _Henry
V_, _Merry Wives of Windsor_, _Hamlet_, and _Pericles_, although
he strongly suspects that there once existed a similar edition of
_Love’s Labour’s Lost_.[604] I have no ground for dissenting from this
judgement.
The question whether the actors, in protecting their property from the
pirates, could look for any assistance from the official controllers
of the press is one of some difficulty. We may perhaps infer, with the
help of the conditional entries of _The Blind Beggar of Alexandria_ and
_The Spanish Tragedy_, and the special order made in the case of _Dr.
Faustus_, that before assigning a ‘copy’ to one stationer the wardens
of the Company took some steps to ascertain whether any other stationer
laid a claim to it. It does not follow that they also inquired whether
the applicant had come honestly or dishonestly by his manuscript.[605]
Mr. Pollard seems inclined to think that, although they were under no
formal obligation to intervene, they would not be likely, as men of
common sense, to encourage dishonesty.[606] If this argument stood
alone, I should not have much confidence in it. There is a Publishers’
Association to-day, doubtless composed of men of common sense, but it
is not a body to which one would naturally commit interests which
might come into conflict with those of members of the trade. It would
be another matter, however, if the actors were in a position to bring
outside interest to bear against the pirates, through the licensers, or
through the Privy Council on whom ultimately the licensers depended.
And this in fact seems to have been the way in which a solution of
the problem was gradually arrived at. Apart altogether from plays,
there are instances upon record in which individuals, who were in a
position to command influence, successfully adopted a similar method.
We find Fulke Greville in 1586 writing to Sir Francis Walsingham,
on the information of the stationer Ponsonby, to warn him that the
publication of the _Arcadia_ was being planned, and to advise him to
get ‘made stay of that mercenary book’ by means of an application to
the Archbishop or to Dr. Cosin, ‘who have, as he says, a copy to peruse
to that end’.[607] Similarly we find Francis Bacon, in the preface to
his _Essayes_ of 1597, excusing himself for the publication on the
ground that surreptitious adventurers were at work, and ‘to labour
the staie of them had bin troublesome and subiect to interpretation’.
Evidently he had come to a compromise, of which the Stationers’
Register retains traces in the cancellation by a court of an entry
of the _Essayes_ to Richard Serger, and a re-entry to H. Hooper, the
actual publisher, ‘under the handes of Master Francis Bacon, Master
Doctor Stanhope, Master Barlowe, and Master Warden Lawson’.[608] The
actors, too, were not wholly without influence. They had their patrons
and protectors, the Lord Chamberlain and the Lord Admiral, in the Privy
Council, and although, as Mr. Pollard points out, it certainly would
not have been good business to worry an important minister about every
single forty-shilling piracy, it may have been worth while to seek
a standing protection, analogous to the old-fashioned ‘privilege’,
against a series of such annoyances. At any rate, this is what, while
the Admiral’s contented themselves with buying off the printer of
_Patient Grissell_, the Chamberlain’s apparently attempted, although
at first with indifferent success, to secure. In 1597 John Danter, a
stationer of the worst reputation, had printed a surreptitious and
‘bad’ edition of _Romeo and Juliet_, and possibly, if Mr. Pollard’s
conjecture is right, another of _Love’s Labour’s Lost_. He had made no
entry in the Register, and it was therefore open to another publisher,
Cuthbert Burby, to issue, without breach of copyright, ‘corrected’
editions of the same plays.[609] This he did, with suitable trumpetings
of the corrections on the title-pages, and presumably by arrangement
with the Chamberlain’s men. It was this affair which must, I think,
have led the company to apply for protection to their lord. On 22 July
1598 an entry was made in the Stationers’ Register of _The Merchant
of Venice_ for the printer James Roberts. This entry is conditional
in form, but it differs from the normal conditional entries in that
the requirement specified is not an indefinite ‘aucthoritie’ but a
‘lycence from the Right honorable the lord chamberlen’. Roberts also
entered _Cloth Breeches and Velvet Hose_ on 27 May 1600, _A Larum
for London_ on 29 May 1600, and _Troilus and Cressida_ on 7 February
1603. These also are all conditional entries but of a normal type. No
condition, however, is attached to his entry of _Hamlet_ on 26 July
1602. Now comes a significant piece of evidence, which at least shows
that in 1600, as well as in 1598, the Stationers’ Company were paying
particular attention to entries of plays coming from the repertory
of the Chamberlain’s men. The register contains, besides the formal
entries, certain spare pages upon which the clerk was accustomed to
make occasional memoranda, and amongst these memoranda we find the
following:[610]
My lord chamberlens menns plaies Entred
viz
[Sidenote: 27 May 1600 To Master Robertes]
A moral of ‘clothe breches and velvet hose’
[Sidenote: 27 May To hym]
Allarum to London
4 Augusti
As you like yt, a booke }
Henry the ffift, a booke }
Every man in his humour, a booke } to be staied
The commedie of ‘muche A doo about }
nothing’, a booke }
There are possibly two notes here, but we may reasonably date them both
in 1600, as _Every Man In his Humour_ was entered to Cuthbert Burby and
Walter Burre on 14 August 1600 and _Much Ado about Nothing_ to Andrew
