what light through yonder window breaks?’ The lovers discourse, he
below, she ‘o’er my head’ (27). Presently (F_{1}; Q_{1}, is summary
here) Juliet says ‘I hear some noise within’ (136), followed by s.d.
‘Cals within’ and a little later ‘Within: Madam’, twice. Juliet then
‘Exit’ (155), and (159) ‘Enter Juliet again’. Modern editors have
reshuffled the s.ds. In III. v, Q_{2} (reproduced in F_{1}), in
addition to textual differences from Q_{1}, may represent a revised
handling of the scene. Q_{1} begins ‘Enter Romeo and Juliet at the
window’. They discuss the dawn. Then ‘He goeth downe’, speaks from
below, and ‘Exit’. Then ‘Enter Nurse hastely’ and says ‘Your Mother’s
comming to your Chamber’. Then ‘She goeth downe from the Window’. I
take this to refer to Juliet, and to close the action above, at a
point represented by III. v. 64 of the modern text. Then follow ‘Enter
Juliets Mother, Nurse’ and a dialogue below. Q_{2} begins ‘Enter
Romeo and Juliet aloft’. Presently (36) ‘Enter Madame [? an error]
and Nurse’, and the warning is given while Romeo is still above.
Juliet says (41) ‘Then, window, let day in, and let life out’, and
Romeo, ‘I’ll descend’. After his ‘Exit’ comes ‘Enter Mother’ (64), and
pretty clearly discourses with Juliet, not below, but in her chamber.
Otherwise there would be no meaning in Juliet’s ‘Is she not downe so
late or vp so early? What vnaccustomd cause procures her hither?’
Probably, although there is no s.d., they descend (125) to meet
Capulet, for at the end of the scene Juliet bids the Nurse (231) ‘Go
in’, and herself ‘Exit’ to visit Friar Laurence.
[288] Cf. p. 65, n. 3.
[289] Cf. p. 58, n. 2.
[290] Cf. p. 119.
[291] _Arden of Feversham_, III. i (p. 61, n. 3), and _Death of R.
Hood_, IV. i (p. 66, n. 1), require stairs of which the foot or
‘threshold’ is visible. For the execution scene in _Sir T. More_,
sc. xvii (p. 57, n. 2), the whole stairs should be visible, but
perhaps here, as elsewhere, the scaffold, although More likens it to
a ‘gallerie’, was to be at least in part a supplementary structure.
The Admiral’s inventory of 1598 (_Henslowe Papers_, 116; cf. ch. ii,
p. 168) included ‘j payer of stayers for Fayeton’. In _Soliman and
Perseda_, I. iii (p. 57, n. 4), where the back wall represents the
outer wall of a tiltyard, ladders are put up against it.
[292] Albright, 66; Lawrence, ii. 45. I am not prepared to accept the
theory that in _R. J._ III. v Romeo descends his ladder from behind;
cf. p. 94, n. 2. The other examples cited are late, but I should add
the ‘window that goes out into the leads’ of _1 Oldcastle_, 2016 (p.
66, n. 1).
[293] _Jew of Malta_, V. 2316; cf. p. 68, n. 5.
[294] _E. M. I._ I. v, ‘Bobadilla discouers himselfe: on a bench’.
[295] Cf. p. 54, nn. 2–5.
[296] See the conjectural reconstruction in Albright, 120.
[297] _Jonsonus Virbius_ (1638).
[298] Cf. p. 72.
[299] _1 Hen. VI_, II. i (p. 54, n. 5). This arrangement would also fit
I. ii, in which a shot is fired from the walls at ‘the turrets’, which
could then be represented by the back wall. On a possible similar wall
in the Court play of _Dido_, cf. p. 36.
[300] W. Archer (_Quarterly Review_, ccviii. 466) suggests the possible
use of a machine corresponding to the Greek ἐκκύκλημα (on which cf. A.
E. Haigh, _Attic Theatre_^3, 201), although he is thinking of it as a
device for ‘thrusting’ out a set interior from the alcove, which does
not seem to me necessary.
[301] _Henslowe Papers_, 118. The ‘j payer of stayers for Fayeton’
may have been a similar structure; cf. p. 95, n. 4. Otway, _Venice
Preserved_ (_1682_), V, has ‘Scene opening discovers a scaffold and a
wheel prepared for the executing of Pierre’.
[302] _Henslowe Papers_, 116.
[303] Cf. p. 56, nn. 2, 3. The courtyard in _Arden of Feversham_, III.
i, ii, might have been similarly staged.
[304] _1 Hen. VI_, I. ii (a tower with a ‘grate’ in it), III. ii
(p. 55); _1 Contention_, sc. iii (p. 56); _Soliman and Perseda_, V.
ii. 118 (p. 57); _Blind Beggar of Alexandria_, sc. ii (p. 62); _Old
Fortunatus_, 769 (p. 63).
[305] Cf. p. 54.
[306] _Arden of Feversham_, sc. i, begins before Arden’s house whence
Alice is called forth (55); but, without any break in the dialogue, we
get (245) ‘This is the painter’s house’, although we are still (318)
‘neare’ Arden’s, where the speakers presently (362) breakfast.
[307] _T. of A Shrew_, sc. xvi (cf. p. 92), see. iii, iv, v (a
continuous scene). _T. of The Shrew_, I. i, ii, is similarly before the
houses both of Baptista and Hortensio.
[308] _Blind Beggar_, scc. v, vii. The use of the houses seems natural,
but not perhaps essential.
[309] _1 Oldcastle_, II. i. 522, 632.
[310] Cf. p. 67, n. 1.
[311] _K. to K. Honest Man_, sc. v. 396, 408, 519, 559; sc. vii. 662,
738, 828, 894; sc. xv. 1385, 1425, 1428; cf. Graves, 65.
[312] Cf. pp. 25, 33.
[313] _George a Greene_, sc. xi. 1009, ‘Wil you go to the townes
end.... Now we are at the townes end’.
[314] _A. of Feversham_, III. vi. 55, ‘See Ye ouertake vs ere we come
to Raynum down’.... (91) ‘Come, we are almost now at Raynum downe’.
[315] _Dr. Faustus_, 1110, ‘let vs Make haste to Wertenberge ... til I
am past this faire and pleasant greene, ile walke on foote’, followed
immediately by ‘Enter a Horse-courser’ to Faustus, evidently in his
‘chaire’ (1149) at Wittenberg.
[316] _R. J._ I. iv. 113, where, in Q_{1}, Romeo’s ‘on lustie
Gentlemen’ to the maskers is followed by ‘Enter old Capulet with the
Ladies’, while in Q_{2}, Benvolio responds ‘Strike drum’, and then
‘They march about the Stage, and Seruingmen come forth with Napkins’,
prepare the hall, and ‘Exeunt’, when ‘Enter all the guests and
gentlewomen to the Maskers’.
[317] In _T. of The Shrew_, V. i. 17, ‘Pedant lookes out of the
window’, while the presenters are presumably occupying the gallery, but
even if this is a sixteenth-century s.d., the window need not be an
upper one.
[318] The s.d. to _Sp. Trag._ III. xi. 8, where ‘He goeth in at one
doore and comes out at another’, is rather obscure, but the doors are
probably those of a house which has just been under discussion, and if
so, more than one door was sometimes supposed to belong to the same
house.
[319] Cf. pp. 3, 4, 11.
[320] See my diagrams on pp. 84–5.
[321] W. Archer in _Universal Review_ (1888), 281; J. Le G. Brereton,
_De Witt at the Swan_ (_Sh. Homage_, 204); cf. p. 7.
[322] Serlio’s ‘comic’ and ‘tragic’ scenes (cf. App. G) show steps to
the auditorium from the front of the stage.
[323] Creizenach, iii. 446; iv. 424 (Eng. tr. 370), with engravings
from printed descriptions of 1539 and 1562.
[324] The contest of 1561 is described in a long letter to Sir Thomas
Gresham (Burgon, i. 377) by his agent at Antwerp, Richard Clough.
It might be possible to trace a line of affiliation from another of
Gresham’s servants, Thomas Dutton, who was his post from Antwerp
_temp._ Edw. VI, and his agent at Hamburg _c._ 1571 (Burgon, i. 109;
ii. 421). The actor Duttons, John and Laurence, seem also to have
served as posts from Antwerp and elsewhere (cf. ch. xv).
[325] _Thomas Lord Cromwell_ and _A Larum for London_, dealt with in
the last chapter, might also be Globe plays.
[326] _Henry V_, _Much Ado about Nothing_, _Merry Wives of Windsor_,
_Hamlet_, _King Lear_, _Troilus and Cressida_, _Pericles_, _Every Man
Out of his Humour_, _Sejanus_, _Volpone_, _Yorkshire Tragedy_, _London
Prodigal_, _Fair Maid of Bristow_, _Devil’s Charter_, _Merry Devil
of Edmonton_, _Revenger’s Tragedy_, _Miseries of Enforced Marriage_,
and perhaps _1 Jeronimo_; with the second version of _Malcontent_,
originally a Queen’s Revels play, and _Satiromastix_, the s.ds. of
which perhaps belong rather to Paul’s, where it was also played.
[327] _Catiline_, _Alchemist_; _Second Maid’s Tragedy_.
[328] _Julius Caesar_, _Twelfth Night_, _As You Like It_, _All’s
Well that Ends Well_, _Measure for Measure_, _Othello_, _Macbeth_,
_Coriolanus_, _Antony and Cleopatra_, _Timon of Athens_.
[329] _Cymbeline_, _Winter’s Tale_, _Tempest_, _Henry VIII_, _Duchess
of Malfi_, _Two Noble Kinsmen_, _Maid’s Tragedy_, _King and no King_,
_Philaster_, and perhaps _Thierry and Theodoret_.
[330] I have only occasionally drawn upon plays such as _Bonduca_,
whose ascription in whole or part to 1599–1613 is doubtful; these will
be found in the list in App. L.
[331] _1 Honest Whore_, _When You See Me You Know Me_, _Whore of
Babylon_, _Roaring Girl_, and possibly _Two Lamentable Tragedies_. The
extant text of _Massacre at Paris_ may also represent a revival at the
Fortune.
[332] _Nobody and Somebody_, _Travels of Three English Brothers_,
_Woman Killed With Kindness_, _Sir Thomas Wyat_, _Rape of Lucrece_,
_Golden Age_, _If It Be Not Good the Devil is in It_, _White Devil_,
_Greene’s Tu Quoque_, _Honest Lawyer_, and probably _1, 2 If You Know
Not Me You Know Nobody_, _Fair Maid of the Exchange_, _Silver Age_,
_Brazen Age_. _How to Choose a Good Wife from a Bad_ is probably a Rose
or Boar’s Head play.
[333] _Hen. V_, IV. iv-viii; _T. C._ V. iv-x; _J. C._ V. i-v; _Lear_,
IV. iii, iv, vii; V. i-iii; _A. C._ III. vii-x, xii; IV. i, iii, v-xiv;
V. i, &c.
[334] _Hen. V_, IV. viii; _J. C._ IV. ii, iii; _T. C._ I. iii; II. i,
iii; III. iii; IV. v; V. i, ii, apparently with tents in one or other
scene of Agamemnon (I. iii. 213), Ulysses (I. iii. 305), Ajax (II. i),
Achilles (II. iii. 84; III. iii. 38; V. i. 95), and Calchas (V. i. 92;
V. ii); _Devil’s Charter_, IV. iv. 2385, ‘He discouereth his Tent where
her two sonnes were at Cardes’; and in s.d. of Prol. 29 (not a battle
scene) ‘Enter, at one doore betwixt two other Cardinals, Roderigo ...
one of which hee guideth to a Tent, where a table is furnished ... and
to another Tent the other’.
[335] _Hen. V_, III. vi, vii; IV. i-iii.
[336] _Hen. V_, III. i. 1, ‘Scaling Ladders at Harflew’; III. iii.
1, ‘Enter the King and all his Traine before the Gates’.... (58)
‘Flourish, and enter the Towne’; _Cor._ I. iv. 13, ‘Enter two Senators
with others on the Walles of Corialus’.... (29) ‘The Romans are beat
back to their Trenches’.... (42) ‘Martius followes them to their gates,
and is shut in’.... (62) ‘Enter Martius bleeding, assaulted by the
enemy’.... ‘They fight and all enter the City’, and so on to end of sc.
x; _Tim._ V. iv. 1, ‘Enter Alcibiades with his Powers before Athens....
The Senators appeare vpon the wals’; IV. i; _Devil’s Charter_, II. i;
IV. iv; _Maid’s Tragedy_, V. iii.
[337] _A. Y. L._ III. ii. 1; _Philaster_, IV. iv. 83, ‘Philaster creeps
out of a bush’ (as shown in the woodcut on the t.p. of the Q.); _T. N.
K._ III. i. 37, ‘Enter Palamon as out of a bush’; V. i. 169, ‘Here the
Hynde vanishes under the Altar: and in the place ascends a Rose Tree,
having one Rose upon it’.
[338] _Ham._ III. ii. 146 (Q_{1}) ‘Enter in a Dumb Show, the King and
the Queene, he sits downe in an Arbor’, (Q_{2}, F_{2}) ‘he lyes him
downe vpon a bancke of flowers’; _M. Ado_, I. ii. 10; III. i. 7, 30;
_J. C._ III. ii. 1, ‘Enter Brutus and goes into the Pulpit’; _Tim._ V.
iii. 5; _E. M. O._ III. ii.
[339] _Ham._ V. i; _Macb._ IV. i; _Devil’s Charter_, prol.; _Catiline_,
I. i, &c.; I do not know whether hell-mouth remained in use; there is
nothing to point to it in the hell scene of _The Devil is an Ass_, I. i.
[340] _Pericles_, II. i. 121, ‘Enter the two Fisher-men, drawing vp a
Net’.
[341] _Devil’s Charter_, III. v. Caesar Borgia and Frescobaldi murder
the Duke of Candie (_vide infra_). Caesar says ‘let vs heaue him ouer,
That he may fall into the riuer Tiber, Come to the bridge with him’; he
bids Frescobaldi ‘stretch out their armes [for] feare that he Fall not
vpon the arches’, and ‘Caesar casteth Frescobaldi after’.
[342] _Rape of Lucrece_ (ed. Pearson), p. 240. It is before ‘yon
walles’ of Rome. Horatius has his foot ‘fixt vpon the bridge’ and
bids his friends break it behind him, while he keeps Tarquin’s party
off. Then ‘a noise of knocking downe the bridge, within’ and ‘Enter
... Valerius aboue’, who encourages Horatius. After ‘Alarum, and the
falling of the Bridge’, Horatius ‘exit’, and Porsenna says ‘Hee’s leapt
off from the bridge’. Presently ‘the shout of all the multitude Now
welcomes him a land’.
[343] _Devil’s Charter_, III. v, Frescobaldi is to waylay the Duke of
Candie. ‘He fenceth’ (s.d.) with ‘this conduct here’ (1482), and as the
victim arrives, ‘Here will I stand close’ (1612) and ‘He stands behind
the post’ (s.d.); cf. _Satiromastix_ (p. 141, n. 4).
[344] _Tp._ IV. i. 72.
[345] _Tp._ III. iii. 17, ‘Solemne and strange Musicke: and Prosper
on the top (invisible:) Enter severall strange shapes, bringing in a
Banket; and dance about it with gentle actions of salutations, and
inuiting the King, &c. to eate, they depart’.... (52) ‘Thunder and
lightning. Enter Ariell (like a Harpey) claps his wings upon the Table,
and with a queint device the Banquet vanishes’.... (82) ‘He vanishes
in Thunder: then (to soft Musicke) Enter the shapes againe, and daunce
(with mockes and mowes) and carrying out the Table’; IV. i. 134, ‘Enter
Certaine Nimphes.... Enter certaine Reapers (properly habited:) they
ioyne with the Nimphes, in a gracefull dance, towards the end whereof,
_Prospero_ starts sodainly and speakes, after which to a strange hollow
and confused noyse, they heauily vanish’.... (256) ‘A noyse of Hunters
heard. Enter divers Spirits in shape of Dogs and Hounds, hunting them
about: Prospero and Ariel setting them on’. Was the ‘top’ merely the
gallery, or the third tiring-house floor (cf. p. 98) above? Ariel, like
Prospero, enters ‘invisible’ (III. ii. 48). Is this merely the touch
of an editor (cf. ch. xxii) or does it reflect a stage convention? The
Admiral’s tiring-house contained in 1598 (_Henslowe Papers_, 123) ‘a
robe for to goo invisibell’.
[346] _G. A._ V, ‘Iris descends ... Iupiter first ascends upon the
Eagle, and after him Ganimed’.... ‘Enter at 4 severall corners the
4 winds’; _S. A._ II, ‘Thunder and lightning. Iupiter discends in a
cloude’.... ‘Iuno and Iris descend from the heavens’; III, ‘Enter Iuno
and Iris above in a cloud’.... ‘Enter Pluto, his Chariot drawne in by
Divels’.... ‘Mercury flies from above’.... ‘Earth riseth from under
the stage’.... ‘Earth sinkes’.... ‘The river Arethusa riseth from the
stage’; IV, ‘Iupiter taking up the Infant speakes as he ascends in
his cloud’; V, ‘Hercules sinkes himselfe: Flashes of fire; the Diuels
appeare at every corner of the stage with severall fireworkes’....
‘Exeunt three wayes Ceres, Theseus, Philoctetes, and Hercules dragging
Cerberus one way: Pluto, hels Iudges, the Fates and Furies downe to
hell: Iupiter, the Gods and Planets ascend to heaven’; _B. A._ I,
‘When the Fury sinkes, a Buls head appeares’; V, ‘Enter Hercules from
a rocke above, tearing down trees’.... ‘Iupiter above strikes him with
a thunderbolt, his body sinkes, and from the heavens discends a hand
in a cloud, that from the place where Hercules was burnt, brings up a
starre, and fixeth it in the firmament’.
