[4] This paper, which was first printed in "An English Miscellany, presented to Dr Furnivall in honour of his seventy-fifth birthday" (Oxford: At the Clarendon Press, 1901), was written as a lecture for delivery on Tuesday afternoon, March 20, 1900, at Queen's College (for women) in Harley Street, London, in aid of the Fund for securing a picture commemorating Queen Victoria's visit to the College in 1898.
[5] Performances of plays in Shakespeare's time always took place in the afternoon.
[6] Professor Binz of Basle printed in September 1899 some extracts from Thomas Platter's unpublished diary of travels under the title: Londoner Theater und Schauspiele im Jahre 1599. Platter spent a month in London—September 18 to October 20, 1599. Platter's manuscript is in the Library of Basle University.
[7] Chapman's Revenge of Bussy D'Ambois, Act I., Sc. i.
[8] See [pp. 20-1], supra.
[9] This paper was first printed in The Nineteenth Century and After, February 1902.
[10] Such a compilation had been contemplated in 1614, two years before the dramatist died, by one of Shakespeare's own associates, Thomas Heywood. Twenty-one years later, in 1635, Heywood spoke of "committing to the public view" his summary Lives of the Poets, but nothing more was heard of that project.
[11] Iago says of Othello, in Othello I., iii. 405: "The Moor is of a free and open nature."
[12] Like almost all their colleagues, they had much literary taste. When public events compulsorily retired them from the stage, they, with the aid of the dramatist Shirley and eight other actors, two of whom were members with them of Shakespeare's old company, did an important service to English literature. In 1647 they collected for first publication in folio Beaumont and Fletcher's plays; only one, The Wild Goose Chase, was omitted, and that piece Taylor and Lowin brought out by their unaided efforts five years later.
[13] Aubrey's Lives, being reports of his miscellaneous gossip, were first fully printed from his manuscripts in the Bodleian Library by the Clarendon Press in 1898. They were most carefully edited by the Rev. Andrew Clark.