Wise and William Aspley on 23 August 1600, and these plays appeared
in 1601 and 1600 respectively. _Henry V_ was published, without entry
and in a ‘bad’ text by Thomas Millington and John Busby, also in 1600,
while _As You Like It_ remained unprinted until 1623. Many attempts
have been made to explain the story of 4 August. Mr. Fleay conjectured
that it was due to difficulties of censorship; Mr. Furness that it was
directed against James Roberts, whom he regarded on the strength of
the conditional entries as a man of ‘shifty character’.[611] But there
is no reason to read Roberts’s name into the August memorandum at all;
and I agree with Mr. Pollard that the evidence of dishonesty against
him has been exaggerated, and that the privilege which he held for
printing all play-bills for actors makes it prima facie unlikely that
his relations with the companies would be irregular.[612] On the other
hand, I hesitate to accept Mr. Pollard’s counter-theory that the four
conditional Roberts entries were of the nature of a deliberate plan
‘in the interest of the players in order to postpone their publication
till it could not injure the run of the play and to make the task of
the pirates more difficult’. One would of course suppose that any
entry, conditional or not, might serve such a purpose, if the entering
stationer was in league with the actors and deliberately reserved
publication. This is presumably what the Admiral’s men paid Cuthbert
Burby to do for _Patient Grissell_. Mr. Pollard applies the same theory
to Edward Blount’s unconditional entries of _Pericles_ and _Antony and
Cleopatra_ in 1608, and it would certainly explain the delays in the
publication of _Troilus and Cressida_ from 1603 to 1609 and of _Antony
and Cleopatra_ from 1608 to 1623, and the absence of any edition of
_Cloth Breeches and Velvet Hose_. But it does not explain why _Hamlet_,
entered by Roberts in 1602, was issued by others in the ‘bad’ text of
1603, or why _Pericles_ was issued by Henry Gosson in the ‘bad’ text
of 1609.[613] Mr. Pollard’s interpretation of the facts appears to be
influenced by the conditional character of four out of Roberts’s five
entries during 1598–1603, and I understand him to believe that the
‘further aucthoritie’ required for _Cloth Breeches and Velvet Hose_
and _A Larum for London_ and the ‘sufficient aucthoritie’ required
for _Troilus and Cressida_ were of the same nature as the licence
from the Lord Chamberlain specifically required for _The Merchant of
Venice_.[614] It is not inconceivable that this may have been so, but
one is bound to take the Roberts conditional entries side by side with
the eight similar entries made between 1601 and 1606 for other men,
and in three at least of these (_The Dutch Courtesan_, _Sir Giles
Goosecap_, _The Fleir_) it is obvious that the authority demanded
was that of the official correctors. Of course, the correctors may
themselves have had a hint from the Lord Chamberlain to keep an eye
upon the interests of his servants, but if the eleven conditionally
entered plays of 1600–6 be looked at as a group, it will be seen that
they are all plays of either a political or a satirical character,
which might well therefore call for particular attention from the
correctors in the discharge of their ordinary functions. I have already
suggested that the normal conditional entries represent cases in which
the wardens of the Stationers’ Company, while not prepared to license
a book on their own responsibility, short-circuited as far as they
could the procedure entailed. Properly they ought to have seen the
corrector’s hand before adding their own endorsement. But if this was
not forthcoming, the applicant may have been allowed, in order to save
time, to have the purely trade formalities completed by a conditional
entry, which would be a valid protection against a rival stationer,
but would not, until the corrector’s hand was obtained, be sufficient
authority for the actual printing. No doubt the clerk should have
subsequently endorsed the entry after seeing the corrector’s hand, but
he did not always do so, although in cases of transfer the transferee
might ask for a record to be made, and in any event the owner of the
copy had the book with the ‘hand’ to it. The Lord Chamberlain’s ‘stay’
was, I think, another matter. I suppose it to have been directed, not
to the correctors, but to the wardens, and to have taken the form of
a request not to enter any play of the Chamberlain’s men, otherwise
entitled to licence or not, without satisfying themselves that the
actors were assenting parties to the transaction. Common sense would
certainly dictate compliance with such a request, coming from such a
source. The plan seems to have worked well enough so far as _As You
Like It_, _Every Man In his Humour_, and _Much Ado about Nothing_
were concerned, for we have no reason to doubt that the subsequent
publication of two of these plays had the assent of the Chamberlain’s
men, and the third was effectively suppressed. But somehow not only
_Hamlet_ but also _The Merry Wives of Windsor_ slipped through in
1602, and although the actors apparently came to some arrangement
with Roberts and furnished a revised text of _Hamlet_, the other play
seems to have gone completely out of their control. Moreover, it was
an obvious weakness of the method adopted, that it gave no security
against a surreptitious printer who was in a position to dispense with
an entry. Danter, after all, had published without entry in 1597. He
had had to go without copyright; but an even more audacious device was
successfully tried in 1600 with _Henry V_. This was one of the four
plays so scrupulously ‘staied’ by the Stationers’ clerk on 4 August.