[347] _G. A._ II, ‘Enter Iupiter like a Nimph, or a Virago’; IV,
‘Enter Iupiter like a Pedler’; _S. A._ II, ‘Enter ... Iupiter shapt
like Amphitrio’; IV, ‘Enter Iuno in the shape of old Beroe’.... ‘Enter
Iupiter like a woodman’; _B. A._ V, ‘Enter ... Hercules attired like a
woman, with a distaffe and a spindle’.
[348] _S. A._ III, ‘The Nurses bring yong Hercules in his Cradle, and
leave him. Enter Iuno and Iris with two snakes, put them to the childe
and depart: Hercules strangles them: to them Amphitrio, admiring the
accident’; _B. A._ IV, ‘Enter Vulcan and Pyragmon with his net of
wire.... Vulcan catcheth them fast in his net.... All the Gods appeare
above and laugh, Iupiter, Iuno, Phoebus, Mercury, Neptune’.
[349] _G. A._ II, ‘A confused fray, an alarme.... Lycaon makes head
againe, and is beat off by Iupiter and the Epirians, Iupiter ceazeth
the roome of Lycaon’; II, ‘Enter with musicke (before Diana) sixe
Satires, after them all their Nimphs, garlands on their heads, and
iavelings in their hands, their Bowes and Quivers: the Satyrs sing’....
‘Hornes winded, a great noise of hunting. Enter Diana, all her Nimphes
in the chase, Iupiter pulling Calisto back’; III, ‘Alarm. They combat
with iavelings first, after with swords and targets’; _S. A._ III,
‘Enter Ceres and Proserpine attired like the Moone, with a company of
Swaines, and country Wenches: They sing’.... ‘A confused fray with
stooles, cups and bowles, the Centaurs are beaten.... Enter with
victory, Hercules’; _B. A._ IV, ‘Enter Aurora, attended with Seasons,
Daies, and Howers’; V, ‘Hercules swings Lychas about his head, and kils
him’.
[350] _G. A._ I, ‘Enter Saturn with wedges of gold and silver, models
of ships and buildings, bow and arrowes, &c.’; II, ‘Vesta and the
Nurse, who with counterfeit passion present the King a bleeding heart
upon a knives point, and a bowle of bloud’.... ‘A banquet brought in,
with the limbes of a man in the service’; _B. A._ V, ‘Enter to the
sacrifice two Priests to the Altar, sixe Princes with sixe of his
labours, in the midst Hercules bearing his two brazen pillars, six
other Princes, with the other six labours’.
[351] _G. A._ V, ‘Pluto drawes hell: the Fates put upon him a
burning Roabe, and present him with a Mace, and burning crowne’;
_S. A._ II, ‘Jupiter appeares in his glory under a Raine-bow’; IV,
‘Thunder, lightnings, Jupiter descends in his maiesty, his Thunderbolt
burning’.... ‘As he toucheth the bed it fires, and all flyes up’; V,
‘Fire-workes all over the house’.... ‘Enter Pluto with a club of fire,
a burning crowne, Proserpine, the Judges, the Fates, and a guard of
Divels, all with burning weapons’; _B. A._ II, ‘There fals a shower of
raine’. Perhaps one should remember the sarcasm of _Warning for Fair
Women_, ind. 51, ‘With that a little rosin flasheth forth, Like smoke
out of a tobacco pipe, or a boys squib’.
[352] _Revenger’s Tragedy_ (Dodsley^4), p. 99; it recurs in _2 If You
Know Not Me_ (ed. Pearson), p. 292.
[353] _T. N._ IV. ii; _M. for M._ IV. iii; _Fair Maid of Bristow_, sig.
E 3; _Philaster_, V. ii.
[354] _Tp._ V. i. 172, ‘Here Prospero discouers Ferdinand and Miranda,
playing at Chesse’.
[355] _Tim._ IV. iii.; V. i. 133.
[356] _M. Wives_, I. iv. 40, ‘He steps into the Counting-house’
(Q_{1}); _2 Maid’s Tragedy_, 1995, 2030, ‘Locks him self in’.
[357] _M. D. of Edmonton_, prol. 34, ‘Draw the Curtaines’ (s.d.),
which disclose Fabel on a couch, with a ‘necromanticke chaire’ by him;
_Devil’s Charter_, I. iv. 325, ‘Alexander in his study’; IV. i. 1704,
1847; v. 2421, 2437; V. iv. 2965; vi. 3016, ‘Alexander vnbraced betwixt
two Cardinalls in his study looking vpon a booke, whilst a groome
draweth the Curtaine.... They place him in a chayre vpon the stage, a
groome setteth a Table before him’.... (3068), ‘Alexander draweth the
Curtaine of his studie where hee discouereth the diuill sitting in his
pontificals’; _Hen. VIII_, II. ii. 63, after action in anteroom, ‘Exit
Lord Chamberlaine, and the King drawes the Curtaine and sits reading
pensiuely’; _Catiline_, I. i. 15, ‘Discouers Catiline in his study’;
_Duchess of Malfi_, V. ii. 221 (a ‘cabinet’); cf. _Massacre at Paris_
(Fortune), 434, ‘He knocketh, and enter the King of Nauarre and Prince
of Condy, with their scholmaisters’ (clearly a discovery, rather than
an entry).
[358] _2 Maid’s Tragedy_, 1725, ‘Enter the Tirant agen at a farder
dore, which opened, bringes hym to the Toombe wher the Lady lies
buried; the Toombe here discovered ritchly set forthe’; (1891)
‘Gouianus kneeles at the Toomb wondrous passionatly’.... (1926), ‘On
a sodayne in a kinde of Noyse like a Wynde, the dores clattering, the
Toombstone flies open, and a great light appeares in the midst of the
Toombe’.
[359] _W. T._ V. iii; _D. of Malfi_, III. iv. 1, ‘Two Pilgrimes to the
Shrine of our Lady of Loretto’.
[360] _E. M. O._ IV. iii-v; cf. _Roaring Girl_ (Fortune) (ed. Pearson,
p. 50), ‘The three shops open in a ranke: the first a Poticaries shop,
the next a Fether shop; the third a Sempsters shop’; _Two Lamentable
Tragedies_ (? Fortune), I. i, ‘Sit in his shop’ (Merry’s); I. iii,
‘Then Merry must passe to Beeches shoppe, who must sit in his shop, and
Winchester his boy stand by: Beech reading’; II. i, ‘The boy sitting
at his maisters dore’.... ‘When the boy goeth into the shoppe Merrie
striketh six blowes on his head and with the seaventh leaues the hammer
sticking in his head’.... ‘Enter one in his shirt and a maide, and
comming to Beeches shop findes the boy murthered’; IV. iv, ‘Rachell
sits in the shop’ (Merry’s); _Bartholomew Fair_ (Hope), II-V, which
need booths for the pig-woman, gingerbread woman, and hobby-horse man.
[361] _Revenger’s Tragedy_ (Dodsley^4), i, p. 26, ‘Enter ... Antonio
... discovering the body of her dead to certain Lords and Hippolito;
pp. 58, 90 (scenes of assignation and murder in a room with ‘yon silver
ceiling’, a ‘darken’d blushless angle’, ‘this unsunned lodge’, ‘that
sad room’); _D. of Malfi_, IV. i. 55, ‘Here is discover’d, behind a
travers, the artificiall figures of Antonio and his children, appearing
as if they were dead’; ii. 262, ‘Shewes the children strangled’; cf.
_White Devil_ (Queen’s), V. iv. 71, ‘They are behind the travers. Ile
discover Their superstitious howling’, with s.d. ‘Cornelia, the Moore
and 3 other Ladies discovered, winding Marcello’s coarse’; _Brazen Age_
(Queen’s), III, ‘Two fiery Buls are discouered, the Fleece hanging
over them, and the Dragon sleeping beneath them: Medea with strange
fiery-workes, hangs above in the Aire in the strange habite of a
Coniuresse’.
[362] Cf. p. 25. I am not clear whether _Volpone_, V. 2801, ‘Volpone
peepes from behinde a trauerse’ is below or above, but in either event
the traverse in this case must have been a comparatively low screen and
free from attachment at the top, as Volpone says (2761), ‘I’le get up,
Behind the cortine, on a stoole, and harken; Sometime, peepe ouer’.
[363] _M. Ado_, I. iii. 63; _M. Wives_, III. iii. 97, ‘Falstaffe stands
behind the aras’ (Q_{1}); _Ham._ II. ii. 163; III. iv. 22; _D. of
Malfi_, I. ii. 65; _Philaster_, II. ii. 61, ‘Exit behind the hangings’
... (148), ‘Enter Galatea from behind the hangings’.
[364] _Cy._ II. ii. 1, ‘Enter Imogen, in her Bed, and a Lady’ ... (11)
‘Iachimo from the Trunke’, who says (47) ‘To th’ Truncke againe, and
shut the spring of it’ and (51) ‘Exit’; cf. II. iii. 42, ‘Attend you
here the doore of our stern daughter?’; cf. _Rape of Lucrece_ (Red
Bull), p. 222 (ed. Pearson), ‘Lucrece discovered in her bed’.
[365] _Ham._ III. iv; cf. p. 116. Most of the scenes are in some
indefinite place in the castle, called in II. ii. 161 ‘here in the
lobby’ (Q_{2}, F_{1}) or ‘here in the gallery’ (Q_{1}). Possibly the
audience for the play scene (III. ii) were in the alcove, as there is
nothing to suggest that they were above; or they may have been to right
and left, and the players in the alcove; it is guesswork.
[366] _Oth._ V. ii. 1, ‘Enter Othello with a light’ (Q_{1}), ‘Enter
Othello and Desdemona in her bed’ (F_{1}). It is difficult to say
whether _Maid’s Tragedy_, V. i. 2 (continuous scene), where Evadne’s
entry and colloquy with a gentleman of the bedchamber is followed by
s.d. ‘King abed’, implies a ‘discovery’ or not.
[367] _D. Charter_, I. v. 547, ‘Enter _Lucretia_ alone in her night
gowne untired, bringing in a chaire, which she planteth upon the Stage’
... (579) ‘Enter Gismond di Viselli untrussed in his Night-cap, tying
his points’ ... (625) ‘Gismond sitteth downe in a Chaire, Lucretia on
a stoole [ready on the stage for a spectator?] beside him’ ... (673)
‘She ... convaieth away the chaire’. Barbarossa comes into ‘this parler
here’ (700), finds the murdered body, and they ‘locke up the dores
there’ and ‘bring in the body’ (777), which is therefore evidently not
behind a curtain.
[368] _D. Charter_, IV. iii. 2005, ‘Enter Lucretia richly attired with
a Phyal in her hand’ ... ‘Enter two Pages with a Table, two looking
glasses, a box with Combes and instruments, a rich bowle’. She paints
and is poisoned, and a Physician bids ‘beare in her body’ (2146).
[369] _D. Charter_, IV. v. 2441, ‘Exit _Alexander_ into his study’ ...
‘Enter _Astor_ and _Philippo_ in their wast-cotes with rackets’ ...
‘Enter two Barbers with linen’ ... ‘After the barbers had trimmed and
rubbed their bodies a little, _Astor_ caleth’ ... ‘They lay them selves
upon a bed and the barbers depart’ ... ‘_Bernardo_ knocketh at the
study’. They are murdered and Bernardo bidden to ‘beare them in’ (2589).
[370] Cf. p. 66.
[371] Albright, 142; Graves, 17; Reynolds (1911), 55; Thorndike, 81.
[372] Cf. ch. xxii.
[373] In _The Faithful Friends_ (possibly a Jacobean King’s play), iv.
282, Rufinus says, ‘Lead to the chamber called Elysium’; then comes
s.d. ‘Exit Young Tullius, Phyladelphia and Rufinus. Then a rich Bed
is thrust out and they enter again’, and Tullius says ‘This is the
lodging called Elysium’. Later examples are Sir W. Berkeley, _The Lost
Lady_ (1638), V. i, ‘Enter the Moor on her bed, Hermione, Phillida, and
Irene. The bed thrust out’; Suckling, _Aglaura_ (1646), V, ‘A bed put
out. Thersames and Aglaura in it.... Draw in the Bed’; Davenport, _City
Night Cap_ (1661, Cockpit), II. i, ‘A bed thrust out. Lodovico sleeping
in his clothes; Dorothea in bed’.
[374] _Silver Age_, IV, ‘Enter Semele drawne out in her bed’; _Hector
of Germany_, I. i, ‘a bed thrust out, the Palsgrave lying sick on
it, the King of Bohemia, the Duke of Savoy, the Marquis Brandenburg
entering with him’; _Chaste Maid in Cheapside_, III. ii. 1, ‘A bed
thrust out upon the stage; Allwit’s wife in it’. This appears from
‘call him up’ (102) to be on the upper stage. _Golden Age_, I, ‘Enter
Sibilla lying in child-bed, with her child lying by her, and her Nurse,
&c.’ has the Cymbeline formula, but presumably the staging was as for
Danae.
[375] _Golden Age_, IV, ‘Enter foure old Beldams’, and say ‘The ‘larme
bell rings’; it is Acrisius; they will ‘clap close to the gate and let
him in’. He bids them watch ‘your percullist entrance’, says ‘Danae is
descended’, speaks of ‘the walkes within this barricadoed mure’. She
returns ‘unto her chamber’ and he ‘Exit’. The beldams will ‘take our
lodgings before the Princesse chamber’ and ‘Exit’. Then ‘Enter Iupiter
like a Pedler, the Clowne his man, with packs at their backes’. They
are evidently outside the gate. ‘He rings the bell’ and persuades the
beldams to let him ‘into the Porters lodge’. They will ‘shut the gate
for feare the King come and if he ring clap the Pedlers into some of
yon old rotten corners’. Then ‘Enter Danae’, whom Jupiter courts. She
says ‘Yon is my doore’ and ‘Exit’. The beldams will ‘see the Pedlers
pack’t out of the gate’, but in the end let them ‘take a nap upon
some bench or other’, and bid them good-night. Jupiter ‘puts off his
disguise’ and ‘Exit’. Then ‘Enter the foure old Beldams, drawing out
Danae’s bed: she in it. They place foure tapers at the foure corners’.
Jupiter returns ‘crown’d with his imperiall robes’, says ‘Yon is the
doore’, calls Danae by name, ‘lyes upon her bed’ and ‘puts out the
lights and makes unready’. Presently ‘The bed is drawne in, and enter
the Clowne new wak’t’, followed by ‘Enter Iupiter and Danae in her
night-gowne’. He puts on his cloak, and ‘Enter the foure Beldams in
hast’, say ‘the gate is open’, and dismiss the pedlars.
[376] _M. Ado_, III. iv. Presumably the action is at the window, as
there is a ‘new tire within’ (13) and Hero withdraws when guests arrive
(95). It is of course the same window which is required by Don John’s
plot, although it is not again in action (cf. II. ii. 43; iii. 89; III.
ii. 116, iii. 156; IV. i. 85, 311).
[377] _Volpone_, II. v-vii. In the piazza, under the same window, is
II. i-iii, where ‘Celia at the windo’ throws downe her handkerchiefe’
(1149).
[378] _M. W._ II. ii; III. v, in both of which persons ‘below’ are
bidden ‘come up’; possibly V. i; cf. IV. v, 13, 22, 131, where persons
below speak of the chamber as above.
[379] _E. M. O._ V. iv-vi, at the Mitre; _M. Devil of Edmonton_, I.
i; _Miseries of Enforced Marriage_, III. i; and for other theatres,
_Massacre at Paris_ (Fortune), 257 ‘Enter the Admirall in his bed’, 301
‘Enter into the Admirals house, and he in his bed’, with 310 ‘Throw him
downe’; _Two Lamentable Tragedies_ (Fortune), parts of I. iii, ‘Then
being in the upper Rome Merry strickes him in the head fifteene times’,
II. i, iii; _1 If You Know Not Me_ (? Queen’s), p. 240 (ed. Pearson),
‘Enter Elizabeth, Gage, and Clarencia aboue’. Elizabeth bids Gage
‘Looke to the pathway that doth come from the court’, perhaps from a
window at the back (cf. p. 96), and he describes a coming horseman.
[380] _Yorkshire Tragedy_, scc. iii, v, vii, while the intermediate
episodes, scc. iv, vi, are below. It is all really one scene.
[381] _Sejanus_ (F_{1}), i. 355–469 (cf. 287), an episode breaking the
flow of the main action, a hall scene, of the act; it must be apart
from the hall, not perhaps necessarily above.
[382] _E. M. O._ V. ii, preceded and followed by scene near the court
gate at the foot of stairs leading to the great chamber; V. i has ‘Is
this the way? good truth here be fine hangings’ and ‘courtiers drop
out’, presumably through the arras and up the stairs. Then a presenter
says, ‘Here they come’, and the courtiers enter, presumably above.
[383] _A. and C._ IV. xv. 1, ‘Enter Cleopatra, and her Maides aloft’,
with (8) ‘Look out o’ the other side your monument’ ... (37) ‘They
heave Anthony aloft to Cleopatra’; V. ii; cf. 360, ‘bear her women from
the monument’.
[384] _Pericles_, III. i (prol. 58, ‘In your imagination hold This
stage the ship’); V. i (prol. 21, ‘In your supposing once more put your
sight Of heavy Pericles; think this his bark’). The other scenes (_1
Contention_, sc. xii; _A. and C._ II. vii; _Tp._ I. i) have nothing
directly indicating action ‘above’.
[385] _Ham._ I. i, iv, v; cf. I. ii. 213, ‘upon the platform where we
watch’d’. There would be hardly room ‘above’ for the Ghost to waft
Hamlet to ‘a more removed ground’ (I. iv. 61), and the effect of I. v.
148, where ‘Ghost cries under the Stage’, would be less. On the other
hand, in _White Devil_ (Queen’s), IV. iv. 39 the s.d. ‘A Cardinal on
the Tarras’ is explained by Flamineo’s words, ‘Behold! my lord of
Arragon appeares, On the church battlements’.
[386] _J. C._ III. i; _Cor._ II. ii, ‘Enter two Officers, to lay
Cushions, as it were, in the Capitol’; _Sejanus_ (F_{1}), iii. 1–6;
v. 19–22; _Catiline_, IV. ii, V. iv, vi; also _Rape of Lucrece_ (Red
Bull), pp. 168–73 (ed. Pearson). There is a complete absence of s.ds.
for ‘above’; cf. p. 58. But in _J. C._ III. i and _Catiline_, V. vi,
at least, action in the senate house is continuous with action in the
street or forum without, and both places must have been shown, and
somehow differentiated.
[387] _Bonduca_, V. i, ‘Enter Caratach upon a rock, and Hengo by him,
sleeping’; V. iii, ‘Enter Caratach and Hengo on the Rock’. Hengo is let
down by a belt to fetch up food. It is ‘a steep rock i th’ woods’ (V.
ii); cf. the rock scene in _Brazen Age_, V (cf. p. 109).
[388] Cf. p. 153. _Duchess of Malfi_, III. ii, with (173) ‘call up our
officers’ is a possible exception.
[389] _E. M. O._ II. i (where personages standing ‘under this Tarras’
watch action under a window); _Devil’s Charter_, III. ii, ‘Alexander
out of a Casement’; _M. Devil of Edmonton_, V. ii. 59, ‘D’yee see yon
bay window?’ _Miseries of Enforced Marriage_ (Dodsley^4), iv, p. 540
(‘Here’s the sign of the Wolf, and the bay-window’); _T. N. K._ II. i,
ii; _Catiline_, III. v; _Philaster_, II. iv; _Second Maiden’s Tragedy_,
V. i. 2004, ‘Leonella above in a gallery with her love Bellarius’ ...
(2021) ‘Descendet Leonela’; _Duchess of Malfi_, V. v; _Hen. VIII_, V.
ii. 19, ‘Enter the King, and Buts, at a Windowe above’, with ‘Let ’em
alone, and draw the curtaine close’ (34); _Pericles_, II. ii (where
Simonides and Thaisa ‘withdraw into the gallerie’, to watch a tilting
supposed behind, as in the sixteenth-century _Soliman and Perseda_; cf.
p. 96). So, too, in _T. N. K._ V. iii, the fight between Palamon and
Arcite takes place within; Emilia will not see it, and it is reported
to her on the main stage.
[390] _D. an Ass_, II. vi. 37, ‘This Scene is acted at two windo’s
as out of two contiguous buildings’ ... (77) ‘Playes with her paps,
kisseth her hands, &c.’ ... vii. 1 ‘Her husband appeares at her back’
... (8) ‘Hee speaks out of his wives window’ ... (23) ‘The Divell
speakes below’ ... (28) ‘Fitz-dottrel enters with his wife as come
downe’.
[391] _M. Devil of Edmonton_, V. i, ii; _Catiline_, V. vi (where
apparently three houses are visited after leaving the senate house);
cf. the cases of shops on p. 110, n. 10.
[392] _Ham._ V. i. 60.
[393] _Bonduca_, V. iii.
[394] _Three English Brothers_, ad fin. A court scene in _Sir T. Wyatt_
ends (ed. Hazlitt, p. 10) with s.d. ‘pass round the stage’, which takes
the personages to the Tower. Similarly in _1 If You Know Not Me_ (ed.
Pearson, p. 246) a scene at Hatfield ends ‘And now to London, lords,
lead on the way’, with s.d. ‘Sennet about the Stage in order. The Maior
of London meets them’, and in _2 If You Know Not Me_ (p. 342) troops
start from Tilbury, and ‘As they march about the stage, Sir Francis
Drake and Sir Martin Furbisher meet them’.
[395] W. Archer in _Quarterly Review_, ccviii. 471; Albright, 77;
Lawrence, i. 19; cf. my analogous conjecture of ‘wings’ on p. 100.
[396] _David and Bethsabe_, 25, ‘He [Prologus] drawes a curtaine, and
discouers Bethsabe with her maid bathing ouer a spring: she sings, and
David sits aboue vewing her’.
[397] Lawrence, i. 159 (_Proscenium Doors: an Elizabethan Heritage_).
[398] Cf. vol. ii, p. 534.
[399] At the Globe the windows appear to have been bay windows; cf. p.
116, n. 7. Lawrence, ii. 25 (_Windows on the Pre-Restoration Stage_),
cites T. M. _Black Book_ (1604), ‘And marching forward to the third
garden-house, there we knocked up the ghost of mistress Silverpin,
who suddenly risse out of two white sheets, and acted out of her
tiring-house window’. It appears from Tate Wilkinson’s _Memoirs_
(Lawrence, i. 177) that the proscenium balconies were common ground to
actors and audience in the eighteenth century.
[400] _Family of Love_, I. iii. 101.
[401] The theory is best represented by C. Brodmeier, _Die
Shakespeare-Bühne nach den alten Bühnenanweisungen_ (1904); V.
Albright, _The Shakespearian Stage_ (1909).
[402] Thorndike, 106.
[403] Cf. pp. 41, 126, 154.
[404] Palace of Tiberius (Acts I, II, III), Senate house (III, V),
Gardens of Eudemus (II), Houses of Agrippina (II, IV), Sejanus (V),
Regulus (V).
[405] Houses of Volpone (I, II, III, V), Corvino (II), Would Be (V),
Law court (IV, V).
[406] Houses of Catiline (I, IV), Fulvia (II), Cicero (III, IV, V),
Lecca (III), Brutus (IV), Spinther (V. vi), Cornificius (V. vi), Caesar
(V. vi), Senate house (IV, V), Milvian Bridge (IV).
[407] _Alchemist_, _III._ v. 58, ‘He speakes through the keyhole,
the other knocking’. _Hen. VIII_, V. ii, iii (continuous scene) also
requires a council-chamber door upon the stage, at which Cranmer is
stopped after he has entered through the stage-door.
[408] Daborne gave Tourneur ‘an act of y^e Arreignment of London to
write’ (_Henslowe Papers_, 72).
[409] Cf. ch. xxii.
[410] _M. N. D._ III. ii. 463 (F_{1}), ‘They sleep all the Act’; i.
e. all the act-interval (cf. p. 131). So in _Catiline_ the storm with
which Act III ends is still on at the beginning of Act IV, and in
_Alchemist_ Mammon and Lovewit are seen approaching at the ends of Acts
I and IV respectively, but in both cases the actual arrival is at the
beginning of the next act.
[411] F. A. Foster, _Dumb Show in Elizabethan Drama before 1620_ (_E.
S._ xliv. 8).
[412] Jonson has a ‘Chorus--of musicians’ between the acts of
_Sejanus_, and the presenter of _Two Lamentable Tragedies_ bids
the audience ‘Delight your eares with pleasing harmonie’ after the
harrowing end of Act II. Some other examples given in Lawrence, i. 75
(_Music and Song in the Elizabethan Drama_), seem to me no more than
incidental music such as may occur at any point of a play. Malone
(_Var._ iii. 111) describes a copy of the Q_{2} of _R. J._ in which
the act endings and directions for inter-act music had been marked in
manuscript; but this might be of late date.
[413] _Malcontent_, ind. 89.
[414] _Henslowe Papers_, 127.
[415] _Catiline_, I. i.
[416] _Second Maidens Tragedy_, 1719, ‘Exit’ the Tyrant, four lines
from the end of a court scene, and 1724 ‘Enter the Tirant agen at a
farder dore, which opened, bringes hym to the Toombe’ (cf. p. 110,
n. 8). So in _Woman Killed with Kindness_ (Queen’s), IV. ii, iii
(continuous scene), Mrs. Frankford and her lover retire from a hall
scene to sup in her chamber, and the servants are bidden to lock
the house doors. In IV. iv Frankford enters with a friend, and says
(8) ‘This is the key that opes my outward gate; This the hall-door;
this the withdrawing chamber; But this ... It leads to my polluted
bedchamber’. Then (17) ‘now to my gate’, where they light a lanthorn,
and (23) ‘this is the last door’, and in IV. v Frankford emerges as
from the bedchamber. Probably sc. iv is supposed to begin before the
house. They go behind at (17), emerge through another door, and the
scene is then in the hall, whence Frankford passes at (23) through the
central aperture behind again.
[417] _Wily Beguiled_, prol. The Prologus asks a player the name of the
play, and is told ‘Sir you may look vpon the Title’. He complains that
it is ‘_Spectrum_ once again’. Then a Juggler enters, will show him a
trick, and says ‘With a cast of cleane conveyance, come aloft _Jack_
for thy masters advantage (hees gone I warrant ye)’ and there is the
s.d. ‘_Spectrum_ is conveied away: and _Wily beguiled_, stands in the
place of it’.
[418] Most of the examples in Lawrence, i. 43 (_Title and Locality
Boards on the Pre-Restoration Stage_) belong to Court or to private
theatres; on the latter cf. p. 154, _infra_. But the prologue to _1 Sir
John Oldcastle_ begins ‘The doubtful Title (Gentlemen) prefixt Upon
the Argument we have in hand May breede suspence’. The lost Frankfort
engraving of English comedians (cf. vol. ii, p. 520) is said to have
shown boards.
[419] Cunningham, _Jonson_, iii. 509; Dekker, _G. H. B._ (ed.
McKerrow), 40, ‘And first observe your doors of entrance, and your
exit; not much unlike the players at the theatres; keeping your
decorums, even in fantasticality. As for example: if you prove to be a
northern gentleman, I would wish you to pass through the north door,
more often especially than any of the other; and so, according to your
countries, take note of your entrances’.
[420] _1 Contention_, sc. xxii, ‘Richard kils him under the signe
of the Castle in St. Albones’; _Comedy of Errors_ (the Phoenix, the
Porpentine), _Shoemaker’s Holiday_ (the Last), _Edw. IV_ (the Pelican),
_E. M. O._ (the Mitre), _Miseries of Enforced Marriage_ (the Mitre, the
Wolf); _Bartholomew Fair_ (the Pig’s Head); &c.
[421] _Wounds of Civil War_, III. iv, ‘Enter Marius solus from the
Numidian mountaines, feeding on rootes’; _3 Hen. VI_, IV. ii, ‘Enter
Warwick and Oxford in England’, &c.; cf. ch. xxii.
[422] _Warning for Fair Women_, ind. 86, ‘My scene is London, native
and your own’; _Alchemist_, prol. 5, ‘Our scene is London’; cf. the
Gower speeches in _Pericles_.
[423] _Dr. Faustus_, 13, 799, 918, 1111.
[424] I cite Greg’s Q_{2}, but Q_{1} agrees. Jonson’s own
scene-division is of course determined by the introduction of new
speakers (cf. p. 200) and does not precisely follow the textual
indications.
[425] _Henslowe Papers_, 116.
[426] _2 If You Know Not Me_ (ed. Pearson), p. 295.
[427] Cf. App. I, and Neuendorff, 149, who quotes J. Corey, _Generous
Enemies_ (1672), prol.:
Coarse hangings then, instead of scenes, were worn.
And Kidderminster did the stage adorn.
Graves, 78, suggests pictorial ‘painted cloths’ for
backgrounds.
[428] ‘Scenes’ were used in the public performances of Nabbes’s
_Microcosmus_ (1637), Suckling’s _Aglaura_ (_1637_), and Habington’s
_Queen of Arragon_ (_1640_); cf. Lawrence, ii. 121 (_The Origin of
the English Picture-Stage_); W. G. Keith, _The Designs for the First
Movable Scenery on the English Stage_ (_Burlington Magazine_, xxv. 29,
85).
[429] For Paul’s, _C. and C. Errant_ (after each act), ‘Here they
knockt up the Consort’; _Faery Pastorall_; _Trick to Catch the Old One_
(after I and II), ‘music’; _What You Will_, II. ii. 235 ‘So ends our
chat;--sound music for the act’; for Blackfriars, _Gentleman Usher_,
III. i. 1, ‘after the song’; _Sophonisba_ (after I), ‘the cornets and
organs playing loud full music for the act’, (II) ‘Organ mixt with
recorders, for this act’, (III) ‘Organs, viols and voices play for this
act’, (IV) ‘A base lute and a treble violl play for the act’, with
which should be read the note at the end of Q_{1}, ‘let me intreat my
reader not to taxe me for the fashion of the entrances and musique of
this tragedy, for know it is printed only as it was presented by youths
and after the fashion of the private stage’; _K. B. P._ (after I),
‘Boy danceth. Musicke. Finis Actus primi’, (II) ‘Musicke. Finis Actus
secundi’, (III) ‘Finis Actus tertii. Musicke. Actus quartus, scoena
prima. Boy daunceth’, (IV) Ralph’s May Day speech; cf. _infra_ and vol.
ii, p. 557. I do not find any similar recognition of the scene as a
structural element in the play to be introduced by music; in _1 Antonio
and Mellida_, III. ii. 120, the s.d. ‘and so the Scene begins’ only
introduces a new scene in the sense of a regrouping of speakers (cf. p.
200).
[430] For Paul’s, _Histriomastix_, III. i. 1, ‘Enter Pride,
Vaine-Glory, Hypocrisie, and Contempt: Pride casts a mist, wherein
Mavortius and his company [who ended II] vanish off the Stage, and
Pride and her attendants remaine’, (after III) ‘They all awake, and
begin the following Acte’, (after V) ‘Allarmes in severall places, that
brake him off thus: after a retreat sounded, the Musicke playes and
Poverty enters’; 2 ANTONIO AND MELLIDA, III. i. 1, ‘A dumb show. The
cornets sounding for the Act’, (after IV) ‘The cornets sound for the
act. The dumb show’; _What You Will_, III. i. 1, ‘Enter Francisco ...
They clothe Francisco whilst Bidet creeps in and observes them. Much of
this done whilst the Act is playing’; _Phoenix_ (after II), ‘Towards
the close of the musick the justices three men prepare for a robberie’;
for Blackfriars, _Malcontent_, II. i. 1, ‘Enter Mendoza with a sconce,
to observe Ferneze’s entrance, who, whilst the act is playing, enters
unbraced, two Pages before him with lights; is met by Maquerelle and
conveyed in; the Pages are sent away’; _Fawn_, V. i. 1, ‘Whilst the Act
is a-playing, Hercules and Tiberio enters; Tiberio climbs the tree,
and is received above by Dulcimel, Philocalia, and a Priest; Hercules
stays beneath’. The phrase ‘whilst the act is playing’ is a natural
development from ‘for the act’, i. e. ‘in preparation for the act’,
used also for the elaborate music which at private houses replaced the
three preliminary trumpet ‘soundings’ of the public houses; cf. _What
You Will_, ind. 1 (s.d.), ‘Before the music sounds for the Act’, and
_1 Antonio and Mellida_, ind. 1, ‘The music will sound straight for
entrance’. But it leads to a vagueness of thought in which the interval
itself is regarded as the ‘act’; cf. the _M. N. D._ s.d. of F_{1},
quoted p. 124, n. 3, with Middleton, _The Changeling_ (1653), III. i.
1, ‘In the act-time De Flores hides a naked rapier behind a door’,
and Cotgrave, _Dict._ (1611), ‘Acte ... also, an Act, or Pause in a
Comedie, or Tragedie’.
[431] For Paul’s, _Histriomastix_, i. 163, ‘Enter Fourcher, Voucher,
Velure, Lyon-Rash ... two and two at severall doores’; v. 103, ‘Enter
... on one side ... on the other’; v. 192, ‘Enter ... at one end of
the stage: at the other end enter ...’; vi. 41, ‘Enter Mavortius
and Philarchus at severall doores’; vi. 241, ‘Enter ... at the one
doore. At the other ...’; _1 Antonio and Mellida_, iv. 220 (marsh
scene), ‘Enter ... at one door; ... at another door’; _2 Antonio and
Mellida_, v. 1, ‘Enter at one door ... at the other door’; _Maid’s
Metamorphosis_, II. ii. 1 (wood scene), ‘Enter at one door ... at the
other doore, ... in the midst’; III. ii. 1 (wood scene), ‘Enter ... at
three severall doores’; _Faery Pastoral_, III. vi, ‘Mercury entering
by the midde doore wafted them back by the doore they came in’; IV.
viii, ‘They enterd at severall doores, Learchus at the midde doore’;
_Puritan_, I. iv. 1 (prison scene), ‘Enter ... at one dore, and ...
at the other’, &c.; for Blackfriars, _Sir G. Goosecap_, IV. ii. 140,
‘Enter Jack and Will on the other side’; _Malcontent_, V. ii. 1, ‘Enter
from opposite sides’; _E. Ho!_, I. i. 1, ‘Enter ... at severall dores
... At the middle dore, enter ...’; _Sophonisba_, prol., ‘Enter at one
door ... at the other door’; _May Day_, II. i. 1, ‘Enter ... several
ways’; _Your Five Gallants_, I. ii. 27, ‘Enter ... at the farther
door’, &c.
[432] For Paul’s, _2 Antonio and Mellida_, IV. ii. 87, ‘They strike the
stage with their daggers, and the grave openeth’; V. i. 1, ‘Balurdo
from under the Stage’; _Aphrodysial_ (quoted Reynolds, i. 26), ‘A Trap
door in the middle of the stage’; _Bussy d’Ambois_, II. ii. 177, ‘The
Vault opens’ ... ‘ascendit Frier and D’Ambois’ ... ‘Descendit Fryar’
(cf. III. i; IV. ii; V. i, iii, iv); for Blackfriars, _Poetaster_
(F_{1}) prol. 1, ‘Envie. Arising in the midst of the stage’; _Case is
Altered_, III. ii, ‘Digs a hole in the ground’; _Sophonisba_, III. i.
201, ‘She descends after Sophonisba’ ... (207) ‘Descends through the
vault’; V. i. 41, ‘Out of the altar the ghost of Asdrubal ariseth’.
[433] _Widow’s Tears_ (Blackfriars), III. ii. 82, ‘Hymen descends,
and six Sylvans enter beneath, with torches’; this is in a mask, and
Cupid may have descended from a pageant. When a ‘state’ or throne is
used (e.g. _Satiromastix_, 2309, ‘Soft musicke, Chaire is set under a
Canopie’), there is no indication that it descends. In _Satiromastix_,
2147, we get ‘O thou standst well, thou lean’st against a poast’, but
this is obviously inadequate evidence for a heavens supported by posts
at Paul’s.
[434] _C. and C. Errant_, V. ix, ‘He tooke the Bolle from behind the
Arras’; _Faery Pastoral_, V. iv (wood scene), ‘He tooke from behind
the Arras a Peck of goodly Acornes pilld’; _What You Will_, ind. 97,
‘Let’s place ourselves within the curtains, for good faith the stage
is so very little, we shall wrong the general eye else very much’;
_Northward Ho!_, IV. i, ‘Lie you in ambush, behind the hangings, and
perhaps you shall hear the piece of a comedy’. In _C. and C. Errant_,
V. viii. 1, the two actors left on the stage at the end of V. vii were
joined by a troop from the inn, and yet others coming ‘easily after
them and stealingly, so as the whole Scene was insensibly and suddenly
brought about in Catastrophe of the Comoedy. And the whole face of the
Scene suddenly altered’. I think that Percy is only trying to describe
the change from a nearly empty to a crowded stage, not a piece of
scene-shifting.
[435] _Cynthia’s Revels_ (Q), ind. 149, ‘Slid the Boy takes me for a
peice of Prospective (I holde my life) or some silke Curtine, come to
hang the Stage here: Sir Cracke I am none of your fresh Pictures, that
use to beautifie the decay’d dead Arras, in a publique Theater’; _K.
B. P._ II. 580, ‘_Wife._ What story is that painted upon the cloth?
the confutation of Saint Paul? _Citizen._ No lambe, that Ralph and
Lucrece’. In _Law Tricks_, III. i, Emilia bids Lurdo ‘Behind the Arras;
scape behind the Arras’. Polymetes enters, praises the ‘verie faire
hangings’ representing Venus and Adonis, makes a pass at Vulcan, and
notices how the arras trembles and groans. Then comes the s.d. (which
has got in error into Bullen’s text, p. 42) ‘Discouer Lurdo behind the
Arras’, and Emilia carries it off by pretending that it is only Lurdo’s
picture.
[436] I think it is possible that _Sophonisba_, with its ‘canopy’ (cf.
p. 149) was also originally written for Paul’s.
[437] _1, 2 Antonio and Mellida_, _Maid’s Metamorphosis_, _Wisdom of
Dr. Dodipoll_, _Jack Drum’s Entertainment_, _Satiromastix_, _Blurt
Master Constable_, _Bussy D’Ambois_, _Westward Ho!_, _Northward Ho!_,
_Fawn_, _Michaelmas Term_, _Phoenix_, _Mad World, My Masters_, _Trick
to Catch the Old One_, _Puritan_, _Woman Hater_.
[438] _Jack Drum’s Ent._ v. 112.
[439] _Histriomastix_, i. 6, ‘now sit wee high (tryumphant in our
sway)’; ii. 1, ‘Enter Plenty upon a Throne’; iii. 11, ‘If you will sit
in throne of State with Pride’; v. 1, ‘Rule, fier-eied Warre!... Envy
... Hath now resigned her spightfull throne to us’; vi. 7, ‘I [Poverty]
scorne a scoffing foole about my Throne’; vi. 271 (s.d.), ‘Astraea’
[in margin, ‘Q. Eliza’] ‘mounts unto the throne’; vi. 296 (original
ending), ‘In the end of the play. Plenty Pride Envy Warre and Poverty
To enter and resigne their severall Scepters to Peace, sitting in
Maiestie’.
[440] _Histriomastix_, i. 163, ‘Enter ... Chrisoganus in his study’ ...
(181) ‘So all goe to Chrisoganus study, where they find him reading’;
ii. 70, ‘Enter Contrimen, to them, Clarke of the Market: hee wrings a
bell, and drawes a curtaine; whereunder is a market set about a Crosse’
... (80) ‘Enter Gulch, Belch, Clowt and Gut. One of them steppes on the
Crosse, and cryes, A Play’ ... (105) ‘Enter Vintner with a quart of
Wine’; v. 192, ‘Enter Lyon-rash to Fourchier sitting in his study at
one end of the stage: At the other end enter Vourcher to Velure in his
shop’.
[441] _Dr. Dodipoll_, I. i. 1, ‘A Curtaine drawne, Earl Lassingbergh
is discovered (like a Painter) painting Lucilia, who sits working on a
piece of cushion worke’. In III. ii a character is spoken of after his
‘Exit’ as ‘going down the staires’, which suggests action ‘above’. But
other indications place the scene before Cassimere’s house.
[442] _C. and C. Errant_, I. i, ‘They entered from Maldon’; I. iv,
‘They entered from Harwich all’.
[443] _C. and C. Errant_, I. ii, ‘They met from Maldon and from
Harwich’, for a scene in Colchester; III. i, ‘They crossd: Denham to
Harwich, Lacy to Maldon’.
[444] Reynolds (_M. P._ xii. 248) gives the note as ‘In the middle and
alofte Oceanus Pallace The Scene being. Next Proteus-Hall’. This seems
barely grammatical and I am not sure that it is complete. A limitation
of Paul’s is suggested by the s.d. (ibid. 258) ‘Chambers (noise supposd
for Powles) For actors’, but apparently ‘a showre of Rose-water and
confits’ was feasible.
[445] _Faery Pastoral_, p. 162, ‘A Scrolle fell into her lap from
above’.
[446] _Jack Drum_, II. 27, ‘The Casement opens, and Katherine
appeares’; 270, ‘Winifride lookes from aboue’; 286, ‘Camelia, from her
window’.
[447] I give s.ds. with slight corrections from Bullen, who
substantially follows 1633. But he has re-divided his scenes; 1633 has
acts only for _1 Antonio and Mellida_ (in spite of s.d. ‘and so the
scene begins’ with a new speaker at III. ii. 120); acts and scenes, by
speakers, for _2 Antonio and Mellida_; and acts and scenes or acts and
first scenes only, not by speakers and very imperfectly, for the rest.
[448] _1 Ant. and Mell._ I. 100, ‘Enter above ... Enter below’ ...
(117) ‘they two stand ... whilst the scene passeth above’ ... (140)
‘Exeunt all on the lower stage’ ... (148) ‘_Rossaline._ Prithee, go
down!’ ... (160) ‘Enter Mellida, Rossaline, and Flavia’; III. ii. 190
‘Enter Antonio and Mellida’ ... (193) ‘_Mellida._ A number mount my
stairs; I’ll straight return. _Exit_’ ... (222) ‘_Feliche._ Slink to my
chamber; look you, that is it’.
[449] _IV._ 220, ‘Enter Piero (&c.) ... Balurdo and his Page, at
another door’.
[450] _2 Ant. and Mell._ I. ii. 194, ‘_Antonio._ See, look, the curtain
stirs’ ... (s.d.) ‘The curtains drawn, and the body of Feliche, stabb’d
thick with wounds, appears hung up’ and ‘_Antonio._ What villain bloods
the window of my love?’
[451] III. ii. 1, ‘Enter ... Maria, her hair loose’ ... (59) ‘_Maria._
Pages, leave the room’ ... (65) ‘Maria draweth the curtain: and the
ghost of Andrugio is displayed, sitting on the bed’ ... (95) ‘Exit
Maria to her bed, Andrugio drawing the curtains’.
[452] V. ii. 50, ‘While the measure is dancing, Andrugio’s ghost is
placed betwixt the music-houses’ ... (115) ‘The curtaine being drawn,
exit Andrugio’.
[453] V. ii. 112, ‘They run all at Piero with their rapiers’. This is
while the ghost is present above, but (152) ‘The curtains are drawn,
Piero departeth’.
[454] III. i. 33, ‘And, lo, the ghost of old Andrugio Forsakes his
coffin’ ... (125) ‘Ghosts ... from above and beneath’ ... (192) ‘From
under the stage a groan’; IV. ii. 87, ‘They strike the stage with their
daggers, and the grave openeth’. The church must have been shown open,
and part of the crowded action of these scenes kept outside; at IV. ii.
114, ‘yon bright stars’ are visible.
[455] _Fawn_, IV. 638, ‘_Dulcimel._ Father, do you see that tree,
that leans just on my chamber window?’ ... (V. 1) ‘whilst the Act is
a-playing, Hercules and Tiberio enters; Tiberio climbs the tree, and is
received above by Dulcimel, Philocalia, and a Priest: Hercules stays
beneath’. After a mask and other action in the presence, (461) ‘Tiberio
and Dulcimel above, are discovered hand in hand’.
[456] _W. You Will_, IV. 373, after a dance, ‘_Celia._ Will you to
dinner?’ ... (V. 1) ‘The curtains are drawn by a Page, and Celia (&c.)
displayed, sitting at dinner’.
[457] II. 1, ‘One knocks: Laverdure draws the curtains, sitting on his
bed, apparelling himself; his trunk of apparel standing by him’ ...
(127) ‘Bidet, I’ll down’; II. ii. 1, ‘Enter a schoolmaster, draws the
curtains behind, with Battus, Nous, Slip, Nathaniel, and Holophernes
Pippo, schoolboys, sitting, with books in their hands’.
[458] I. 110, ‘He sings and is answered; from above a willow garland is
flung down, and the song ceaseth’.
[459] _Satiromastix_, I. ii. 1, ‘Horrace sitting in a study behinde a
curtaine, a candle by him burning, bookes lying confusedly’.
[460] V. ii. 23, where the ‘canopie’, if a Paul’s term, may be the
equivalent of the public theatre alcove (cf. pp. 82, 120). The ‘bower’
in IV. iii holds eight persons, and a recess may have been used.
[461] Shorthose says (V. i. 60) ‘Thou lean’st against a poast’, but
obviously posts supporting a heavens at Paul’s cannot be inferred.
[462] _Westward Ho!_ uses the houses of Justiniano (I. i), Wafer (III.
iii), Ambush (III. iv), the Earl (II. ii; IV. ii), and a Bawd (IV. i),
the shops of Tenterhook (I. ii; III. i) and Honeysuckle (II. i), and
inns at the Steelyard (II. iii), Shoreditch (II. iii), and Brentford
(V). Continuous setting would not construct so many houses for single
scenes. There is action above at the Bawd’s, and interior action below
in several cases; in IV. ii, ‘the Earle drawes a curten and sets forth
a banquet’. The s.ds. of this scene seem inadequate; at a later point
Moll is apparently ‘discovered’, shamming death. _Northward Ho!_ uses
the houses of Mayberry (I. iii; II. ii) and Doll (II. i; III. i), a
garden house at Moorfields (III. ii), Bellamont’s study (IV. i), Bedlam
(IV. iii, iv), a ‘tavern entry’ in London (I. ii), and an inn at Ware
(I. i; V. i). Action above is at the last only, interior action below
in several.
[463] _B. d’Ambois_, II. ii. 177, ‘_Tamyra_. See, see the gulfe is
opening’ ... (183) ‘Ascendit Frier and D’Ambois’ ... (296) ‘Descendit
Fryar’; IV. ii. 63, ‘Ascendit [Behemoth]’ ... (162) ‘Descendit cum
suis’; V. i. 155, ‘Ascendit Frier’ ... (191) ‘_Montsurry._ In, Ile
after, To see what guilty light gives this cave eyes’; V. iv. 1,
‘Intrat umbra Comolet to the Countesse, wrapt in a canapie’ ... (23)
‘D’Amboys at the gulfe’.
[464] The Q of 1641, probably representing a revival by the King’s men,
alters the scenes in Montsurry’s house, eliminating the characteristic
Paul’s ‘canapie’ of V. iv. 1 and placing spectators above in the same
scene. It is also responsible for the proleptic s.d. (cf. ch. xxii) at
I. i. 153 for I. ii. 1, ‘Table, Chesbord and Tapers behind the Arras’.
[465] _Blurt Master Constable_ has (_a_) Camillo’s (I. i; II. i) with a
hall; (_b_) Hippolyto’s (III. i) where (136) ‘Violetta appears above’,
and (175) ‘Enter Truepenny above with a letter’; (_c_) a chapel (III.
ii) with a ‘pit-hole’ dungeon, probably also visible in II. i and III.
i; (_d_) Blurt’s (I. ii) which is ‘twelve score off’; (_e_) Imperia’s,
where is most of the action (II. ii; III. iii; IV. i, ii, iii; V. ii,
iii). Two chambers below are used; into one Lazarillo is shown in III.
iii. 201, and here in IV. ii he is let through a trap into a sewer,
while (38) ‘Enter Frisco above laughing’ and (45) ‘Enter Imperia
above’. At IV. iii. 68 Lazarillo crawls from the sewer into the street.
In IV. i and IV. iii tricks are played upon Curvetto with a cord and a
rope-ladder hanging from a window above.
[466] _Phoenix_ has (_a_) the palace (I. i; V. i) with hall; (_b_)
Falso’s (I. vi; II. iii; III. i); (_c_) the Captain’s (I. ii; II. ii);
(_d_) a tavern (I. iv; IV. iii) with interior action; (_e_) a law court
(IV. i); (_f_) a jeweller’s (III. ii; IV. i, ii, iii) with interior
action. It will be observed that (_f_) is needed both with (_d_) and
(_e_). There is no action above.
[467] _M. Term_ has (_a_) Paul’s (I. i, ii); (_b_) Quomodo’s shop, the
Three Knaves (II. iii; III. iv; IV. i, iii, iv; V. i); (_c_) a tavern
(II. i); (_d_) a law court (V. iii); (_e_) a courtesan’s (III. i;
IV. ii). All have interior action and (_b_) eavesdropping above in a
balcony (II. iii. 108, 378, 423; III. iv). Much action is merely in the
streets.
[468] _A Mad World_ has (_a_) Harebrain’s (I. ii; III. i; IV. iv);
(_b_) Penitent Brothel’s (IV. i), with interior action; (_c_) a
courtesan’s (I. i; II. iii, vi; III. ii; IV. v), with a bed and five
persons at once, perhaps above, in III. ii; (_d_) Sir Bounteous
Progress’s in the country (II. i; II. ii, iv, v, vii; III. iii; IV. ii,
iii; V. i, ii). The action here is rather puzzling, but apparently a
hall, a lodging next it, where are ‘Curtains drawn’ (II. vii. 103), the
stairs, and a ‘closet’ or ‘matted chamber’ (IV. ii. 27; IV. iii. 3) are
all used. If the scenes were shifted, the interposition of a scene of
only 7 lines (II. iii) at London amongst a series of country scenes is
strange.
[469] _A Trick to Catch_ has (_a_) Lucre’s (I. iii, iv; II. i, ii;
IV. ii, iii; V. i); (_b_) Hoard’s (III. ii; IV. iv; V. ii); (_c_) a
courtesan’s (III. i); (_d_) an inn (III. iii); (_e_) Dampit’s (III. iv;
IV. v); and away from London, (_f_) Witgood Hall, with (_g_) an inn (I.
i, ii); (_h_) Cole Harbour (IV. i). Nearly all the action is exterior,
but a window above is used at (_b_) in IV. iv, and at (_e_) there is
interior action both below in III. iv and perhaps above (cf. III. iv.
72), with a bed and eight persons at once in IV. v.
[470] _Puritan_ has (_a_) the Widow’s (I. i; II. i, ii; III. i, ii;
IV. i, ii, iii; V. i, ii), with a garden and rosemary bush; (_b_) a
gentleman’s house (III. iv); (_c_) an apothecary’s (III. iii); (_d_) a
prison (I. iv; III. v). There is interior action below in all; action
above only in (_a_) at V. ii. 1, ‘Enter Sir John Penidub, and Moll
aboue lacing of her clothes’ in a balcony.
[471] _Woman Hater_ has (_a_) the Duke’s palace (I. i, iii; IV. i; V.
ii); (_b_) the Count’s (I. iii); (_c_) Gondarino’s (II. i; III. i, ii);
(_d_) Lazarillo’s lodging (I. i, ii); (_e_) a courtesan’s (II. i; IV.
ii, iii; V. ii); (_f_) a mercer’s shop (III. iv); (_g_) Lucio’s study
(V. i). There is interior action below in (_a_), (_e_), (_f_), and
(_g_), where ‘Enter Lazarello, and two Intelligencers, Lucio being at
his study.... Secretary draws the Curtain’. A window above is used at
(_e_), and there is also action above at (_c_), apparently in a loggia
within sight and ear-shot of the street.
[472] The term is used in _The Faery Pastoral_, _Satiromastix_, and
_Bussy d’Ambois_ (_vide supra_); but also in _Sophonisba_ (_vide
infra_), which is a Blackfriars play.
[473] I take it that it was in this stand that Andrugio’s ghost was
placed ‘betwixt the music-houses’ in _2 Antonio and Mellida_.
[474] The four plays which seem most repugnant to continuous staging,
_Westward Ho!_, _Northward Ho!_, _A Mad World, my Masters_, and _A
Trick to Catch the Old One_, are all datable in 1604–6.
[475] Elizabethan Plays: _Love’s Metamorphosis_, _Liberality and
Prodigality_, _Cynthia’s Revels_, _Poetaster_, _Sir Giles Goosecap_,
_Gentleman Usher_, and probably _All Fools_; Jacobean Plays: _M.
d’Olive_, _May Day_, _Widow’s Tears_, _Conspiracy of Byron_, _Tragedy
of Byron_, _Case is Altered_, _Malcontent_, _Dutch Courtesan_,
_Sophonisba_, _Eastward Ho!_, _Your Five Gallants_, _Philotas_, _Isle
of Gulls_, _Law Tricks_, _Fleir_, _Faithful Shepherdess_, _Knight of
the Burning Pestle_. In addition _Fawn_ and _Trick to Catch an Old
One_, already dealt with under Paul’s, were in the first case produced
at, and in the second transferred to, Blackfriars.
[476] Cf. p. 34.
[477] _Lib. and Prod._ 903, ‘Here Prod. scaleth. Fortune claps a halter
about his neck, he breaketh the halter and falles’; 1245, ‘The Judge
placed, and the Clerkes under him’.
[478] The fountain requires a trap. There is no action above. I cite
the scenes of Q_{1}, which are varied by Jonson in F_{1}.
[479] In the prol. 27, Envy says, ‘The scene is, ha! Rome? Rome? and
Rome?’ (cf. p. 154). The only action above is by Julia in IV. ix. 1,
before the palace, where (F_{1}) ‘Shee appeareth above, as at her
chamber window’, and speaks thence.
[480] _Sir G. G._ has, besides the London and Barnet road (III. i),
the houses of (_a_) Eugenia (I. i-iii; II; IV. i) and (_b_) Momford
(I. iv; II; III. ii; IV. iii; V). Both have action within, none above.
In IV. ii. 140 persons on the street are met by pages coming from
Momford’s ‘on the other side’, but (_b_) is near enough to (_a_) to
enable Clarence in II to overhear from it (as directed in I. iv. 202)
a talk between Momford and Eugenia, probably in her porch, where (ii.
17) ‘Enter Wynnefred, Anabell, with their sowing workes and sing’,
and Momford passes over to Clarence at ii. 216. Two contiguous rooms
in (_b_) are used for V. i, ii (a single scene). One is Clarence’s;
from the other he is overheard. They are probably both visible to the
audience, and are divided by a curtain. At V. ii. 128 ‘He draws the
curtains and sits within them’. Parrott adds other s.ds. for curtains
at 191, 222, 275, which are not in Q_{1}.
[481] _Gent. Usher_ has (_a_) Strozza’s (I. i; IV. i, iii; V. ii),
where only a porch or courtyard is needed, and (_b_) Lasso’s (I. ii;
II; III; IV. ii, iv; V. i, iii, iv), with a hall, overlooked by a
balcony used in V. i. 1 and V. iii. 1, and called ‘this tower’ (V. iii.
5).
[482] The visible houses of _All Fools_ are (_a_) Gostanzo’s, (_b_)
Cornelio’s, and (_c_) the Half Moon tavern, where drawers set tables
(V. ii. 1), but not necessarily inside. Both (_a_) and (_b_) are
required in II. i and IV. i, and (_a_), (_b_), and (_c_) in III. i.
[483] _M. d’Olive_ has (_a_) a hall at Court (II. ii); (_b_)
Hieronyme’s chamber, also at Court (V. ii); (_c_) d’Olive’s chamber
(III. ii; IV. ii); (_d_) Vaumont’s (I; II. i; IV. i; V. i); (_e_) St.
Anne’s (III. i); of which (_b_) and (_d_) are used together in V. i, ii
(a continuous scene), and probably (_c_) and (_e_) in III. i. There is
action within at (_a_), (_c_), and (_d_), and above at (_d_), which has
curtained windows lit by tapers (I. 48), at one of which a page above
‘looks out with a light’, followed by ladies who are bidden ‘come down’
(V. i. 26, 66).
[484] _May Day_ has (_a_) Quintiliano’s, (_b_) Honorio’s, (_c_)
Lorenzo’s, and (_d_) the Emperor’s Head, with an arbour (III. iii.
203). The only interior action is in Honorio’s hall (V). Windows above
are used at Lorenzo’s, with a rope-ladder, over a terrace (III. iii),
and at Quintiliano’s (III. ii). The action, which is rather difficult
to track, consists largely of dodging about the pales of gardens and
backsides (II. i. 180; III. iii. 120, 185; IV. ii. 83, 168). Clearly
(_a_), (_c_), and (_d_) are all used in the latter part of II. i, where
a new scene may begin at 45; and similarly (_b_), (_c_), and (_d_) in
III. iii, and (_b_) and (_c_) in IV. ii.
[485] _Widow’s Tears_ has (_a_) Lysander’s (I. i; II. i; III. i); (_b_)
Eudora’s (I. ii; II. ii, iv; III. ii; IV. i); (_c_) Arsace’s (II. iii);
all of which are required in I. iii; and (_d_), a tomb (IV. ii, iii;
V). There is interior action in a hall of (_b_), watched from a ‘stand’
(I. i. 157; I. iii. 1) without, and the tomb opens and shuts; no action
above.
[486] In the _Conspiracy_ the Paris scenes are all at Court, vaguely
located, and mainly of hall type, except III. iii, which is at an
astrologer’s; the only Brussels scene is I. ii, at Court. The _Tragedy_
is on the same lines, but for V. ii, in the Palace of Justice, with a
‘bar’, V. iii, iv, in and before the Bastille, with a scaffold, and
I. ii and III. i at Dijon, in Byron’s lodging. In II. i. 3 there is
‘Music, and a song above’, for a mask.
[487] _C. Altered_, I. i. 1, ‘Iuniper a Cobler is discouered, sitting
at worke in his shoppe and singing’; IV. v. 1, ‘Enter Iuniper in his
shop singing’.
[488] _C. A._ I. v. 212; II. i; III. ii, iii, v, ‘Enter Iaques with his
gold and a scuttle full of horse-dung’. ‘_Jaques._ None is within. None
ouerlookes my wall’; IV. vii. 62, ‘Onion gets vp into a tree’; V. i.
42. In I. v action passes directly from the door of Farneze to that of
Jaques.
[489] _Malc._ I. i. 11, ‘The discord ... is heard from ... Malevole’s
chamber’ ... (19) ‘Come down, thou rugged cur’ ... (43) ‘Enter Malevole
below’.
[490] _Malc._ V. ii. 163. This transition is both in Q_{1} and Q_{2},
although Q_{2} inserts a passage (164–94) here, as well as another
(10–39) earlier in the scene, which entails a contrary transition from
the palace to the citadel.
[491] _Dutch C._ has (_a_) Mulligrub’s (I. i; II. iii; III. iii) with
action in a ‘parlour’ (III. iii. 53); (_b_) Franceschina’s (I. ii; II.
ii; IV. iii, v; V. i), with action above, probably in a _loggia_ before
Franceschina’s chamber, where she has placed an ambush at V. i. 12,
‘She conceals them behind the curtain’; (_c_) Subboy’s (II. i; III.
i; IV. i, ii, iv; V. ii), with a ring thrown from a window above (II.
i. 56); (_d_) Burnish’s shop (III. ii; V. iii), with an inner and an
outer door, for (III. ii. 1) ‘Enter Master Burnish [&c.] ... Cocledemoy
stands at the other door ... and overhears them’.
[492] _Soph._ I. ii. 32, ‘The Ladies lay the Princess in a fair bed,
and close the curtains, whilst Massinissa enters’ ... (35) ‘The Boys
draw the curtains, discovering Sophonisba, to whom Massinissa speaks’
... (235) ‘The Ladies draw the curtains about Sophonisba; the rest
accompany Massinissa forth’.
[493] _Soph._ III. i. 117, ‘The attendants furnish the altar’....
(162) ‘They lay Vangue in Syphax’ bed and draw the curtains’ ... (167)
_Soph._ ‘Dear Zanthia, close the vault when I am sunk’ ... (170) ‘She
descends’ ... (207) ‘[Syphax] descends through the vault’.
[494] _Soph._ IV. i, ‘Enter Sophonisba and Zanthia, as out of a cave’s
mouth’ ... (44) ‘Through the vaut’s mouth, in his night-gown, torch in
his hand, Syphax enters just behind Sophonisba’.... (126) ‘Erichtho
enters’ ... (192) ‘Infernal music, softly’ ... (202) ‘A treble viol and
a base lute play softly within the canopy’ ... (212) ‘A short song to
soft music above’ ... (215) ‘Enter Erichtho in the shape of Sophonisba,
her face veiled, and hasteth in the bed of Syphax’ ... (216) ‘Syphax
hasteneth within the canopy, as to Sophonisba’s bed’ ... (V. i. 1)
‘Syphax draws the curtains, and discovers Erichtho lying with him’ ...
(24) ‘Erichtho slips into the ground’ ... (29) ‘Syphax kneels at the
altar’ ... (40) ‘Out of the altar the ghost of Asdrubal ariseth’. There
is no obvious break in IV. Erichtho promises to bring Sophonisba with
music, and says ‘I go’ (181), although there is no _Exit_. We must
suppose Syphax to return to his chamber through the vault either here
or after his soliloquy at 192, when the music begins.
[495] _E. Ho!_, I. i. 1, ‘Enter Maister Touchstone and Quick-silver
at severall dores.... At the middle dore, enter Golding, discovering
a gold-smiths shoppe, and walking short turns before it’; II. i. 1,
‘Touchstone, Quick-silver[cf above and below, but Touchstone diff];
Goulding and Mildred sitting on eyther side of the stall’.
[496] At the end of II. ii, which is before Security’s, with Winifred
‘above’ (241), Quick-silver remains on the stage, for II. iii, before
Petronel’s. The tavern is first used in III. iii, after which III. iv,
of one 7–line speech only, returns to Security’s and ends the act.
Billingsgate should be at some little distance from the other houses.
[497] _E. Ho!_, IV. i. 1, ‘Enter Slitgut, with a paire of oxe hornes,
discovering Cuckolds-Haven above’.
[498] Clearly IV. i. 346–64 (ed. Schelling) has been misplaced in the
Q_{q}; it is a final speech by Slitgut, with his _Exit_, but without
his name prefixed, and should come after 296. The new scene begins with
297.
[499] _E. Ho!_, IV. i. 92, ‘Enter the Drawer in the Taverne before
[i.e. in III. iii], with Wynnyfrid’; he will shelter her at ‘a house
of my friends heere in S. Kath’rines’ ... (297) ‘Enter Drawer, with
Wynifrid new attird’, who says ‘you have brought me nere enough your
taverne’ and ‘my husband stale thither last night’. Security enters
(310) with ‘I wil once more to this unhappy taverne’.
[500] _Y. F. Gallants_ has (_a_) Frippery’s shop (I. i); (_b_)
Katherine’s (I. ii; V. ii); (_c_) Mitre inn (II. iii); (_d_) Primero’s
brothel (II. i; III. iv; V. i); (_e_) Tailby’s lodging (IV. i, ii);
(_f_) Fitzgrave’s lodging (IV. iii); (_g_) Mrs. Newcut’s dining-room
(IV. vii); (_h_) Paul’s (IV. vi). There is action within in all these,
and in V. i, which is before (_d_), spies are concealed ‘overhead’
(124).
[501] In _Isle of Gulls_ the park or forest holds a lodge for the duke
(I. i), a ‘queach of bushes’ (II. ii), Diana’s oak (II. ii; IV. iv),
Adonis’ bower (II. ii; V. i), a bowling green with arbours (II. iii-v),
and the house of Manasses (IV. iii).
[502] _Law Tricks_ has (_a_) the palace (I. i; II; IV. i, ii; V. ii),
within which (p. 64, ed. Bullen) ‘Discover Polymetes in his study’, and
(p. 78) ‘Polymetes in his study’; (_b_) an arrased chamber in Lurdo’s
(III. i), entered by a vault (cf. p. 148, _supra_); (_c_) Countess
Lurdo’s (III. ii); (_d_) the cloister vaults (V. i, ii) where (p. 90)
‘Countesse in the Tombe’. Action passes direct from (_a_) to (_d_) at
p. 89.
[503] _Fleir_ has (_a_) the courtesans’ (I. 26–188; II; III. 1–193; IV.
1–193); (_b_) Alunio’s (IV. 194–287); (_c_) Ferrio’s (V. 1–54); (_d_) a
prison (V. 55–87); (_e_) a law court (V. 178–end); (_f_) possibly Susan
and Nan’s (I. 189–500). Conceivably (_c_), (_d_), (_e_) are in some way
combined: there is action within at (_b_), ‘Enter Signior Alunio the
Apothecarie in his shop with wares about him’ (194), (_d_) ‘Enter Lord
Piso ... in prison’ (55), and (_e_); none above.
[504] The action of _F. Shepherdess_ needs a wood, with rustic cotes
and an altar to Pan (I. ii, iii; V. i, iii), a well (III. i), and a
bower for Clorin (I. i; II. ii; IV. ii, v; V. ii, v), where is hung a
curtain (V. ii. 109).
[505] _K. B. P._ I. 230, ‘Enter Rafe like a Grocer in ’s shop, with
two Prentices Reading Palmerin of England’; at 341 the action shifts
to Merrithought’s, but the episode at Venturewell’s is said to have
been ‘euen in this place’ (422), and clearly the two houses were staged
together. Possibly the conduit head on which Ralph sings his May Day
song (IV. 439) was also part of the permanent setting.
[506] _K. B. P._ II. 71–438; III. 1–524; IV. 76–151.
[507] The certain plays are _Epicoene_, _Woman a Weathercock_,
_Insatiate Countess_, and _Revenge of Bussy_. I have noted two unusual
s.ds.: _W. a W._ III. ii, ‘Enter Scudmore ... Scudmore passeth one
doore, and entereth the other, where Bellafront sits in a Chaire, under
a Taffata Canopie’; _Insatiate C._ III. i, ‘Claridiana and Rogero,
being in a readiness, are received in at one anothers houses by their
maids. Then enter Mendoza, with a Page, to the Lady Lentulus window’.
There is some elaborate action with contiguous rooms in _Epicoene_, IV,
V.
[508] Cf. pp. 98, 117.
[509] I have noted bedchamber scenes as ‘perhaps above’ at Paul’s
in _A Mad World, my Masters_ and _A Trick to Catch the Old One_,
but the evidence is very slight and may be due to careless writing.
In _A Mad World_, III. ii. 181, Harebrain is said to ‘walke below’;
later ‘Harebrain opens the door and listens’. In _A Trick_, III. iv.
72, Dampit is told that his bed waits ‘above’, and IV. v is in his
bedchamber.
[510] Cf. p. 116.
[511] Cf. _Dr. Dodipoll_, _1 Antonio and Mellida_, _The Fawn_, and
_Bussy d’Ambois_ for Paul’s, and _Sir Giles Goosecap_ and _Fleir_ for
Blackfriars. The early Court plays had similar scenes; cf. p. 43.
[512] _C. Revels_, ind. 54, ‘First the Title of his Play is _Cynthias
Revels_, as any man (that hath hope to be sau’d by his Booke) can
witnesse; the Scene _Gargaphia_’; _K. B. P._ ind. 10, ‘Now you call
your play, The London Marchant. Downe with your Title, boy, downe with
your Title’. For _Wily Beguiled_, cf. p. 126.
[513] Duff, xi.
[514] Ch. ix; cf. _Mediaeval Stage_, ii. 221.
[515] Pollard, _Sh. F._ 2. ‘Cum priuilegio’ is in the colophons of
Rastell’s 1533 prints of _Johan Johan_, _The Pardoner and the Friar_,
and _The Wether_, and ‘Cum priuilegio regali’ in those of his undated
_Gentleness and Nobility_ and _Beauty and Good Properties of Women_.
[516] _Procl._ 114, 122, 155, 176. The texts of 1529 and 1530 are in
Wilkins, _Concilia_, iii. 737, 740; that of 1538 in Burnet, _Hist. of
Reformation_, vi. 220; cf. Pollard, _Sh. F._ 6, and in _3 Library_, x.
57. I find ‘Cum priuilegio ad imprimendum solum’ in the colophon of
_Acolastus_ (1540) and in both t.p. and colophon of _Troas_ (1559);
also ‘Seen and allowed &c.’ in the t.p. of Q_{2} of _Gorboduc_ (_c._
1570), ‘Perused and Alowed’ at the end of _Gammer Gurton’s Needle_
(1575), and ‘Seen and allowed, according to the order appointed in the
Queenes maiesties Injunctions’ in the t.p. of _The Glass of Government_
(1575). Otherwise these precautions became dead letters, so far as
plays were concerned.
[517] _Procl._ 295 (part only in Wilkins, iv. 1; cf. Pollard, _Sh. F._
7). The ‘daye of the printe’ is in the t.ps. of _Thyestes_ (1560),
_Oedipus_ (1563), _Gordobuc_ (1565), _Four Ps_ (1569), and the colophon
of _Promos and Cassandra_ (1578); the year and month in the t.p.
of _King Darius_ (1565). Earlier printers had given the day in the
colophons of _Mundus et Infans_ (1522), _Johan Johan_ (1533), and _The
Pardoner and the Friar_ (1533).
[518] Dasent, ii. 312; _Procl._ 395 (text in Hazlitt, _E. D. S._ 9; cf.
Pollard, _Sh. F._ 8).
[519] _Procl._ 427 (cf. Pollard, _Sh. F._ 9); _Procl._ 461 (text in
Wilkins, _Concilia_, iv. 128; Arber, i. 52); _Procl._ 488 (text in
Arber, i. 92).
[520] Arber, i. xxviii, xxxii.
[521] Duff, xi.
[522] _1 Eliz._ c. 1 (_Statutes_, iv. 1. 350).
[523] App. D, No. ix.
[524] App. D, No. xii.
[525] App. D, No. xiii.
[526] _Procl._ 638, 656, 659, 687, 688, 702, 740, 752, 775; Arber, i.
430, 452, 453, 461, 464, 474, 502; cf. McKerrow, xiii. A draft Bill by
William Lambarde prepared in 1577–80 for the establishment of a mixed
body of ecclesiastics and lawyers as Governors of the English Print
(Arber, ii. 751) never became law.
[527] Pollard, _Sh. F._ 15; _F. and Q._ 4. Mr. Pollard stresses the
difficulty of obtaining the hands of six Privy Councillors. Perhaps
this is somewhat exaggerated. Six was the ordinary quorum of that body,
which sat several times a week, while many of its members resided in
court, were available for signing documents daily, and did in fact
sign, in sixes, many, such as warrants to the Treasurer of the Chamber,
of no greater moment than licences (cf. ch. ii). The signatures were of
course ministerial, and would be given to a licence on the report of an
expert reader. In any case the _Injunction_ provides alternatives.
[528] Arber, iii. 690; Pollard, _Sh. F._ 23, ‘From 19^o Elizabethe
[1576–7] till the Starre-chamber Decree 28^o Elizabeth [1586], many
were licensed by the Master and Wardens, some few by the Master alone,
and some by the Archbishop and more by the Bishop of London. The like
was in the former parte of the Quene Elizabeth’s time. They were made a
corporacon but by P. and M. Master Kingston, y^e now master, sayth that
before the Decree the master and wardens licensed all, and that when
they had any Divinity booke of muche importance they would take the
advise of some 2 or 3 ministers of this towne’.
[529] The references in the following notes, unless otherwise
specified, are to the vols. and pages of Arber’s _Transcript_.
[530] i. 106; ii. 879.
[531] i. 17, ‘No member or members of this Company shall hereafter
knowingly imprint or cause to be imprinted any book, pamphlet,
portraicture, picture or paper whereunto the law requires a license,
without such license as by the law is directed for the imprinting of
the same (1678)’; 22, ‘By ancient usage of this company, when any book
or copy is duly entred in the register-book of this company, to any
member or members of this company, such person to whom such entry is
made, is, and always hath been reputed and taken to be proprietor of
such book or copy, and ought to have the sole printing thereof (1681)’;
26, ‘It hath been the ancient usage of the members of this company,
for the printer or printers, publisher or publishers of all books,
pamphlets, ballads, and papers, (except what are granted by letters
pattents under the great seal of England) to enter into the publick
register-book of this company, remaining with the clerk of this company
for the time being, in his or their own name or names, all books,
pamphlets, ballads, and papers whatsoever, by him or them to be printed
or published, before the same book, pamphlet, ballad, or paper is begun
to be printed, to the end that the printer or publisher thereof may be
known, to justifie whatsoever shall be therein contained, and have no
excuse for the printing or publishing thereof (1682)’.
[532] Typical examples are i. 75 (1557–8), ‘To master John Wally these
bokes called Welth and helthe, the treatise of the ffrere and the boy,
stans puer ad mensam, another of youghte charyte and humylyte, an a.
b. c. for cheldren in englesshe with syllabes, also a boke called an
hundreth mery tayles ij^s’; 77 (1557–8), ‘To Henry Sutton to prynte
an enterlude vpon the history of Jacobe and Esawe out of the xxvij
chapeter of the fyrste boke of Moyses called Genyses and for his
lycense he geveth to the howse iiij^d’; 128 (1559–60), ‘Recevyd of John
Kynge for his lycense for pryntinge of these copyes Lucas urialis, nyce
wanton, impaciens poverte, the proude wyves pater noster, the squyre
of low degre and syr deggre graunted ye x of June anno 1560 ij^s’. The
last becomes the normal form, but without the precise date.
[533] i. 155, 177, 204, 205, 208, 209, 231, 263, 268, 269, 272, 299,
302, 308, 312, 334, 336, 343, 378, 382, 385, 398, 399, 415. It is
possible that the wardens, intent on finance, did not always transcribe
into their accounts notes of authorizations. Only half a dozen of the
above are ascribed to the archbishop, yet a mention of ‘one Talbot,
servant of the archbishop of Canterbury, a corrector to the printers’
in an examination relative to the Ridolfi plot (Haynes-Murdin, ii. 30)
shows that he had enough work in 1571 to justify the appointment of a
regular deputy.
[534] ii. 35, 301. Collins remained clerk to 1613, when he was
succeeded by Thomas Mountfort, who became a stationer (McKerrow, 196),
and is of course to be distinguished from the prebendary of Paul’s and
High Commissioner of a similar name, who acted as ‘corrector’ (cf. p.
168).
[535] i. 451 _sqq._
[536] ii. 302, 359, 371, 377, 378, 414, &c.
[537] ii. 440, 444.
[538] ii. 334, ‘vnder the hande of Master Recorder’; 341, ‘vnder
thandes of Doctour Redman and the wardens’; 342, ‘master Recorder and
the wardens’; 346, ‘the lord maiour and the wardens’; 357, ‘sub manibus
comitum Leicester et Hunsdon’; 372, ‘master Crowley’; 375, ‘master
Vaughan’; 386, ‘master Secretary Wilson’; 403, ‘master Thomas Norton
[Remembrancer]’; 404, ‘the Lord Chancellor’; 409, ‘master Cotton’;
417, ‘by aucthoritie from the Counsell’; 434, 435, ‘pervsed by master
Crowley’; 447, ‘master Recorder’. For Talbot, cf. _supra_.
[539] ii. 304; cf. ii. 447 (1586), ‘Entred by commaundement from master
Barker in wrytinge vnder his hand. Aucthorised vnder the Archbishop of
Canterbury his hand’. ‘Licenced’, as well as ‘authorised’ or ‘alowed’,
now sometimes (ii. 307, 447) describes the action of a prelate or
corrector.
[540] ii. 366.
[541] ii. 428.
[542] ii. 424, ‘alwaies provided that before he print he shall get the
bishop of London his alowance to yt’; 424, ‘upon condicon he obtaine
the ordinaries hand thereto’; 429, ‘provyded alwaies and he is enioyned
to gett this booke laufully alowed before he print yt’; 431, ‘yt is
granted vnto him that if he gett the card of phantasie lawfullie alowed
vnto him, that then he shall enioye yt as his owne copie’; 431, ‘so
it be or shalbe by laufull aucthoritie lycenced vnto him’; 444, ‘to
be aucthorised accordinge to her maiesties Iniunctions’. The wardens’
hands are not cited to any of these conditional entries.
[543] ii. 307, 308, 336, 353, 430, 438, 439.
[544] App. D, No. lxxvii; cf. Strype, _Life of Whitgift_, i. 268;
Pierce, _Introduction to Mar Prelate Tracts_, 74. Confirmations
and special condemnations of offending books are in _Procl._ 802,
812, 1092, 1362, 1383 (texts of two last in G. W. Prothero, _Select
Statutes_, 169, 395).
[545] ii. 459, ‘Master Hartwell certifying it to be tollerated’; 460,
‘authorised or alowed as good vnder thand of Doctour Redman &c.’; 461,
‘certified by Master Hartwell to be alowed leavinge out the ij staues
yat are crossed’; 464, ‘master Crowleys hand is to yt, as laufull to
be printed’; 475, ‘aucthorised by tharchbishop of Canterbury as is
reported by Master Cosin’; 479, ‘which as master Hartwell certifyithe
by his hande to the written copie, my Lordes grace of Canterbury is
content shall passe without anie thinge added to yt before it be
pervsed’; 487, ‘sett downe as worthie to be printed vnder thand of
Master Gravet’; 489, ‘Master Crowleys hand is to yt testyfying it to be
alowable to ye print’; 491, ‘vnder the Bishop of London, Master Abraham
Fraunce, and the wardens hands’; 493, ‘Master Hartwells hand beinge at
the wrytten copie testifyinge his pervsinge of the same’; 493, ‘alowed
vnder D^r Stallers hand as profitable to be printed’, &c.
[546] Lambe notes (iii. 690) in 1636 that on 30 June 1588, ‘the
archbishop gave power to Doctor Cosin, Doctor Stallard, Doctor Wood,
master Hartwell, master Gravett, master Crowley, master Cotton, and
master Hutchinson, or any one of them, to license books to be printed:
Or any 2 of those following master Judson, master Trippe, master Cole
and master Dickens’. It will be observed that most of the first group
of these had already acted as ‘correctors’, together with William
Redman and Richard Vaughan, chaplains respectively to Archbishop
Grindal and Bishop Aylmer. William Hutchinson and George Dickens were
also chaplains to Aylmer. Hutchinson was in the High Commission of
1601. Richard Cosin was Dean of the Arches and a High Commissioner.
Abraham Hartwell was secretary and Cole chaplain (Arber, ii. 494) to
Archbishop Whitgift. Hutchinson, William Gravett, William Cotton,
and George Dickins were or became prebendaries of St. Paul’s. Thomas
Stallard was rector of All Hallows’ and St. Mary’s at Hill; Henry Tripp
of St. Faith’s and St. Stephen’s, Walbrook. Most of this information
is from Hennessy. Crowley was presumably Robert Crowley, vicar of St.
Giles, Cripplegate, and himself a stationer, although his activity as
a Puritan preacher and pamphleteer makes his appointment an odd one
for Whitgift. Moreover, he died on 18 June 1588. There may have been
two Robert Crowleys, or the archbishop’s list may have been drawn up
earlier than Lambe dates it.
[547] Amongst the correctors who appear later in the Register are
Richard Bancroft, John Buckeridge, and Michael Murgatroyd, secretaries
or chaplains to Whitgift, Samuel Harsnett, William Barlow, Thomas
Mountford, John Flower, and Zacharias Pasfield, prebendaries of St.
Paul’s, William Dix, Peter Lyly, chaplain of the Savoy and brother of
the dramatist, Lewis Wager, rector of St. James’s, Garlickhithe, and
dramatist, John Wilson, and Gervas Nidd. Mountford and Dix were in the
High Commission of 1601. I have not troubled to trace the full careers
of these men in Hennessy and elsewhere. Thomas Morley (Arber, iii. 93)
and William Clowes (ii. 80) seem to have been applied to as specialists
on musical and medical books respectively.
[548] ii. 463, 464, 508, 509, ‘Alowed by the Bishop of London vnder
his hand and entred by warrant of Master [warden] Denhams hand to the
copie’.
[549] A typical entry is now
‘xiii^{to} die Augusti [1590].
Richard Jones. Entred vnto him for his Copye The twooe commicall
discourses of Tomberlein the Cithian shepparde vnder the handes of
Master Abraham Hartewell and the Wardens. vj^d.’
[550] iii. 677. A number of satirical books were condemned by name
to be burnt, and direction given to the master and wardens, ‘That no
Satyres or Epigrams be printed hereafter; That noe Englishe historyes
be printed excepte they bee allowed by some of her maiesties privie
Counsell; That noe playes be printed excepte they bee allowed by suche
as haue aucthoritie; That all Nasshes bookes and Doctor Harvyes bookes
be taken wheresoeuer they maye be found and that none of theire bookes
be euer printed hereafter; That thoughe any booke of the nature of
theise heretofore expressed shalbe broughte vnto yow vnder the hands of
the Lord Archebisshop of Canterburye or the Lord Bishop of London yet
the said booke shall not be printed vntill the master or wardens haue
acquainted the said Lord Archbishop or the Lord Bishop with the same to
knowe whether it be theire hand or no’.
[551] _Hunting of Cupid_ (R. Jones, 26 July 1591), ‘provyded alwayes
that yf yt be hurtfull to any other copye before lycenced, then this
to be voyde’; _Merchant of Venice_ (J. Robertes, 22 July 1598),
‘prouided, that yt bee not prynted by the said James Robertes or anye
other whatsoeuer without lycence first had from the Right honorable
the lord chamberlen’; _Blind Beggar of Alexandria_ (W. Jones, 15 Aug.
1598), ‘vppon condition that yt belonge to noe other man’; _Spanish
Tragedy_ (transfer from A. Jeffes to W. White, 13 Aug. 1599), ‘saluo
iure cuiuscunque’; _Cloth Breeches and Velvet Hose_ (J. Robertes,
27 May 1600), ‘prouided that he is not to putt it in prynte without
further and better aucthority’; _A Larum for London_ (J. Robertes,
29 May 1600), ‘prouided that yt be not printed without further
aucthoritie’; _Antonio and Mellida_ (M. Lownes and T. Fisher, 24 Oct.
1601), ‘prouided that he gett laufull licence for yt’; _Satiromastix_
(J. Barnes, 11 Nov. 1601), ‘vppon condicon that yt be lycensed to be
printed’; _Troilus and Cressida_ (J. Robertes, 7 Feb. 1603), ‘to print
when he hath gotten sufficient aucthoritie for yt’; _When You See Me,
You Know Me_ (N. Butter, 12 Feb. 1605), ‘yf he gett good alowance for
the enterlude of King Henry the 8^{th} before he begyn to print it. And
then procure the wardens handes to yt for the entrance of yt: He is to
haue the same for his copy’; _Westward Hoe_ (H. Rocket, 2 March 1605),
‘prouided yat he get further authoritie before yt be printed’ (entry
crossed out, and marked ‘vacat’); _Dutch Courtesan_ (J. Hodgets, 26
June 1605), ‘provyded that he gett sufficient aucthoritie before yt be
prynted’ (with later note, ‘This is alowed to be printed by aucthoritie
from Master Hartwell’); _Sir Giles Goosecap_ (E. Blount, 10 Jan.
1606), ‘prouided that yt be printed accordinge to the copie wherevnto
Master Wilsons hand ys at’; _Fawn_ (W. Cotton, 12 March 1606),
‘provided that he shall not put the same in prynte before he gett
alowed lawfull aucthoritie’; _Fleire_ (J. Trundle and J. Busby, 13 May
1606), ‘provided that they are not to printe yt tell they bringe good
aucthoritie and licence for the doinge thereof’ (with note to transfer
of Trundle’s share to Busby and A. Johnson on 21 Nov. 1606, ‘This booke
is aucthorised by Sir George Bucke Master Hartwell and the wardens’).
[552] Buck’s hand first appears to _Claudius Tiberius Nero_ (10 Mar.
1607), and thereafter to all London (but not University) plays up to
his madness in 1622, except _Cupid’s Whirligig_ (29 June 1607), which
has Tilney’s, _Yorkshire Tragedy_ (2 May 1608), which has Wilson’s,
some of those between 4 Oct. 1608 and 10 March 1609, which have
Segar’s, who is described as Buck’s deputy, and _Honest Lawyer_ (14
Aug. 1615), which has Taverner’s.
[553] i. 45, 69, 93, 100, &c.; ii. 821, 843. In 1558–9, only, the
heading is ‘Fynes for defautes for Pryntynge withoute lycense’.
[554] See the case of Jeffes and White in 1593 given in ch. xxiii, s.v.
Kyd, _Spanish Tragedy_.
[555] i. 93, 100; ii. 853 (21 Jan. 1583), ‘This daye, Ric. Jones is
awarded to paie x^s for a fine for printinge a thinge of the fall of
the gallories at Paris Garden without licence and against commandement
of the Wardens. And the said Jones and Bartlet to be committed to
prison viz Bartlet for printing it and Jones for sufferinge it to be
printed in his house’.
[556] ii. 824, 826, 832, 837, 849, 851.
[557] ii. 850.
[558] The testimony only relates strictly to the period 1576–86, which
is nearly coincident with the slack ecclesiastical rule of Archbishop
Grindal (1576–83). Parker (1559–75) may have been stricter, as Whitgift
(1583–1604) certainly was.
[559] i. 95, ‘Master Waye had lycense to take the lawe of James Gonnell
for a sarten dett due vnto hym’; 101, ‘Owyn Rogers for ... kepynge of a
forren with out lycense ys fyned’.
[560] ii. 62.
[561] i. 322.
[562] v. lxxvi, ‘we do will and commande yowe that from hence forthe
yowe suffer neither booke ballett nor any other matter to be published
... until the same be first seene and allowed either by us of her
M^{tes} pryvie Counsell or by thee [_sic_] Commissioners for cawses
ecclesyastical there at London’.
[563] The fee seems at first to have been 4_d._ for ‘entraunce’ (i.
94), with a further sum for books above a certain size at the rate of
‘euery iij leves a pannye’ (i. 97); plays ran from 4_d._ to 12_d._ But
from about 1582 plays and most other books are charged a uniform fee of
6_d._, and only ballads and other trifles escape with 4_d._ Payments
were sometimes in arrear; often there is no note of fee to a title;
and in some of these cases the words ‘neuer printed’ have been added.
On the other hand, the receipt of fees is sometimes recorded, and the
title remains unentered; at the end of the entries for 1585–6 (ii. 448)
is a memorandum that one of the wardens ‘brought in about iiij^s moore
which he had receved for copies yat were not brought to be entred into
the book this yere’. A similar item is in the wardens’ accounts for
1592–3 (i. 559). Fees were charged for entries of transferred as well
as of new copies.
[564] Various formulae are used, such as ‘assigned vnto him’ (ii. 310,
351), ‘turned ouer to him’ (ii. 369), ‘putt ouer vnto him’ (ii. 431),
‘sold and sett ouer vnto him’ (ii. 350), ‘which he affyrmeth yat he
bought of’ (ii. 351), ‘by assent of’ (ii. 415), ‘by thappointment of’
(ii. 667), ‘by the consent of’ (ii. 608), ‘which he bought of’ (ii.
325), &c. A transfer of ‘plaiebookes’ from Sampson Awdeley to John
Charlewood on 15 Jan. 1582 (ii. 405) included, besides two plays,
_Youth_ and _Impatient Poverty_, which had been formerly registered,
four others, _Weather_, _Four Ps_, _Love_, and _Hickscorner_, which
had been printed before the Register came into existence. I suppose
that Charlwood secured copyright in these, but was there any copyright
before the entry of 1582?
[565] ii. 377. ‘Tollerated vnto him but not vnder the wardens handes’,
472, ‘beinge broughte to enter by John Woulf without the wardens handes
to the copy’. Even in the seventeenth century ballads are sometimes
entered without any citation of hands, and in 1643 it was the clerk
and not the wardens whom Parliament authorized to license ‘small
pamphletts, portratures, pictures, and the like’ (v. liv).
[566] ii. 365, ‘Translated by a French copie whereat was the bishop of
Londons hand and master Harrisons’; 440, ‘by commaundement from master
warden Newbery vnder his own handwrytinge on the backside of ye wrytten
copie’; 443, ‘vnder his hand to the printed copie’; 449, ‘by warrant
of master warden Bisshops hand to the former copie printed anno 1584’;
449, ‘by warrant of master warden Bishops hand to the wrytten copie’;
457, ‘by warrant of the wardens handes to thold copie’; 521, ‘with
master Hartwelles hand to the Italyan Booke’; 534, ‘alowed vnder master
Hartwelles hand, entred by warrant of the subscription of the wardens’,
&c.
