sibly it had been mislaid by the printers of the First Folio. The actors, however, regarded it as so imperative to have in their hands a properly allowed copy of the play that they sent Heminges to the Master of the Revels with a text (doubtless as printed in the Folio) to secure his relicense and official signature. Herbert made the following entry in his office-book: "For the King's Players, an old play called Winter's Tale, formerly allowed of by Sir George Buc, and now likewise by me, on Mr. Heminges' word that there was nothing profane added, or reformed, though the allowed book was missing."

Obviously "the allowed book" of each play had to be preserved as a matter of safety to the company. Moreover, from it at any time new actor-parts could be made, if the old ones were lost or worn out; but except in special and unusual cases no other complete copy of the play would be made,1 or allowed to be made. There was, indeed, no occasion for a second copy, and the everpresent danger of theft by pirates of the publishing trade, or by rival companies, had to be guarded against.

From the foregoing, it will be seen that the printed text of many, if not most, of Shakespeare's plays would necessarily be derived immediately or ultimately from the prompt-books; furthermore, that in some cases, possibly in the majority of cases, these prompt-books were in the autograph of the poet. Normally, therefore, we should expect to have a Shakespearean play set up from the author's original draft (modified by the cuts and

1 Sometimes the author might retain a copy for his own purposes, as Jonson seems to have done; Heywood declares that he did not thus preserve his own plays. And sometimes a special shortened version might be prepared for the use of the troupe while traveling in the country. It is true that the publisher of the Folio of Beaumont and Fletcher, 1647, speaks of transcripts, for private reading made by friends of the actors; but these transcripts, I suspect, were permitted after the closing of the theatres in 1642. In the case of Shakespeare, Troilus and Cressida, and possibly Hamlet, represent the exception; see pp. 347-49, and 521.

alterations inevitable in a prompt-book), or from a transcript therefrom made for the use of the type-compositors. There are, of course, a few exceptions, to be discussed hereafter.1

1 For a more detailed discussion of the topics handled in this chapter the reader is referred to the following works: A. W. Pollard, Shakespeare Folios and Quartos, 1909, A New Shakespeare Quarto, 1916, and Shakespeare's Fight with the Pirates, and the Problems of the Transmission of His Text, 1920; Percy Simpson, "The Play of Sir Thomas More and Shakespeare's Hand in It," The Library, 1917, viii, 79.

CHAPTER XXVIII

THE PRINTING OF THE QUARTOS

THE question frequently is asked, Why did not Shakespeare himself publish his plays, freed from the cuts of the actors and the scars of the tiring-house, “absolute in their numbers as he conceived them"? One reason, doubtless, may be found in the prevailing opinion that plays were not lasting contributions to literature, and would confer little honor on the poet. But a more potent reason is to be found in the fact that when Shakespeare sold his manuscripts to the company he parted with all right in them, and the company, regarding them as its own property upon which its income depended, was unwilling to let them be printed. As Heywood tells us, the actors "think it against their peculiar profit [i.e., personal gain] to have them come into print." Years after Shakespeare's death, Leonard Digges wrote:

But oh! what praise more powerful can we give

The dead than that by him the King's Men live.1

Naturally, as long as his plays were among their important sources of income the King's Men would be anxious to prevent their sale to the public. And how deeply concerned actors in general were to forestall the publication of their manuscripts is shown in the Articles of Agreement signed by the members of the Company of the Revels at Whitefriars in 1608. One clause of the agreement reads: "That no man of the said company shall at any time put into print, or cause to be put into print, any

1 Lines prefixed to the 1640 edition of Shakespeare's Poems, but doubtless written earlier, for they seem to have been designed for the First Folio of 1623.

manner of play-book now in use, or that hereafter shall be sold unto them, upon the penalty and forfeiture of forty pounds sterling, or the loss of his place and share of all things amongst them." 1

The reason for a company's great anxiety to prevent the printing of its manuscripts is obvious. Representing a substantial outlay of money, they constituted the company's stock-in-trade; and so long as they could be enjoyed only in the theatre, enabled the actors to draw thither the London public. When the King's Men in 1637 complained to Philip Herbert, Earl of Pembroke, then the Lord Chamberlain, that divers of their plays, which they had for "their own use bought and provided at very dear and high rates," had been "lately stolen, or gotten from them by indirect means," and "are now attempted to be printed," he promptly ordered the Master and Wardens of the Stationers' Company to prevent it, on the ground that the publication of the actors' property, "if it should be suffered, would directly tend to their apparent detriment and great prejudice.'

"2

Yet theatrical manuscripts, of course, were often printed. During Shakespeare's lifetime no fewer than sixteen of his plays-not counting Pericles - came to the press; and hundreds of plays by other authors were offered for sale on the stalls of the bookshops. Between 1590 and 1600, for example, over one hundred and fifty plays were entered in the Stationers' Registers. Clearly so large a number would be possible only through the consent of the actors, who for one reason or another released their manuscripts for publication. The main occasions for these authorized editions may be noted as follows.

1 The New Shakspere Society Transactions, 1887-90, p. 276.

This interesting letter, bearing the date June 10, 1637, is printed by George Chalmers, Apology, p. 513, and by J. P. Collier, The History of Eng

First, when a company disbanded, its manuscripts, along with its costumes and properties, were divided among the sharers, and so came upon the market. Some of the more successful manuscripts might be disposed of at good rates to rival companies; some would be sold to publishers. This was the case when the Earl of Pembroke's Men went into bankruptcy in 1593. The Lord Strange's Men seized the opportunity to purchase from them certain plays, notably Hamlet. At the same time other plays were secured by publishers, notably Titus Andronicus, which was issued in February, 1593-94. This was the first of Shakespeare's plays to come into print, and, so far as we know, the only one to reach the reading public in this manner.

Secondly, when hard times or other misfortune reduced a troupe to a state of poverty, the actors might sell a few of their manuscripts in order to supply their pressing needs. This is why during and immediately after the visitations of the plague we find an unusual number of plays entered in the Stationers' Registers. Since, however, the prosperous Chamberlain-King's Company never was in dire pecuniary straits, none of Shakespeare's manuscripts was disposed of by them for this reason.

Thirdly, some unusual circumstance might render the publication of a play desirable. When Sejanus was hopelessly damned on its initial performance, Jonson naturally wished to offer it to the reading public in order to demonstrate its merits as literature, as well as to clear himself of the charge of its treasonable nature, which had led to his being summoned "before the Council." Daniel likewise published his Philotas after "the wrong application and misconceiving" of its plot had involved him in serious difficulty with the authorities. A somewhat sim

lish Dramatic Poetry, 1879, ii, 17, note 1. See also a similar letter of 1641, in The Malone Society's Collections, i, 367.