Not merely, however, was the play printed in 1600 by Thomas Creede for
Thomas Millington and John Busby, but on 21 August it was entered on
the Register as transferred to Thomas Pavier amongst other ‘thinges
formerlye printed and sett ouer to’ him. I think the explanation is
that the print of 1600 was treated as merely a reprint of the old play
of _The Famous Victories of Henry V_, which was indeed to some extent
Shakespeare’s source, and of which Creede held the copyright.[615]
Similarly, it is conceivable that the same John Busby and Nathaniel
Butter forced the hands of the Chamberlain’s men into allowing the
publication of _King Lear_ in 1608 by a threat to issue it as a reprint
of _King Leir_.[616] Busby was also the enterer of _The Merry Wives_,
and he and Butter, at whose hands it was that Heywood suffered, seem to
have been the chief of the surreptitious printers after Danter’s death.
The Chamberlain’s men would have been in a better position if their
lord had brought his influence to bear, as Sidney’s friends had done,
upon the correctors instead of the Stationers’ Company. Probably
the mistake was retrieved in 1607 when the ‘allowing’ of plays for
publication passed to the Master of the Revels, and he may even
have extended his protection to the other companies which, like the
Chamberlain’s, had now passed under royal protection. I do not suggest
that the convenience of this arrangement was the sole motive for the
change; the episcopal correctors must have got into a good deal of
hot water over the affair of _Eastward Ho!_[617] Even the Master of
the Revels did not prevent the surreptitious issue of _Pericles_ in
1609. In Caroline times we find successive Lord Chamberlains, to whom
the Master of the Revels continued to be subordinate, directing the
Stationers’ Company not to allow the repertories of the King’s men or
of Beeston’s boys to be printed, and it is implied that there were
older precedents for these protections.[618]
A point might come at which it was really more to the advantage of the
actors to have a play published than not. The prints were useful in
the preparation of acting versions, and they saved the book-keepers
from the trouble of having to prepare manuscript copies at the demand
of stage-struck amateurs.[619] The influence of the poets again was
on the side of publication, and it is perhaps due to the greater
share which they took in the management of the boys’ companies that
so disproportionate a number of the plays preserved are of their
acting. Heywood hints that thereby the poets sold their work twice. It
is more charitable to assume that literary vanity was also a factor;
and it is with playwrights of the more scholarly type, Ben Jonson
and Marston, that a practice first emerges of printing plays at an
early date after publication, and in the full literary trappings of
dedicatory epistles and commendatory verses. Actor-playwrights, such
as Heywood himself and Dekker, followed suit; but not Shakespeare, who
had long ago dedicated his literary all to Southampton and penned no
prefaces. The characteristic Elizabethan apologies, on such grounds as
the pushfulness of publishers or the eagerness of friends to see the
immortal work in type, need not be taken at their full face value.[620]
Opportunity was afforded on publication to restore passages which had
been ‘cut’ to meet the necessities of stage-presentation, and of this,
in the Second Quarto of _Hamlet_, even Shakespeare may have availed
himself.[621]
The conditions of printing therefore furnish us with every variety
of text, from the carefully revised and punctuated versions of
Ben Jonson’s _Works_ of 1616 to the scrappy notes, from memory or
shorthand, of an incompetent reporter. The average text lies between
these extremes, and is probably derived from a play-house ‘book’ handed
over by the actors to the printer. Mr. Pollard has dealt luminously
with the question of the nature of the ‘book’, and has disposed of the
assumption that it was normally a copy made by a ‘play-house’ scrivener
of the author’s manuscript.[622] For this assumption there is no
evidence whatever. There is, indeed, little direct evidence, one way or
other; but what there is points to the conclusion that the ‘original’
or standard copy of a play kept in the play-house was the author’s
autograph manuscript, endorsed with the licence of the Master of the
Revels for performance, and marked by the book-keeper or for his use
with indications of cuts and the like, and with stage-directions for
exits and entrances and the disposition of properties, supplementary
to those which the author had furnished.[623] Most of the actual
manuscripts of this type which remain in existence are of Caroline,
rather than Elizabethan or Jacobean, date.[624] But we have one of _The
Second Maid’s Tragedy_, bearing Buck’s licence of 1611, and one of _Sir
Thomas More_, belonging to the last decade of the sixteenth century,
which has been submitted for licence without success, and is marked
with instructions by the Master for the excision or alteration of
obnoxious passages. It is a curious document. The draft of the original
author has been patched and interpolated with partial redrafts in a
variety of hands, amongst which, according to some palaeographers, is
to be found that of Shakespeare. One wonders that any licenser should
have been complaisant enough to consider the play at all in such a
form; and obviously the instance is a crucial one against the theory of
scrivener’s copies.[625] It may also be argued on _a priori_ grounds
that such copies would be undesirable from the company’s point of view,
both as being costly and as tending to multiply the opportunities
for ‘surreptitious’ transmission to rivals or publishers. Naturally
it was necessary to copy out individual parts for the actors, and
Alleyn’s part in _Orlando Furioso_, with the ‘cues’, or tail ends of
the speeches preceding his own, can still be seen at Dulwich.[626] From
