the repertory of the Admiral's men. There are also entries of the purchase of costumes and properties for certain plays, and of fees for the licensing of plays by the Master of the Revels. And there is a valuable series of inventories, formerly preserved at Dulwich, and dating from 1598, which record respectively the stock of apparel and properties in the hands of the Admiral's men during the second week of March, their play-books at the same date, and the additions made out of Henslowe's purchases up to about the following August.[1] The theory that some of the plays recorded in the diary were never finished receives confirmation from the absence of any corroborative proof of their existence in these subsidiary entries and documents, whereas such evidence exists in the case of a very large proportion of the plays for which the diary records payment in full. It must not, however, be assumed, either that every play completed necessarily got produced, although it is not likely that many were withheld, or that a play was necessarily not produced, because no special apparel or properties were bought for it, since it may have been quite possible to mount some plays out of the company's existing stock. The number of fees paid for licensing is so small in proportion to the number of plays certainly produced, that these fees cannot all be supposed to have passed through Henslowe's hands.
Subject to the difficulties discussed in the foregoing paragraphs, I think that the following is a fairly accurate account of the repertory of the company for the three years now in question.[2] During 1597-8 they purchased seventeen
- ↑ Henslowe Papers, 113, from Malone (1790), i. 2. 300; the manuscript is now lost. The various sections of the document are headed: (a) 'The booke of the Inventary of the goods of my lord Admeralles men, tacken the 10 of Marche in the yeare 1598'; (b) 'The Enventary of the Clownes sewtes and Hermetes Swetes, with dievers others sewtes, as followeth, 1598, the 10 of March'; (c) 'The Enventary of all the aparell for my Lord Admiralles men, tacken the 10 of Marche 1598—Leaft above in the tier-*house in the cheast'; (d) 'The Enventary tacken of all the properties for my Lord Admeralles men, the 10 of Marche 1598'; (e) 'The Enventorey of all the aparell of the Lord Admeralles men, taken the 13^{th} of Marche 1598, as followeth'; (f) 'A Note of all suche bookes as belong to the Stocke, and such as I have bought since the 3^d of Marche 1598'; (g) 'A Note of all suche goodes as I have bought for the Companey of my Lord Admirals men, sence the 3 of Aprell, 1598, as followeth'. A comparison of the book-list with the diary payments makes it clear that '1598' is 1597/8 and not 1598/9. The last book entered was bought in Aug. 1598. An undated inventory of Alleyn's private theatrical wardrobe is in Henslowe Papers, 52.
- ↑ It should be borne in mind that these lists are based in part upon a rather conjectural interpretation of evidence. Full details, for which I have not space, will be found in Henslowe, ii. 186 sqq. I have annotated a few points of interest.