[567] ii. 434, ‘entred vpon a special knowen token sent from master
warden Newbery’; 437, ‘allowed by tharchbishop of Canterbury, by
testymonie of the Lord Chenie’; 460, ‘by the wardens appointment at the
hall’; 504, ‘by warrant of a letter from Sir Ffrauncis Walsingham to
the master and wardens of the Cumpanye’; 523, ‘alowed by a letter or
note vnder master Hartwelles hand’; 524, ‘reported by master Fortescue
to be alowed by the archbishop of Canterbury’; 633, ‘The note vnder
master Justice Ffenners hand is layd vp in the wardens cupbord’;
iii. 160, ‘John Hardie reporteth that the wardens are consentinge to
thentrance thereof’, &c.
[568] An inventory of 1560 (i. 143) records ‘The nombre of all suche
Copyes as was lefte in the Cubberde in our Counsell Chambre at the
Compte ... as apereth in the whyte boke for that yere ... xliiij. Item
in ballettes ... vij^e iiij^x and xvj’. From 1576 to 1579 ‘and a copie’
is often added to the notes of fees. The wardens accounts from 1574
to 1596 (i. 470, 581) regularly recite that they had ‘deliuered into
the hall certen copies which haue been printed this yeare, as by a
particular booke thereof made appearithe’.
[569] ii. 452, ‘Receaved of him for printinge 123 ballades which are
filed vp in the hall with his name to euerie ballad’. The order of
1592 about _Dr. Faustus_ (cf. ch. xxiii) suggests preliminary entry of
claims in a Hall book distinct from the Clerk’s book.
[570] ii. 414, ‘Graunted by the Assistants’; 449, ‘entred in full
court’; 462, ‘entred in plena curia’; 465, ‘intratur in curia’; 477,
‘by the whole consent of thassistantes’; 535, ‘aucthorysed to him at
the hall soe that yt doe not belonge to any other of the Cumpanye’;
535, ‘This is allowed by the consent of the whole table’; 663, ‘in open
court’; 344, ‘memorandum that this lycence is revoked and cancelled’;
457, ‘This copie is forbydden by the Archbishop of Canterbury’, with
marginal note ‘Expunctum in plena curia’; 514, ‘so yat he first gett yt
to be laufully and orderly alowed as tollerable to be printed and doo
shewe thaucthoritie thereof at a Court to be holden’; 576, ‘Cancelled
out of the book, for the vndecentnes of it in diuerse verses’; iii. 82,
‘Entred ... in full court ... vppon condicon that yt be no other mans
copie, and that ... he procure it to be aucthorised and then doo shew
it at the hall to the master and wardens so aucthorised’.
[571] The register indicates that even at the time of entry the fee
sometimes remained unpaid. But probably it had to be paid before the
stationer could actually publish with full security of copyright.
[572] Cf. p. 173.
[573] I note twenty-two cases (1586–1616) in which the earliest print
known falls in a calendar year later than the next after that of
entry: _Spanish Tragedy_, 1592–4 (N.D. probably earlier); _Soliman
and Perseda_, 1592–9 (N.D. probably earlier); _James IV_, 1594–8;
_Famous Victories_, 1594–8; _David and Bethsabe_, 1594–9; _King Leire_,
1594–1605 (re-entry 1605); _Four Prentices_, 1594–1615 (one or more
earlier editions probable); _Jew of Malta_, 1594–1633 (re-entry 1632);
_Woman in the Moon_, 1595–7; _George a Greene_, 1595–9; _Merchant of
Venice_, 1598–1600 (conditional entry); _Alarum for London_, 1600–2
(conditional entry); _Patient Grissell_, 1600–3 (stayed by Admiral’s);
_Stukeley_, 1600–5; _Dr. Faustus_, 1601–4; _Englishmen for my Money_,
1601–16; _Troilus and Cressida_, 1603–9 (re-entry 1609); _Westward
Ho!_, 1605–7 (conditional entry cancelled); _Antony and Cleopatra_,
1608–23, (re-entry 1623); _2 Honest Whore_, 1608–30 (re-entry 1630);
_Epicoene_, 1610–20 (earlier edition probable); _Ignoramus_, 1615–30
(re-entry 1630). The glutting of the book-market in 1594 accounts for
some of the delays.
[574] ii. 829 (1599), 833 (1601), 835 (1602), 837 (1603).
[575] I find no entries of _Enough is as Good as a Feast_ (N.D.),
_Thyestes_ (1560), _Hercules Furens_ (1561), _Trial of Treasure_
(1567), _God’s Promises_ (1577), perhaps reprints; of _Orestes_ (1567);
or of _Abraham’s Sacrifice_ (1577) or _Conflict of Conscience_ (1581),
perhaps entered in 1571–5. The method of exhaustions suggests that
Copland’s _Robin Hood_ (N.D.) is the ‘newe playe called ---- ’ which he
entered on 30 Oct. 1560, and that Colwell’s _Disobedient Child_ (N.D.)
is the unnamed ‘interlude for boyes to handle and to passe tyme at
christenmas’, which he entered in 1569–70.
[576] His plays were _Sir Thomas Wyat_ (1607), _Every Woman in her
Humour_ (1609), _Two Maids of Moreclack_ (1609), _Roaring Girl_ (1611),
_White Devil_ (1612), and _Insatiate Countess_ (1613).
[577] In _Nice Wanton_ a prayer for a king has been altered by
sacrificing a rhyme into one for a queen. The prayer of _Impatient
Poverty_ seems also to have been for Mary and clumsily adapted for
Elizabeth. Wager’s _Enough is as Good as a Feast_ may be Elizabethan
or pre-Elizabethan. _Jacob and Esau_ (1568), entered in 1557–8, is
pre-Elizabethan.
[578] Reprints of 1559–85 include Heywood’s _Weather_ and _Four
Ps_, printed in England before the establishment of the Stationers’
Register, and Bale’s _Three Laws_ and _God’s Promises_, printed,
probably abroad, in 1538. John Walley, who seems to have printed
1545–86, failed to date his books. I cannot therefore say whether his
reprints of the pre-Register _Love_ and _Hickscorner_, or the prints
of _Youth_ and _Wealth and Health_ (if it is his), which he entered in
1557–8, are Elizabethan or not.
[579] Cf. App. L.
[580] Cf. App. B. I classify as follows: (a) COMPANIES OF MEN: (i)
Morals (3), _Delight_, _Beauty and Housewifery_, _Love and Fortune_;
(ii) Classical (7), _Tully_, _A Greek Maid_, _Four Sons of Fabius_,
_Sarpedon_, _Telomo_, _Phillida and Corin_, _Rape of the Second Helen_;
(iii) Romantic (17), _Lady Barbara_, _Cloridon and Radiamanta_, _Predor
and Lucia_, _Mamillia_, _Herpetulus the Blue Knight and Perobia_,
_Philemon and Philecia_, _Painter’s Daughter_, _Solitary Knight_,
_Irish Knight_, _Cynocephali_, _Three Sisters of Mantua_, _Knight in
the Burning Rock_, _Duke of Milan and Marquess of Mantua_, _Portio
and Demorantes_, _Soldan and Duke_, _Ferrar_, _Felix and Philiomena_;
(iv) Farce (1), _The Collier_; (v) Realistic (2), _Cruelty of a
Stepmother_, _Murderous Michael_; (vi) Antic Play (1); (vii) Episodes
(2), _Five Plays in One_, _Three Plays in One_; (b) COMPANIES OF
BOYS: (i) Morals (6), _Truth, Faithfulness and Mercy_, ‘_Vanity_’,
_Error_, _Marriage of Mind and Measure_, _Loyalty and Beauty_, _Game
of Cards_; (ii) Classical (12), _Iphigenia_, _Ajax and Ulysses_,
_Narcissus_, _Alcmaeon_, _Quintus Fabius_, _Siege of Thebes_, _Perseus
and Andromeda_, ‘_Xerxes_’, _Mutius Scaevola_, _Scipio Africanus_,
_Pompey_, _Agamemnon and Ulysses_; (iii) Romantic (4), _Paris and
Vienna_, _Titus and Gisippus_, _Alucius_, _Ariodante and Genevora_;
(c) UNKNOWN COMPANIES: (i) Morals (5), _As Plain as Can Be_, _Painful
Pilgrimage_, _Wit and Will_, _Prodigality_, ‘_Fortune_’; (ii) Classical
(2), _Orestes_, _Theagenes and Chariclea_; (iii) Romantic (1), _King of
Scots_; (iv) Farces (2), _Jack and Jill_, _Six Fools_. The moral and
romantic elements meet also in the list of pieces played by companies
of men at Bristol from 1575 to 1579: _The Red Knight_, _Myngo_, _What
Mischief Worketh in the Mind of Man_, _The Queen of Ethiopia_, _The
Court of Comfort_, _Quid pro Quo_ (Murray, ii. 213).
[581] _Love and Fortune_ was printed in the next period.
[582] _Mary Magdalen_; _Conflict of Conscience_. ‘Compiled’ goes back
to Bale, Heywood, and Skelton. Earlier still, _Everyman_ is not so much
a play as ‘a treatyse ... in maner of a morall playe’.
[583] The prologue of _Mary Magdalen_ has ‘we haue vsed this feate at
the uniuersitie’.
[584] Wynkyn de Worde calls _Mundus et Infans_ a ‘propre newe
interlude’, and the advertising title-page is well established from the
time of Rastell’s press.
[585] _Conflict of Conscience_; cf. _Damon and Pythias_, the prologue
of which, though it had been a Court play, ‘is somewhat altered for
the proper use of them that hereafter shall haue occasion to plaie it,
either in Priuate, or open Audience’. The castings, for four, five,
or six players, occur in _King Darius_, _Like Will to Like_, _Longer
Thou Livest_, _Mary Magdalen_, _New Custom_, _Tide Tarrieth for No
Man_, _Trial of Treasure_, _Conflict of Conscience_. I find a later
example from the public stage in _Fair Maid of the Exchange_, which
has ‘Eleauen may easily acte this comedie’, and a division of parts
accordingly. There are pre-Elizabethan precedents, while _Jack Juggler_
is ‘for Chyldren to playe’, the songs in _Ralph Roister Doister_ are
for ‘those which shall vse this Comedie or Enterlude’, and _The Four
Elements_ has directions for reducing the time of playing at need from
an hour and a half to three-quarters of an hour, and the note ‘Also yf
ye lyst ye may brynge in a dysgysynge’. Similarly _Robin Hood_ is ‘for
to be played in Maye games’. That books were in fact bought to act from
is shown by entries in the accounts of Holy Trinity, Bungay, for 1558
of 4_d._ for ‘the interlude and game booke’ and 2_s._ for ‘writing the
partes’ (_M. S._ ii. 343). A book costing only 4_d._ must clearly have
been a print.
[586] There are prayers in _All for Money_, _Apius and Virginia_,
_Common Conditions_, _Damon and Pythias_, _Disobedient Child_ (headed
‘The Players ... kneele downe’), _King Darius_, _Like Will to Like_,
_Longer Thou Livest_, _New Custom_, _Trial of Treasure_ (epilogue
headed ‘Praie for all estates’). _Mary Magdalen_ and _Tide Tarrieth
for No Man_ substitute a mere expression of piety. I do not agree with
Fleay, 57, that such prayers are evidence of Court performance. The
reverence and epilogue to the Queen in the belated moral of _Liberality
and Prodigality_ (1602), 1314, is different in tone. _The Pedlar’s
Prophecy_, also belated as regards date of print, adds to the usual
prayer for Queen and council ‘And that honorable T. N. &c. of N.
chiefly: Whom as our good Lord and maister, found we haue’. No doubt
any strolling company purchasing the play would fill up the blanks to
meet their own case. Probably both the Queen and estates and the ‘lord’
of a company were prayed for, whether present or absent, so long as the
custom lasted; cf. ch. x, p. 311; ch. xviii, p. 550.
[587] Cf. e. g. _Mary Magdalen_ (which refers on the title-page to
those who ‘heare or read the same’), 56, 1479, 1743; _Like Will to
Like_, sig. C, ‘He ... speaketh the rest as stammering as may be’, C
ij, ‘Haunce sitteth in the chaire, and snorteth as though he were fast
a sleep’, E ij^v, ‘Nichol Newfangle lieth on the ground groning’, &c.,
&c.
[588] _Three Ladies of London_ (1584), _Three Lords and Three Ladies of
London_ (1590), _Pedlar’s Prophecy_ (1595), _Contention of Liberality
and Prodigality_ (1602). _Lingua_ (1607) is a piece of academic
archaism. I cannot believe that the manuscript fragment of _Love
Feigned and Unfeigned_ belongs to the seventeenth century. Of course
there are moral elements in other plays, such as _Histriomastix_,
especially in dumb-shows and inductions.
[589] There is little evidence as to the price at which prints were
sold; what there is points to 6_d._ for a quarto. A ‘testerne’ is
given in the epistle as the price of _Troilus and Cressida_, and in
Middleton, _Mayor of Quinborough_, v. i, come thieves who ‘only take
the name of country comedians to abuse simple people with a printed
play or two, which they bought at Canterbury for sixpence’. The
statement that the First Folio cost £1 only rests on Steevens’s report
of a manuscript note in a copy not now known; cf. McKerrow in _Sh.
England_, ii. 229.
[590] Cf. ch. xxiii, s.v. Shakespeare.
[591] Cf. App. L. In the above allocation _Leir_ and _Satiromastix_, to
each of which two companies have equal claims, are counted twice.
[592] Greg, _Henslowe_, ii. 148, gives a full list; cf. ch. xiii, s.vv.
Queen’s, Sussex’s, Strange’s, Admiral’s, Pembroke’s, Worcester’s.
[593] Cf. App. M. Can Moseley have been trying in some way to secure
plays of which he possessed manuscripts from being _acted_ without his
consent? On 30 Aug. 1660 (_Variorum_, iii. 249; Herbert, 90) he wrote
to Sir Henry Herbert, denying that he had ever agreed with the managers
of the Cockpit and Whitefriars that they ‘should act any playes that
doe belong to mee, without my knowledge and consent had and procured’.
[594] Printed from _Addl. MS._ 27632, f. 43, by F. J. Furnivall in _7
N. Q._ (1890), ix. 382. Harington died in 1612. An earlier leaf (30)
has the date ‘29^{th} of Jan. 1609’. The latest datable play in the
collection is _The Turk_ (1610, S. R. 10 Mar. 1609). There are four out
of six plays printed in 1609, as well as _The Faithful Shepherdess_
(N.D.), of which on this evidence we can reasonably put the date of
publication in 1609 or 1610.
[595] Cf. ch. xxiii, s.v. Heywood.
[596] _M. S. C._ i. 364; _Variorum_, iii. 159. The King’s men played
_The Malcontent_, probably after its first issue in 1604, as a retort
for the appropriation of _Jeronimo_ by its owners, the Queen’s Revels.
The earliest extant print of _1 Jeronimo_ is 1605, but the play, which
is not in S. R., may have been printed earlier. The Chapel boys seem
to have revived one at least of Lyly’s old Paul’s plays in 1601. The
Chamberlain’s adopted _Titus Andronicus_, which had been Sussex’s, and
Shakespeare revised for them _Taming of A Shrew_ and _The Contention_,
which had been Pembroke’s, and based plays which were new from the
literary, and in the case of the last also from the publisher’s,
standpoint on the _Troublesome Reign of John_ and the _Famous Victories
of Henry V_, which had been the Queen’s, and upon _King Leir_. But of
course Sussex’s, Pembroke’s, and the Queen’s had broken.
[597] Henslowe, i. 119.
[598] A single printer, Thomas Creede, entered or printed ten plays
between 1594 and 1599, all of which he probably acquired in 1594,
although he could not get them all in circulation at once. These
include four (_T. T. of Rich. III_, _Selimus_, _Famous Victories_,
_Clyomon and Clamydes_) from the Queen’s; it is therefore probable that
some of those on whose t.ps. no company is named (_Looking Glass_,
_Locrine_, _Pedlar’s Prophecy_, _James IV_, _Alphonsus_) were from the
same source. The tenth, _Menaechmi_, was not an acting play.
[599] Pollard, _Sh. F._ 44; cf. ch. ix.
[600] The Folio editors of Shakespeare condemn the Quartos, or some
of them, as ‘stolne, and surreptitious copies’; ‘piratical’, although
freely used by Mr. Pollard and others, is not a very happy term, since
no piracy of copyright is involved. The authorized Q_{2} of _Roxana_
(1632) claims to be ‘a plagiarii unguibus vindicata’.
[601] Introduction, xxxvi of his edition.
[602] R. B. McKerrow in _Bibl. Soc. Trans._ xii. 294; J. D. Wilson,
_The Copy for Hamlet 1603 and the Hamlet Transcript 1593_ (1918).
[603] C. Dewischeit, _Shakespeare und die Stenographie_
(_Sh.-Jahrbuch_, xxxiv. 170); cf. Lee, 113, quoting Sir G. Buck’s
_Third Universitie of England_ (1612; cf. ch. iii), ‘They which know it
[brachygraphy] can readily take a Sermon, Oration, Play, or any long
speech, as they are spoke, dictated, acted, and uttered in the instant’.
[604] Pollard, _Sh. F._ 48; _F. and Q._ 64. More recently A. W.
Pollard and J. D. Wilson have developed a theory (_T. L. S._ Jan.–Aug.
1919) that the ‘bad quartos’ rest upon pre-Shakespearian texts partly
revised by Shakespeare, of which shortened transcripts had been made
for a travelling company in 1593, and which had been roughly adapted
by an actor-reporter so as to bring them into line with the later
Shakespearian texts current at the time of publication. Full discussion
of this theory belongs to a study of Shakespeare. The detailed
application of it in J. D. Wilson, _The Copy for Hamlet 1603 and the
Hamlet Transcript 1593_ (1918), does not convince me that Shakespeare
had touched the play in 1593, although I think that the reporter was in
a position to make some slight use of a pre-Shakespearian _Hamlet_. And
although travelling companies were doubtless smaller than the largest
London companies (cf. chh. xi and xiii, s.v. Pembroke’s), there is no
external evidence that special ‘books’ were prepared for travelling.
For another criticism of the theory, cf. W. J. Lawrence in _T. L.
