Mr. Pollard's conjecture is right, another of Love's Labour's Lost. He had made no entry in the Register, and it was therefore open to another publisher, Cuthbert Burby, to issue, without breach of copyright, 'corrected' editions of the same plays.[1] This he did, with suitable trumpetings of the corrections on the title-pages, and presumably by arrangement with the Chamberlain's men. It was this affair which must, I think, have led the company to apply for protection to their lord. On 22 July 1598 an entry was made in the Stationers' Register of The Merchant of Venice for the printer James Roberts. This entry is conditional in form, but it differs from the normal conditional entries in that the requirement specified is not an indefinite 'aucthoritie' but a 'lycence from the Right honorable the lord chamberlen'. Roberts also entered Cloth Breeches and Velvet Hose on 27 May 1600, A Larum for London on 29 May 1600, and Troilus and Cressida on 7 February 1603. These also are all conditional entries but of a normal type. No condition, however, is attached to his entry of Hamlet on 26 July 1602. Now comes a significant piece of evidence, which at least shows that in 1600, as well as in 1598, the Stationers' Company were paying particular attention to entries of plays coming from the repertory of the Chamberlain's men. The register contains, besides the formal entries, certain spare pages upon which the clerk was accustomed to make occasional memoranda, and amongst these memoranda we find the following:[2]
My lord chamberlens menns plaies Entred
viz
27 May 1600 To Master Robertes
A moral of 'clothe breches and velvet hose'
27 May To hym
Allarum to London
4 Augusti
As you like yt, a booke }
Henry the ffift, a booke }
Every man in his humour, a booke } to be staied
The commedie of 'muche A doo about }
nothing', a booke }
- ↑ 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.
- ↑ Arber, iii. 37. The ink shows that there are two distinct entries.
