[624] The manuscripts of Sir John Barnevelt (Addl. MS. 18653), Believe As You List (Egerton MS. 2828), The Honest Man’s Fortune (Dyce MS. 9), The Faithful Friends (Dyce MS. 10), and The Sisters (Sion College MS.) appear to be play-house copies, with licensing corrections, and in some cases the licences endorsed, and some of them may be in the authors’ autographs; cf. Pollard, Sh. F. 59; Mönkemeyer, 72. Several of the copies in Egerton MS. 1994, described by F. S. Boas in 3 Library (July 1917), including that of 1 Richard II, are of a similar type.
[625] Sir Henry Herbert noted in his office-book in 1633 (Variorum, iii. 208), ‘The Master ought to have copies of their new playes left with him, that he may be able to shew what he hath allowed or disallowed’, but it was clearly not the current practice. In 1640 (Variorum, iii. 241) he suppressed an unlicensed play, and noted, ‘The play I cald for, and, forbiddinge the playinge of it, keepe the booke’, which suggests that only one copy existed.
[626] Greg, Henslowe Papers, 155, prints it; cf. 1 Antonio and Mellida, ind. 1, ‘Enter ... with parts in their hands’; Wily Beguiled, prol. 1, ‘Where are these paltrie Plaiers? stil poaring in their papers and neuer perfect?’ By derivation, the words assigned to an actor became his ‘part’; cf. Dekker, News from Hell (1606, Works, ii. 144), ‘with pittifull action, like a Plaier, when hees out of his part’.
[627] In 1623 Herbert re-allowed The Winter’s Tale, ‘thogh the allowed booke was missinge’, and in 1625 The Honest Man’s Fortune, ‘the originall being lost’ (Variorum, iii. 229).
[628] Cf. App. N.
[629] The handing over of ‘papers’ is referred to in several letters to Henslowe; cf. Henslowe Papers, 56, 69, 75, 76, 81, 82.
[630] He sends Henslowe an instalment ‘fayr written’, and on another occasion says, ‘I send you the foule sheet and ye fayr I was wrighting as your man can testify’ (Henslowe Papers, 72, 78).
[631] Pollard, Sh. F. 62.
[632] Birth of Hercules, 3, ‘Notae marginales inseruiant dirigendae histrion[ic]ae’; Nashe, Summer’s Last Will and Testament, 1813, ‘You might haue writ in the margent of your play-booke, Let there be a fewe rushes laide in the place where Back-winter shall tumble, for feare of raying his cloathes: or set downe, Enter Back-winter, with his boy bringing a brush after him, to take off the dust if need require. But you will ne’re haue any wardrobe wit while you live. I pray you holde the booke well, that we be not non plus in the latter end of the play.’
[633] ‘Exit’ and ‘Exeunt’ soon became the traditional directions for leaving the stage, but I find ‘Exite omnes’ in Peele, Edw. I, 1263.