probably rest upon misunderstandings and others represent works which were not plays at all, while a large proportion are derived from late entries in the Stationers' Register by Humphrey Moseley of plays which he may have possessed in manuscript but never actually proceeded to publish.[1] Some of the earlier unfulfilled entries may be of similar type. An interesting piece of evidence pointing to the practically complete survival at any rate of seventeenth-century prints is afforded in a catalogue of his library of plays made by Sir John Harington in or about 1610.[2] Harington possessed 129 distinct plays, as well as a number of duplicates. Only 9 of these were printed before 1586. He had 14 out of 38 printed during 1588-94, and 15 out of 25 printed during 1595-99. His absence in Ireland during 1599 probably led him to miss several belonging to that year, and his most vigorous period as a collector began with 1600. During 1600-10 he secured 90 out of 105; that is to say exactly six-sevenths of the complete output of the London press. I neglect plays printed outside London in these figures. There is only one play among the 129 which is not known to us. Apparently it bore the title Belinus and Brennus.
It is generally supposed, and I think with justice, that the acting companies did not find it altogether to their advantage to have their plays printed. Heywood, indeed, in the epistle to his English Traveller (1633) tells us that this was sometimes the case.[3] Presumably the danger was not so much that readers would not become spectators, as that other companies might buy the plays and act them; and of this practice there are some dubious instances, although at any rate by Caroline times it had been brought under control by the Lord Chamberlain.[4] At any rate, we find the Admiral's*
- ↑ 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'.
- ↑ 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.
- ↑ Cf. ch. xxiii, s.v. Heywood.
- ↑ 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
