The catalogues of Phillips and Winstanley are, as their titles state, not primarily play lists, and their importance to a discussion of dramatic bibliographies resides solely in the use made of them by Langbaine. Two hundred and fifty-two British poets are named in Phillips' Theatrum Poetarum. Of these some one hundred and sixty-nine were authors of plays. The titlepage of Winstanley's Lives advertises an account "of above Two Hundred" poets, but "147 are actually listed in the catalogue, and only 168 are noted throughout."[3] Four hundred and sixty-seven plays by sixty authors are included. From Phillips' collection Winstanley omits the thirty-three Scottish poets and sixty-eight English poets. William Riley Parker believes that most of Winstanley's omissions were deliberate and that his "endeavor, unlike Phillips', was to give a chronological survey of English poetry from Robert of Gloucester down to Sir Roger L'Estrange."[4] Parker defines the differing contributions of the two men in the following manner:
Phillips is more the bibliographer and cataloguer, collecting names and titles; Winstanley is the amateur literary historian, seeking out the verse itself, arranging it in chronological order, and trying to pass judgment upon it.[5]
As a bibliographer Phillips was exceedingly inaccurate and "the Theatrum was a hasty, careless piece of hack work," whose convenience was seriously damaged by a poor organization which alphabetizes the poets in four sections by their first names, with no last name index. His source materials were of the easiest and most superficial kind.[6] Both Phillips and Winstanley misunderstood Kirkman's method of listing anonymous plays and this, as Langbaine notes in the Preface to Momus, led "both these charitable kind Gentlemen" to find "Fathers for them, by ranking each under the Authors Name that preceded them in the former Catalogues"([A3r]).[7]
Although he acknowledged all three men in his Preface and mentions them each about thirty times in the Account, it was Kirkman who was most admired by Langbaine and of most use to him. Kirkman's Catalogue of 1671, "the first ... printed of any worth," was the principal source of Momus, and it, in turn, was based on a catalogue which Kirkman made and published ten years previously.[8] The format of Kirkman's 1671 catalogue followed the general format of his earlier catalogue and of several earlier play lists[9] by arranging the plays alphabetically by title and with some haphazard attempt at chronological order as well, but, as Langbaine described it, "promiscuously as to those of Authors" except for "Shakespeare, Fletcher, Johnson, and some others of the most voluminous Authors," whose works were inserted in first place ([A3r]). The catalogue listed eight hundred and eight plays, and its principal orientation was most likely not scholarly but commercial, to list the books which Kirkman had for sale.[10] Nevertheless, Kirkman argued for the completeness of the second catalogue:
I really believe there are no more [plays], for I have been these twenty years a Collector of them, and have conversed with, and enquired of those that have been Collecting these fifty years. These, I can assure you, are all in Print, for I have seen them all within ten, and now have them all by me within thirty.[11]
Langbaine's first catalogue, An Exact Account, was published anonymously and his authorship of this work has been questioned.[12] But he refers to it as his own at least three times (on pages 13, 395 and 409[13]) in the Account. Basically, in An Exact Account Langbaine "Reprinted Kirkman's [catalogue] with emendations, but in the same Form" ([A3r]), with an added alphabetical list giving authors publishing from 1675 to 1680. As James Osborn has shown, Langbaine perpetuated most of Kirkman's errors, even where Dryden was concerned, still mistakenly attributing to him Love in a Wood and to his brother-in-law, Sir Robert Howard, The Maiden Queen and Sir Martin Mar-All.[14]
An Exact Catalogue, in turn, formed the basis for Momus.[15] It has been suggested that Langbaine worked for Kirkman and came into possession of his collection, but the small evidence in Momus is to the contrary: Langbaine lists Kirkman's own play Presbyterian Lash as anonymous, and in the play index he enters The Wits (1672), a collection of drolls Kirkman claimed to have compiled, as "By Sir W. D." and then omits it from the main lists. In the Account, Wits is assigned anonymously.
At the time of An Exact Catalogue it can only be assumed that Langbaine's attitude toward Dryden was similar to Kirkman's: