[480] Henslowe, i. 72, 78.
[481] Cf. ch. xv, s.v. Alleyn.
[482] The only entry is of 15 July ‘to bye a boocke’, but the hiatus in the manuscript probably conceals earlier payments.
[483] Here also the hiatus has only left an entry of £2 ‘in full payment’ on 1 Aug. Dr. Greg, however, would identify Bear a Brain and The Gentle Craft.
[484] The entries are as follows: 2 Sept., ‘Thomas Deckers Bengemen Johnson Hary Chettell & other Jentellman in earneste of a playe calle Robart the second kinge of Scottes tragedie’; 15 Sept., ‘in earneste of a boocke called the Scottes tragedi vnto Thomas Dickers & Harey Chettell’; 16 Sept., ‘Hary Chettell ... in earneste of a boocke called the Scottes tragedie’; 27 Sept., ‘Bengemen Johnsone in earneste of a boocke called the Scottes tragedie’; 28 Sept., ‘vnto Mr Maxton the new poete in earneste of a boocke called [blank]’. Dr. Greg resists the fairly reasonable identification of ‘Mr Maxton the new poete’ with the ‘other Jentellman’. All the payments are called earnests, but the total is £6 10s. and therefore the play probably existed.
[485] ‘Lent vnto me W Birde the 9 of Februarye to paye for a new booke to Will Boyle cald Jugurth xxxs which if you dislike Ile repaye it back.’ The price is the lowest ever entered for a ‘new’ book. Mr. Fleay’s suggestion that Will Bird, who already had one alias in Will Borne, was also himself Will Boyle, is one of those irresponsible guesses by which he has done so much to make hay of theatrical history.
[486] Both parts were entered on the Stationers’ Register, but no copy of 2 Sir John Oldcastle is known.
[487] Bodl. Ashm. MS. 236, f. 77v (c. 1600), has Forman’s note of the ‘plai of Cox of Cullinton and his 3 sons, Henry Peter and Jhon’.
[488] Henslowe Papers, 49.
[489] This was taken up again in 1601, but still not finished. Dr. Greg, however, thinks that it is identical with Day’s Italian tragedy, and forms half of Two Lamentable Tragedies (1601), and that Chettle’s work in 1601 may have been the effecting of the combination with Thomas Merry.