these ‘parts’ the ‘original’ could be reconstructed or ‘assembled’ in
the event of destruction or loss.[627] Apparently the book-keeper also
made a ‘plot’ or scenario of the action, and fixed it on a peg for
his own guidance and that of the property-man in securing the smooth
progress of the play.[628] Nor could the companies very well prevent
the poets from keeping transcripts or at any rate rough copies, when
they handed over their ‘papers’, complete or in instalments, as they
drew their ‘earnests’ or payments ‘in full’.[629] It does not follow
that they always did so. We know that Daborne made fair copies for
Henslowe;[630] but the Folio editors tell us that what Shakespeare
thought ‘he vttered with that easinesse, that we haue scarse receiued
from him a blot in his papers’, and Mr. Pollard points out that there
would have been little meaning in this praise if what Shakespeare sent
in had been anything but his first drafts.[631]
The character of the stage-directions in plays confirm the view that
many of them were printed from working play-house ‘originals’. They are
primarily directions for the stage itself; it is only incidentally that
they also serve to stimulate the reader’s imagination by indicating the
action with which the lines before him would have been accompanied in
a representation.[632] Some of them are for the individual guidance of
the actors, marginal hints as to the ‘business’ which will give point
to their speeches. These are not very numerous in play-house texts; the
‘kneeling’ and ‘kisses her’ so frequent in modern editions are merely
attempts of the editors to show how intelligently they have interpreted
the quite obvious implications of the dialogue. The more important
directions are addressed rather to the prompter and the tire-man; they
prescribe the exits and the entrances, the ordering of a procession or
a dumb-show, the use of the curtains or other structural devices, the
introduction of properties, the precise moment for the striking up of
music or sounds ‘within’. It is by no means always possible, except
where a manuscript betrays differences of handwriting, to distinguish
between what the author, often himself an actor familiar with the
possibilities of the stage, may have originally written, and what
the book-keeper may have added. Either may well use the indicative
or the imperative form, or merely an adverbial, participial, or
substantival expression.[633] But it is natural to trace the hand of
the book-keeper where the direction reduces itself to the bare name of
a property noted in the margin; even more so when it is followed by
some such phrase as ‘ready’, ‘prepared’, or ‘set out’;[634] and still
more so when the note occurs at the point when the property has to
be brought from the tire-room, and some lines before it is actually
required for use.[635] The book-keeper must be responsible, too, for
the directions into which, as not infrequently happens, the name of an
actor has been inserted in place of that of the personage whom that
actor represented.[636] On the other hand, we may perhaps safely assign
to the author directions addressed to some one else in the second
person, those which leave something to be interpreted according to
discretion, and those which contain any matter not really necessary
for stage guidance.[637] Such superfluous matter is only rarely found
in texts of pure play-house origin, although even here an author
may occasionally insert a word or two of explanation or descriptive
colouring, possibly taken from the source upon which he has been
working.[638] In the main, however, descriptive stage-directions are
characteristic of texts which, whether ultimately based upon play-house
copies or not, have undergone a process of editing by the author or
his representative, with an eye to the reader, before publication.
Some literary rehandling of this sort is traceable, for example, in the
First Folio of Shakespeare, although the hearts of the editors seem
to have failed them before they had got very far with the task.[639]
Yet another type of descriptive stage-direction presents itself in
certain ‘surreptitious’ prints, where we find the reporter eking out
his inadequately recorded text by elaborate accounts of the details of
the business which he had seen enacted before him.[640] So too William
Percy, apparently revising plays some of which had already been acted
and which he hoped to see acted again, mingles his suggestions to a
hypothetical manager with narratives in the past tense of how certain
actors had carried out their parts.[641]
It must not be assumed that, because a play was printed from a stage
copy, the author had no chance of editing it. Probably the compositors
treated the manuscript put before them very freely, modifying, if they
did not obliterate, the individual notions of the author or scribe as
to orthography and punctuation; and the master printer, or some press
corrector in his employment, went over and ‘improved’ their work,
perhaps not always with much reference to the original ‘copy’.[642]
This process of correction continued during the printing off of the
successive sheets, with the result that different examples of the same
imprint often show the same sheet in corrected and in uncorrected
states.[643] The trend of modern criticism is in the direction of
regarding Shakespeare’s plays as printed, broadly speaking, without
any editorial assistance from him; the early quartos from play-house
manuscripts, the later quartos from the earlier quartos, the folio
partly from play-house manuscripts, partly from earlier quartos used in
the play-house instead of manuscripts, and bearing marks of adaptation
to shifting stage requirements.[644] On this theory, the aberrations
of the printing-house, even with the author’s original text before
them, have to account in the main for the unsatisfactory condition in
which, in spite of such posthumous editing, not very extensive, as was
done for the folio, even the best texts of the plays have reached us.
Whether it is sound or not--I think that it probably is--there were
other playwrights who were far from adopting Shakespeare’s attitude of
detachment from the literary fate of his works. Jonson was a careful
editor. Marston, Middleton, and Heywood all apologize for misprints in
various plays, which they say were printed without their knowledge, or
when they were urgently occupied elsewhere; and the inference must be
that in normal circumstances the responsibility would have rested with
them.[645] Marston, indeed, definitely says that he had ‘perused’ the
second edition of _The Fawn_, in order ‘to make some satisfaction for
the first faulty impression’.[646]
The modern editions, with their uniform system of acts and scenes and
their fanciful notes of locality--‘A room in the palace’, ‘Another
room in the palace’--are again misleading in their relation to the
early prints, especially those based upon the play-house. Notes of
locality are very rare. Occasionally a definite shift from one country
or town to another is recorded;[647] and a few edited plays, such as
Ben Jonson’s, prefix, with a ‘dramatis personae’, a general indication
of ‘The scene’.[648] For the rest, the reader is left to his own
inferences, with such help as the dialogue and the presenters give him;
and the modern editors, with a post-Restoration tradition of staging
in their minds, have often inferred wrongly. Even the shoulder-notes
appended to the accurate reprints of the Malone Society, although they
do not attempt localities, err by introducing too many new scenes.
In the early prints the beginnings of scenes are rarely marked, and
the beginnings of acts are left unmarked to an extent which is rather
surprising. The practice is by no means uniform, and it is possible
to distinguish different tendencies in texts of different origin. The
Tudor interludes and the early Elizabethan plays of the more popular
type are wholly undivided, and there was probably no break in the
continuity of the performances.[649] Acts and scenes, which are the
outward form of a method of construction derived from the academic
analysis of Latin comedy and tragedy, make their appearance, with other
notes of neo-classic influence, in the farces of the school of Udall,
in the Court tragedies, in translated plays, in Lyly’s comedies, and
in a few others belonging to the same _milieu_ of scholarship.[650]
Ben Jonson and a few other later writers adopt them in printing plays
of theatrical origin.[651] But the great majority of plays belonging
to the public theatres continue to be printed without any divisions
at all, while plays from the private houses are ordinarily divided
into acts, but not into scenes, although the beginning of each act has
usually some such heading as ‘Actus Primus, Scena prima’.[652] This
distinction corresponds to the greater significance of the act-interval
in the performance of the boy companies; but, as I have pointed out
in an earlier chapter, it is difficult to suppose that the public
theatres paid no regard to act-intervals, and one cannot therefore
quite understand why neither the poets nor the book-keepers were in the
habit of showing them in the play-house ‘originals’ of plays.[653]
Had they been shown there, they would almost inevitably have got into
the prints. It is a peculiarity of the surreptitious First Quarto of
_Romeo and Juliet_, that its later sheets, which differ typographically
from the earlier ones, although they do not number either acts or
scenes, insert lines of ornament at the points at which acts and
scenes may be supposed to begin. It must be added that, so far as an
Elizabethan playwright looked upon his work as made up of scenes, his
conception of a scene was not as a rule that familiar to us upon the
modern stage. The modern scene may be defined as a piece of action
continuous in time and place between two falls of a drop-curtain. The
Elizabethans had no drop-curtain, and the drawing of an alcove curtain,
at any rate while personages remain on the stage without, does not
afford the same solution of continuity. The nearest analogy is perhaps
in such a complete clearance of the stage, generally with a shift of
locality, as enables the imagination to assume a time interval. A few
texts, generally of the seventeenth century, are divided into scenes
on this principle of clearance; and it was adopted by the editors
of the First Folio, when, in a half-hearted way, they attempted to
divide up the continuous texts of their manuscripts and quartos.[654]
But it was not the principle of the neo-classic dramatists, or of Ben
Jonson and his school. For them a scene was a section, not of action,
but of dialogue; and they started a new scene whenever a speaker, or
at any rate a speaker of importance, entered or left the stage. This
is the conception which is in the mind of Marston when he regrets,
in the preface to _The Malcontent_, that ‘scenes, invented merely to
be spoken, should be enforcively published to be read’. It is also
the conception of the French classicist drama, although the English
playwrights do not follow the French rule of _liaison_, which requires
at least one speaker from each scene to remain on into the next, and
thus secures continuity throughout each act by making a complete
clearance of the stage impossible.[655]
XXIII
PLAYWRIGHTS
[_Bibliographical Note._--The abundant literature of the drama
is more satisfactorily treated in the appendices to F. E.
Schelling, _Elizabethan Drama_ (1908), and vols. v and vi (1910)
of the _Cambridge History of English Literature_, than in R. W.
Lowe, _Bibliographical Account of English Theatrical Literature_
(1888), K. L. Bates and L. B. Godfrey, _English Drama: a Working
Basis_ (1896), or W. D. Adams, _Dictionary of the Drama_ (1904).
There is an American pamphlet on _Materials for the Study of the
English Drama, excluding Shakespeare_ (1912, Newbery Library,
Chicago), which I have not seen. Periodical lists of new books
are published in the _Modern Language Review_, the _Beiblatt_
to _Anglia_, and the _Bulletin_ of the English Association,
and annual bibliographies by the _Modern Humanities Research
Association_ (from 1921) and in the Shakespeare _Jahrbuch_.
The bibliography by H. R. Tedder in the _Encyclopaedia
Britannica_ (11th ed.) s.v. Shakespeare, A. C. Shaw, _Index to
the Shakespeare Memorial Library_ (1900–3), and W. Jaggard,
_Shakespeare Bibliography_ (1911), on which, however, cf. C. S.
Northup in _J. G. P._ xi. 218, are also useful.
W. W. Greg, _Notes on Dramatic Bibliographers_ (1911, _M.
S. C._ i. 324), traces from the publishers’ advertisements
of the Restoration a _catena_ of play-lists in E. Phillips,
_Theatrum Poetarum_ (1675), W. Winstanley, _Lives of the Most
Famous English Poets_ (1687), G. Langbaine, _Momus Triumphans_
(1688) and _Account of the English Dramatick Poets_ (1691), C.
Gildon, _Lives and Characters of the English Dramatick Poets_
(1698), W. R. Chetwood, _The British Theatre_ (1750), E. Capell,
_Notitia Dramatica_ (1783), and the various editions of the
_Biographica Dramatica_ from 1764 to 1812. More recent are J. O.
Halliwell-Phillipps, _Dictionary of Old English Plays_ (1860),
and W. C. Hazlitt, _Manual of Old English Plays_ (1892); but
all are largely superseded by W. W. Greg, _A List of English
Plays_ (1900) and _A List of Masques, Pageants, &c._ (1902).
His account of Warburton’s collection in _The Bakings of Betsy_
(_Library_, 1911) serves as a supplement. A few plays discovered
later than 1900 appeared in an Irish sale of 1906 (cf.
_Jahrbuch_, xliii. 310) and in the Mostyn sale of 1919 (cf. t.p.
facsimiles in Sotheby’s sale catalogue). For the problems of the
early prints, the _Bibliographical Note_ to ch. xxii should be
consulted.
I ought to add that the notices of the early prints of plays
in this and the following chapter lay no claim to minute
bibliographical erudition, and that all deficiencies in this
respect are likely to be corrected when the full results of Dr.
Greg’s researches on the subject are published.
The fundamental works on the history of the drama are A. W.
Ward, _History of English Dramatic Literature_ (1875, 1899), F.
G. Fleay, _Biographical Chronicle of the English Drama_ (1891),
F. E. Schelling, _Elizabethan Drama_ (1908), the _Cambridge
History of English Literature_, vols. v and vi (1910), and W.
Creizenach, _Geschichte des neueren Dramas_, vols. iv, v (1909,
1916). These and others, with the relevant periodicals, are
set out in the _General Bibliographical Note_ (vol. i); and to
them may be added F. S. Boas, _Shakspere and his Predecessors_
(1896), B. Matthews, _The Development of the Drama_ (1904), F.
E. Schelling, _English Drama_ (1914), A. Wynne, _The Growth of
English Drama_ (1914). Less systematic collections of studies
are L. M. Griffiths, _Evenings with Shakespeare_ (1889), J. R.
Lowell, _Old English Dramatists_ (1892), A. H. Tolman, _The
Views about Hamlet_ (1904), C. Crawford, _Collectanea_ (1906–7),
A. C. Swinburne, _The Age of Shakespeare_ (1908). The older
critical work of Charles Lamb, William Hazlitt, and others
cannot be neglected, but need not be detailed here.
Special dissertations on individual plays and playwrights
are recorded in the body of this chapter. A few of wider
scope may be roughly classified; as dealing with dramatic
structure, H. Schwab, _Das Schauspiel im Schauspiel zur Zeit
Shakespeares_ (1896), F. A. Foster, _Dumb Show in Elizabethan
Drama before 1620_ (1911, _E. S._ xliv. 8); with types of
drama, H. W. Singer, _Das bürgerliche Trauerspiel in England_
(1891), J. Seifert, _Wit-und Science Moralitäten_ (1892), J. L.
McConaughty, _The School Drama_ (1913), E. N. S. Thompson, _The
English Moral Plays_ (1910), R. Fischer, _Zur Kunstentwickelung
der englischen Tragödie bis zu Shakespeare_ (1893), A. C.
Bradley, _Shakespearean Tragedy_ (1904), F. E. Schelling, _The
English Chronicle Play_ (1902), L. N. Chase, _The English
Heroic Play_ (1903), C. G. Child, _The Rise of the Heroic Play_
(1904, _M. L. N._ xix), F. H. Ristine, _English Tragicomedy_
(1910), C. R. Baskervill, _Some Evidence for Early Romantic
Plays in England_ (1916, _M. P._ xiv. 229, 467), L. M. Ellison,
_The Early Romantic Drama at the English Court_ (1917), H.
Smith, _Pastoral Influence in the English Drama_ (1897, _M.
L. A._ xii. 355). A. H. Thorndike, _The Pastoral Element in
the English Drama before 1605_ (1900, _M. L. N._ xiv. 228), J.
Laidler, _History of Pastoral Drama in England_ (1905, _E. S._
xxxv. 193), W. W. Greg, _Pastoral Poetry and Pastoral Drama_
(1906); with types of plot and characterization, H. Graf,
_Der Miles Gloriosus im englischen Drama_ (1891), E. Meyer,
_Machiavelli and the Elizabethan Drama_ (1897), G. B. Churchill,
_Richard the Third up to Shakespeare_ (1900), L. W. Cushman,
_The Devil and the Vice in the English Dramatic Literature
before Shakespeare_ (1900), E. Eckhardt, _Die lustige Person
im älteren englischen Drama_ (1902), F. E. Schelling, _Some
Features of the Supernatural as Represented in Plays of the
Reigns of Elizabeth and James_ (1903, _M. P._ i), H. Ankenbrand,
_Die Figur des Geistes im Drama der englischen Renaissance_
(1906), F. G. Hubbard, _Repetition and Parallelism in the
Earlier Elizabethan Drama_ (1905, _M. L. A._ xx), E. Eckhardt,
_Die Dialekt-und Ausländertypen des älteren englischen Dramas_
(1910–11), V. O. Freeburg, _Disguise Plots in Elizabethan Drama_
(1915); with _Quellenforschung_ and foreign influences, E.
Koeppel, _Quellen-Studien zu den Dramen Jonson’s, Marston’s,
und Beaumont und Fletcher’s_ (1895), _Quellen-Studien zu
den Dramen Chapman’s, Massinger’s und Ford’s_ (1897), _Zur
Quellen-Kunde der Stuarts-Dramen_ (1896, _Archiv_, xcvii),
_Studien zur Geschichte der italienischen Novelle in der
englischen Litteratur des sechzehnten Jahrhunderts_ (1892),
L. L. Schücking, _Studien über die stofflichen Beziehungen
der englischen Komödie zur italienischen bis Lilly_ (1901),
A. Ott, _Die italienische Novelle im englischen Drama von
1600_ (1904), W. Smith, _The Commedia dell’ Arte_ (1912), M.
A. Scott, _Elizabethan Translations from the Italian_ (1916),
A. L. Stiefel, _Die Nachahmung spanischer Komödien in England
unter den ersten Stuarts_ (1890), _Die Nachahmung spanischer
Komödien in England_ (1897, _Archiv_, xcix), L. Bahlsen,
_Spanische Quellen der dramatischen Litteratur besonders
Englands zu Shakespeares Zeit_ (1893, _Z. f. vergleichende
Litteraturgeschichte_, N. F. vi), A. S. W. Rosenbach, _The
Curious Impertinent in English Drama_ (1902, _M. L. N._ xvii),
J. Fitzmaurice-Kelly, _Cervantes in England_ (1905), J. W.
Cunliffe, _The Influence of Seneca on Elizabethan Tragedy_
(1893), O. Ballweg, _Das klassizistische Drama zur Zeit
Shakespeares_ (1909), O. Ballmann, _Chaucers Einfluss auf das
englische Drama_ (1902, _Anglia_, xxv), R. M. Smith, _Froissart
and the English Chronicle Play_ (1915); with the interrelations
of dramatists, A. H. Thorndike, _The Influence of Beaumont and
Fletcher on Shakespeare_ (1901), E. Koeppel, _Studien über
Shakespeares Wirkung auf zeitgenössische Dramatiker_ (1905),
_Ben Jonson’s Wirkung auf zeitgenössische Dramatiker_ (1906).
The special problem of the authorship of the so-called
_Shakespeare Apocrypha_ is dealt with in the editions thereof
described below, and by Halliwell-Phillipps (ii. 413), Ward (ii.
