in 1600 borrowing 40s. 'to geue vnto the printer, to staye the printing of Patient Gresell'.[1] We find the King's Revels syndicate in 1608 entering into a formal agreement debarring its members from putting any of the play-books jointly owned by them into print. And we find the editor and publisher of Troilus and Cressida, although that had in fact never been played, bidding his readers in 1609 'thanke fortune for the scape it hath made amongst you; since by the grand possessors wills I beleeue you should have prayd for them rather than beene prayd'. The marked fluctuation in the output of plays in different years is capable of explanation on the theory that, so long as the companies were prosperous, they kept a tight hold on their 'books', and only let them pass into the hands of the publishers when adversity broke them up, or when they had some special need to raise funds. The periods of maximum output are 1594, 1600, and 1607. In 1594 the companies were reforming themselves after a long and disastrous spell of plague; and in particular the Queen's, Pembroke's, and Sussex's men were all ruined, and their books were thrown in bulk upon the market.[2] It has been suggested that the sales of 1600 may have been due to Privy Council restrictions of that year, which limited the number of companies, and forbade them to play for more than two days in the week.[3] But it is very doubtful whether the limitation of days really became operative, and many of the plays published belonged to the two companies, the Chamberlain's and the Admiral's, who stood to gain by the elimination of competitors. An alternative reason might be found in the call for ready money involved by the building of the Globe in 1599 and the Fortune in 1600. The main factor in 1607 was the closing of Paul's and the sale of the plays acted there.
Sometimes the companies were outwitted. Needy and unscrupulous stationers might use illegitimate means to
- [Footnote: 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.]
- ↑ Henslowe, i. 119.
- ↑ 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.
- ↑ Pollard, Sh. F. 44; cf. ch. ix.