S._ for 21 Aug. 1919. Causes other than travelling might explain the
shortening of play texts: prolixity, even in an experienced dramatist
(cf. t.p. of _Duchess of Malfi_), the approach of winter afternoons, an
increased popular demand for jigs.
[605] Cf. G. Wither, _Schollers Purgatory_ (_c._ 1625), 28, ‘Yea, by
the lawes and Orders of their Corporation, they can and do setle upon
the particuler members thereof a perpetuall interest in such Bookes
as are Registred by them at their Hall, in their several Names: and
are secured in taking the ful benefit of those books, better then any
Author can be by vertue of the Kings Grant, notwithstanding their first
Coppies were purloyned from the true owner, or imprinted without his
leave’.
[606] Pollard, _F. and Q._ 10. Mr. Pollard seems to suggest (_F. and
Q._ 3) that copyright in a printed book did not hold as against the
author. He cites the case of Nashe’s _Pierce Pennilesse_, but there
seems no special reason to assume that in this case, or in those of
_Gorboduc_ and _Hamlet_, the authorized second editions were not made
possible by an arrangement, very likely involving blackmail, with the
pirate.
[607] Letter in Grosart, _Poems of Sidney_ (1877), i. xxiii. Pollard,
_F. and Q._ 8, says that on other occasions Sidney’s friends approached
the Lord Treasurer and the Star Chamber.
[608] Pollard, _F. and Q._ 7, 11. I am not sure that the appearance
of Bacon’s name can be regarded as a recognition of the principle of
author’s copyright. He may have been already in the High Commission; he
was certainly in that of 1601.
[609] Pollard, _Sh. F._ 49, 51, speaks of Burby as ‘regaining the
copyright’ by his publications, and as, moreover, saving his sixpences
‘as a license was only required for new books’. But surely there was
no copyright, as neither Danter nor Burby paid for an entry. I take
it that when, on 22 Jan. 1607, _R. J._ and _L. L. L._ were entered to
Nicholas Ling, ‘by direccõn of a Court and with consent of Master Burby
in wrytinge’, the entry of the transfer secured the copyright for the
first time.
[610] Arber, iii. 37. The ink shows that there are two distinct entries.
[611] Fleay, _L. and W._ 40; Furness, _Much Ado_, ix.
[612] Pollard, _F. and Q._ 66; _Sh. F._ 44.
[613] Roberts did not print the 1603 _Hamlet_, although he did that
of 1604; but it must have been covered by his entry of 1602, and this
makes it a little difficult to regard him (or Blount in 1609) as the
‘agent’ of the Chamberlain’s.
[614] Pollard, _F. and Q._ 66; _Sh. F._ 45.
[615] There are analogies in _Taming of the Shrew_, _2, 3 Henry VI_,
and _King John_, which were not entered in S. R. with the other
unprinted plays in 1623, and were probably regarded as covered by
copyright in the plays on which they were based, although, as a matter
of fact, the _Troublesome Reign_ was itself not entered.
[616] Pollard, _Sh. F._ 53.
[617] They had risks to run. The Star Chamber fined and imprisoned
William Buckner, late chaplain to the archbishop, for licensing
Prynne’s _Histriomastix_ in 1633 (Rushworth, _Historical Collections_,
ii. 234).
[618] _M. S. C._ i. 364; _Variorum_, iii. 159.
[619] Moseley’s _Epistle_ to F_{1} (1647) of Beaumont and Fletcher
says, ‘When these _Comedies_ and _Tragedies_ were presented on the
Stage, the _Actours_ omitted some _Scenes_ and Passages (with the
_Authour’s_ consent) as occasion led them; and when private friends
desir’d a Copy, they then (and justly too) transcribed what they Acted’.
[620] See _Epistles_ to Armin, _Two Maids of Moreclack_; Chapman,
_Widow’s Tears_; Heywood, _Rape of Lucrece_, _Golden Age_; Marston,
_Malcontent_; Middleton, _Family of Love_.
[621] Jonson, _E. M. O._ (1600), ‘As it was first composed by the
Author B. I. Containing more than hath been publikely spoken or acted’;
Barnes, _Devil’s Charter_ (1607), ‘As it was plaide.... But more
exactly reuewed, corrected, and augmented since by the Author, for the
more pleasure and profit of the Reader’; Webster, _Duchess of Malfi_
(1623), ‘with diuerse things Printed, that the length of the Play would
not beare in the Presentment’.
[622] Pollard, _Sh. F._ 57; _F. and Q._ 117.
[623] The editors of the Shakespeare F_{1} claim that they are
replacing ‘stolne, and surreptitious copies’ by plays ‘absolute in
their numbers, as he conceiued them’, and that ‘wee haue scarse
receiued from him a blot in his papers’; and those of the Beaumont
and Fletcher F_{1} say they ‘had the Originalls from such as received
them from the Authors themselves’ and lament ‘into how many hands the
Originalls were dispersed’. The same name ‘original’ was used for the
authoritative copy of a civic miracle-play; cf. _Mediaeval Stage_, ii.
143.
[624] The manuscripts of _Sir John Barnevelt_ (_Addl. MS._ 18653),
_Believe As You List_ (_Egerton MS._ 2828), _The Honest Man’s Fortune_
(_Dyce MS._ 9), _The Faithful Friends_ (_Dyce MS._ 10), and _The
Sisters_ (_Sion College MS._) appear to be play-house copies, with
licensing corrections, and in some cases the licences endorsed, and
some of them may be in the authors’ autographs; cf. Pollard, _Sh.
F._ 59; Mönkemeyer, 72. Several of the copies in _Egerton MS._ 1994,
described by F. S. Boas in _3 Library_ (July 1917), including that of
_1 Richard II_, are of a similar type.
[625] Sir Henry Herbert noted in his office-book in 1633 (_Variorum_,
iii. 208), ‘The Master ought to have copies of their new playes
left with him, that he may be able to shew what he hath allowed or
disallowed’, but it was clearly not the current practice. In 1640
(_Variorum_, iii. 241) he suppressed an unlicensed play, and noted,
‘The play I cald for, and, forbiddinge the playinge of it, keepe the
booke’, which suggests that only one copy existed.
[626] Greg, _Henslowe Papers_, 155, prints it; cf. _1 Antonio and
Mellida_, ind. 1, ‘Enter ... with parts in their hands’; _Wily
Beguiled_, prol. 1, ‘Where are these paltrie Plaiers? stil poaring in
their papers and neuer perfect?’ By derivation, the words assigned
to an actor became his ‘part’; cf. Dekker, _News from Hell_ (1606,
_Works_, ii. 144), ‘with pittifull action, like a Plaier, when hees out
of his part’.
[627] In 1623 Herbert re-allowed _The Winter’s Tale_, ‘thogh the
allowed booke was missinge’, and in 1625 _The Honest Man’s Fortune_,
‘the originall being lost’ (_Variorum_, iii. 229).
[628] Cf. App. N.
[629] The handing over of ‘papers’ is referred to in several letters to
Henslowe; cf. _Henslowe Papers_, 56, 69, 75, 76, 81, 82.
[630] He sends Henslowe an instalment ‘fayr written’, and on another
occasion says, ‘I send you the foule sheet and y^e fayr I was wrighting
as your man can testify’ (_Henslowe Papers_, 72, 78).
[631] Pollard, _Sh. F._ 62.
[632] _Birth of Hercules_, 3, ‘Notae marginales inseruiant dirigendae
histrion[ic]ae’; Nashe, _Summer’s Last Will and Testament_, 1813, ‘You
might haue writ in the margent of your play-booke, Let there be a fewe
rushes laide in the place where _Back-winter_ shall tumble, for feare
of raying his cloathes: or set downe, Enter _Back-winter_, with his boy
bringing a brush after him, to take off the dust if need require. But
you will ne’re haue any wardrobe wit while you live. I pray you holde
the booke well, that we be not _non plus_ in the latter end of the
play.’
[633] ‘Exit’ and ‘Exeunt’ soon became the traditional directions for
leaving the stage, but I find ‘Exite omnes’ in Peele, _Edw. I_, 1263.
[634] Mönkemeyer, 73.
[635] _T. N. K._ I. iii. 69, ‘2 Hearses ready with Palamon: and Arcite:
the 3 Queenes. Theseus: and his Lordes ready’, i.e. ready for I. iv,
which begins 42 lines later; and again I. iv. 29, ‘3 Hearses ready’,
for I. v, beginning 24 lines later. So too _Bussy D’Ambois_ (1641, not
1607 ed.), I. i. 153, ‘Table, Chesbord and Tapers behind the Arras’,
ready for I. ii.
[636] _A Shrew_, ind. i, ‘San.’ for speaker; _The Shrew_ (F_{1}), ind.
i. 88, ‘Sincklo’ for speaker; _3 Hen. VI_ (F_{1}), I. ii. 48, ‘Enter
Gabriel’; III. i. 1, ‘Enter Sinklo, and Humfrey’; _R. J._ (Q_{2}), IV.
v. 102, ‘Enter Will Kemp’; _M. N. D._ (F_{1}), V. i. 128, ‘Tawyer with
a Trumpet before them’; _1 Hen. IV_ (Q_{1}), I. ii. 182 (text, not
s.d.), ‘Falstaffe, Haruey, Rossill, and Gadshil, shall rob those men
that we haue already waylaid’ (cf. II. ii); _2 Hen. IV_ (Q_{1}), V. iv.
1, ‘Enter Sincklo and three or foure officers’; _M. Ado_ (F_{1}), II.
iii. 38, ‘Enter Prince, Leonato, Claudio and Iacke Wilson’; _M. Ado_ (Q
and F), IV. ii, ‘Cowley’ and ‘Kemp’ for speakers; _T.N.K._ v. 3, ‘T.
Tucke: Curtis’, IV. ii. 75, ‘Enter Messenger, Curtis’; _1 Antonio and
Mellida_, IV. i. 30, ‘Enter Andrugio, Lucio, Cole, and Norwood’; for
other examples, cf. pp. 227, 271, 285, 295, 330, and vol. iv, p. 43.
The indications of speakers by the letters E. and G. in _All’s Well_,
II. i; III. i, ii, vi, may have a similar origin. The names of actors
are entered in the ‘plots’ after those of the characters represented
(cf. _Henslowe Papers_, 127).
[637] _Alphonsus_, prol. 1, ‘after you haue sounded thrise’; 1938,
‘Exit Venus. Or, if you can conueniently, let a chaire come down from
the top of the stage’; _James IV_, 1463, ‘Enter certaine Huntsmen,
if you please, singing’; 1931, ‘Enter, from the widdowes house, a
seruice, musical songs of marriages, or a maske, or what prettie
triumph you list’; _Three Lords and Three Ladies of London_, sig. C,
‘Here Simp[licitie] sings first, and Wit after, dialoguewise, both to
musicke if ye will’; _Locrine_, I. i. 1, ‘Let there come foorth a Lion
running after a Beare or any other beast’; _Death of R. Hood_, III. ii,
‘Enter or aboue [Hubert, Chester]’; _2 Hen. VI_, IV. ii. 33, ‘Enter
Cade [etc.] with infinite numbers’; IV. ix. 9, ‘Enter Multitudes with
Halters about their Neckes’; _T. A._ I. i. 70, ‘as many as can be’;
_Edw. I_, 50, ‘Enter ... and others as many as may be’; _Sir T. More_,
sc. ix. 954, ‘Enter ... so many Aldermen as may’; _What You Will_, v.
193, ‘Enter as many Pages with torches as you can’.
[638] Mönkemeyer, 63, 91.
[639] Pollard, _Sh. F._ 79.
[640] e.g. _R. J._ (Q_{1}), III. i. 94, ‘Tibalt vnder Romeos arme
thrusts Mercutio in and flyes’; III. ii. 32, ‘Enter Nurse wringing her
hands, with the ladder of cordes in her lap’; IV. v. 95, ‘They all but
the Nurse goe foorth, casting Rosemary on her and shutting the Curtens’.
[641] Cf. ch. xxi, pp. 133, 136.
[642] Pollard, _Sh. F._ 71; Van Dam and Stoffel, _William Shakespeare,
Prosody and Text_, 274; _Chapters on English Printing, Prosody, and
Pronunciation_.
[643] R. B. McKerrow, introd. xiv, to Barnes, _Devil’s Charter_.
[644] Pollard, _Sh. F._ 74; cf. his introd. to _A New Shakespeare
Quarto_ (1916).
[645] Epistles to Heywood, _Rape of Lucrece_; Marston, _Malcontent_,
_Fawn_; Middleton, _Family of Love_. In _Father Hubburd’s Tales_
Middleton says, ‘I never wished this book a better fortune than to
fall into the hands of a truespelling printer’. Heywood, in an Epistle
to _Apology for Actors_ (1612), praises the honest workmanship of
his printer, Nicholas Okes, as against that of W. Jaggard, who would
not let him issue _errata_ of ‘the infinite faults escaped in my
booke of _Britaines Troy_, by the negligence of the Printer, as the
misquotations, mistaking of sillables, misplacing halfe lines, coining
of strange and neuer heard of words’.
[646] ‘Proofs’ and ‘revises’ had come into use before 1619, for
Jaggard, criticized by Ralph Brooke for his ill printing of Brooke’s
_Catalogue of Nobility_ (1619), issued a new edition as _A Discoverie
of Errors in the First Edition of the Catalogue of Nobility_ (1622),
regretting that his workmen had not given Brooke leave to print his own
faulty English, and saying, ‘In the time of this his vnhappy sicknesse,
though hee came not in person to ouer-looke the Presse, yet the Proofe,
and Reuiewes duly attended him, and he perused them (as is well to be
iustifyed) in the maner he did before’; cf. p. 261.
[647] Cf. pp. 106, 107, 117, 127.
[648] e.g. _Cynthia’s Revels_ (F_{1}), ‘The Scene Gargaphie’;
_Philaster_ (F_{2}), ‘The scene being in Cicilie’; _Coxcomb_ (F_{2}),
‘The Scene; England, France’ (but in fact there are no scenes in
France!).
[649] _The Marriage of Wit and Wisdom_ has no acts, but nine scenes.
The latish _Jacob and Esau_, _Respublica_, _Misogonus_, _Conflict of
Conscience_ have acts and scenes.
[650] _Ralph Roister Doister_, _Gammer Gurton’s Needle_, _Gorboduc_,
_Gismund of Salerne_, _Misfortunes of Arthur_, _Jocasta_, _Supposes_,
_Bugbears_, _Two Italian Gentlemen_, _Glass of Government_, _Promos
and Cassandra_, _Arraignment of Paris_; so, too, as a rule, University
plays. _Dido_ and _Love and Fortune_, like the later private theatre
plays, show acts only.
[651] _Devil’s Charter_, _Duchess of Malfi_, _Philotas_, _Sir Giles
Goosecap_, _The Turk_, _Liberality and Prodigality_, Percy’s plays,
_The Woman Hater_, _Monsieur Thomas_, _2 Antonio and Mellida_.
[652] Acts and scenes are marked in _Tamburlaine_ and _Locrine_; acts,
or one or more of them only, sometimes with the first scene, in _Jack
Straw_, _Battle of Alcazar_, _Wounds of Civil War_, _King Leire_,
_Alphonsus_, _James IV_, _Soliman and Perseda_, _Spanish Tragedy_,
_John a Kent and John a Cumber_; a few scenes without acts in _Death
of Robin Hood_. These exceptions may indicate neo-classic sympathies
in the earlier group of scholar playwrights; some later plays, e.g. of
Beaumont and Fletcher, have partial divisions. The acts in _Spanish
Tragedy_ and _Jack Straw_ are four only; _Histriomastix_, a private
theatre play, has six. Where there are no formal divisions, they are
sometimes replaced by passages of induction or dumb-shows.
[653] Cf. ch. xxi.
[654] Pollard, _F. and Q._ 124; _Sh. F._ 79.
[655] Creizenach, 248.
[656] _Melville’s Diary_ (Bannatyne Club), 22.
[657] R. Hudson, _Memorials of a Warwickshire Parish_, 141.
[658] Lodge, _Defence of Plays_, 7.
[659] Collier, _Memoirs of Alleyn_, 133.
[660] _Plays Confuted_, 167
[661] _School of Abuse_, 40.
[662] Lodge, _Defence of Plays_, 28.
[663] _Plays Confuted_, 165.
[664] _Repentance_ (Grosart, xii. 177).
[665] Grosart, xii. 134.
[666] Ibid. viii. 128.
[667] Ibid. vii. 7.
[668] App. M; cf. E. Köppel (_Archiv_, cii. 357); W. Bang (_E. S._
xxviii. 229).
[669] Grosart, vi. 86, 119.
[670] Grosart, vi. 31.
[671] Sig. A 3^v. _Farewell to Folly_ was entered on S. R. on 11
June 1587 (Arber, ii. 471), but the first extant edition of 1591 was
probably the first published, and the use of the term ‘Martinize’ in
the preface dates it as at least post-1589 (cf. Simpson, ii. 349).
[672] Grosart, xi. 75.
[673] _Strange News_ (Nashe, i. 271); cf. _Pierce Penniless; his
Supplication to the Devil_ (Nashe, i. 198) and _Have With You to
Saffron Walden_ (Nashe, iii. 130). The passage about ‘make-plays’ is in
an Epistle only found in some copies of _The Lamb of God_ (Nashe, v.
180).
[674] This allusion is not in the extant 1592 editions of the pamphlet
(Grosart, xi. 206, 258).
[675] Ed. Grosart, i. 167.
[676] Ed. McKerrow, i. 247.
[677] Ed. Gosart, ii. 222, 322.
[678] Ed. McKerrow, iii. 131.
[679] Arber, ii. 620.
[680] App. C, No. xlviii.
Transcriber’s Notes:
1. Obvious printers’, punctuation and spelling errors have been
corrected silently.
2. Original spelling has been retained where appropriate.
3. Some hyphenated and non-hyphenated versions of the same words have been
retained as in the original.
4.Superscripts are represented using the caret character, e.g. D^r.
or X^{xx}. Subscripts are shown as X{x}.
5. Italics are shown as _xxx_.