209), R. Sachs, _Die Shakespeare zugeschriebenen zweifelhaften
Stücke_ (1892, _Jahrbuch_, xxvii), and A. F. Hopkinson,
_Essays on Shakespeare’s Doubtful Plays_ (1900). The analogous
question of the possible non-Shakespearian authorship of plays
or parts of plays published as his is too closely interwoven
with specifically Shakespearian literature to be handled here;
J. M. Robertson, in _Did Shakespeare Write Titus Andronicus?_
(1905), _Shakespeare and Chapman_ (1917), _The Shakespeare
Canon_ (1922), is searching; other dissertations are cited
under the plays or playwrights concerned. The attempts to use
metrical or other ‘tests’ in the discrimination of authorship
or of the chronology of work have been predominantly applied to
Shakespeare, although Beaumont and Fletcher (_vide infra_) and
others have not been neglected. The broader discussions of E.
N. S. Thompson, _Elizabethan Dramatic Collaboration_ (1909, _E.
S._ xl. 30) and E. H. C. Oliphant, _Problems of Authorship in
Elizabethan Dramatic Literature_ (1911, _M. P._ viii, 411) are
of value.
To the general histories of Elizabethan literature named in
the _General Bibliographical Note_ may be added _Chambers’s
Cyclopaedia of English Literature_ (1901–3), E. Gosse, _Modern
English Literature_ (1897), G. Saintsbury, _Short History of
English Literature_ (1900), A. Lang, _English Literature from
‘Beowulf’ to Swinburne_ (1912), W. Minto, _Characteristics of
English Poets from Chaucer to Shirley_ (1874), G. Saintsbury,
_Elizabethan Literature_ (1887), E. Gosse, _The Jacobean Poets_
(1894), T. Seccombe and J. W. Allen, _The Age of Shakespeare_
(1903), F. E. Schelling, _English Literature during the Lifetime
of Shakespeare_ (1910); and for the international relations, G.
Saintsbury, _The Earlier Renaissance_ (1901), D. Hannay, _The
Later Renaissance_ (1898), H. J. C. Grierson, _The First Half of
the Seventeenth Century_ (1906), C. H. Herford, _The Literary
Relations of England and Germany in the Sixteenth Century_
(1886), L. Einstein, _The Italian Renaissance in England_
(1902), S. Lee, _The French Renaissance in England_ (1910), J.
G. Underhill, _Spanish Literature in the England of the Tudors_
(1899).
I append a chronological list of miscellaneous collections of
plays, covering those of more than one author. A few of minimum
importance are omitted.
(_a_) _Shakespeare Apocrypha_
1664. M^r William Shakespear’s Comedies, Histories, and
Tragedies. Published according to the true Original Copies.
The Third Impression. And unto this Impression is added seven
Playes, never before printed in Folio, viz. Pericles Prince of
Tyre. The London Prodigall. The History of Thomas L^d Cromwell.
Sir John Oldcastle Lord Cobham. The Puritan Widow. A Yorkshire
Tragedy. The Tragedy of Locrine. _For P[hilip] C[hetwinde]._ [A
second issue of the Third Folio (F_{3}) of Shakespeare. I cite
these as ‘The 7 Plays’.]
1685. M^r William Shakespear’s Comedies, Histories, and
Tragedies.... The Fourth Edition. _For H. Herringman, E.
Brewster, and R. Bentley._ [The Fourth Folio (F_{4}) of
Shakespeare, The 7 Plays.]
1709, 1714. N. Rowe, _The Works of Sh._ [The 7 Plays in vol. vi
of 1709 and vol. viii of 1714.]
1728, &c. A. Pope, _The Works of Sh._ [The 7 Plays in vol. ix of
1728.]
1780. [E. Malone], _Supplement to the Edition of Sh.’s Plays
published in 1778 by S. Johnson and G. Steevens_. [The 7 Plays
in vol. ii.]
1848, 1855. W. G. Simms, _A Supplement to the Works of Sh._ (New
York). [_T. N. K._ and the 7 Plays, except _Pericles_.]
N.D. [1851?]. H. Tyrrell, _The Doubtful Plays of Sh._ [The 7
Plays, _T. A._, _Edward III_, _Merry Devil of Edmonton_, _Fair
Em_, _Mucedorus_, _Arden of Feversham_, _Birth of Merlin_, _T.
N. K._]
1852, 1887. W. Hazlitt, _The Supplementary Works of Sh._ [The 7
Plays, _T. A._]
1854–74. N. Delius, _Pseudo-Shakespere’sche Dramen_. [_Edward
III_ (1854), _Arden of Feversham_ (1855), _Birth of Merlin_
(1856), _Mucedorus_ (1874), _Fair Em_ (1874), separately.]
1869. M. Moltke, _Doubtful Plays of Sh._ (Tauchnitz). [_Edward
III_, _Thomas Lord Cromwell_, _Locrine_, _Yorkshire Tragedy_,
_London Prodigal_, _Birth of Merlin_.]
1883–8. K. Warnke und L. Proescholdt, _Pseudo-Shakespearian
Plays_. [_Fair Em_ (1883), _Merry Devil of Edmonton_ (1884),
_Edward III_ (1886), _Birth of Merlin_ (1887), _Arden of
Feversham_ (1888), separately, with _Mucedorus_ (1878) outside
the series.]