Among the various documents which make us aware of this situation, so general then, but so strongly in contrast with modern methods, three explicit statements by Heywood are so illuminating that they deserve quotation. One occurs in the preface to his Rape of Lucrece, 1630:
To the Reader.—It hath beene no custome in mee of all other men (courteous Reader) to commit my plaies to the presse: the reason though some may attribute to my owne insufficiencie, I had rather subscribe in that to their seuare censure then by seeking to auoide the imputation of weaknes to incurre greater suspition of honestie: for though some haue vsed a double sale of their labours, first to the Stage, and after to the presse, For my owne part I heere proclaime my selfe euer faithfull in the first, and neuer guiltie of the last: yet since some of my plaies haue (vnknowne to me, and without any of my direction) accidentally come into the Printers hands, and therefore so corrupt and mangled, (coppied only by the eare) that I have bin as vnable to know them, as ashamed to chalenge them, This therefore, I was the willinger to furnish out in his natiue habit: first being by consent, next because the rest haue beene so wronged in being publisht in such sauadge and ragged ornaments: accept it courteous Gentlemen, and prooue as fauorable Readers as we haue found you gratious Auditors. Yours T. H.
The Right to PrintThe second is in Heywood's Pleasant Dialogues and Dramas, 1637, the prologue to If you know not me, you know no bodie; Or, The troubles of Queen Elizabeth. It is as follows:
A Prologve to the Play of Queene Elizabeth as it was last revived at the Cock-pit, in which the Author taxeth the most corrupted copy now imprinted, which was published without his consent.
Prologue
Playes have a fate in their conception lent,
Some so short liv'd, no sooner shew'd than spent;
But borne to-day, to morrow buried, and
Though taught to speake, neither to goe nor stand.
This: (by what fate I know not) sure no merit,
That it disclaimes, may for the age inherit.
Writing 'bove one and twenty: but ill nurst,
And yet receiv'd as well performed at first,
Grac't and frequented, for the cradle age,
Did throng the Seates, the Boxes, and the Stage
So much: that some by Stenography drew
The plot: put it in print: (scarce one word trew:)
And in that lamenesse it hath limp't so long,
The Author now to vindicate that wrong
Hath tooke the paines, upright upon its feete
To teache it walke, so please you sit, and see't.
The third passage occurs in the address to the reader prefixed to The English Traveller, 1633:
True it is that my plays are not exposed to the world in volumes, to bear the titles of Works (as others). One reason is that many of them by shifting and changing of companies have been negligently lost; others of them are still retained in the hands of some actors who think it against their peculiar profit to have them come in print; and a third that it was never any great ambition in me in this kind to be voluminously read.
From these passages we gather that Heywood considered it dishonest to sell the same play to the stage and to the press; that some of his plays were stolen through stenographic reports taken in the theater and were printed in corrupt forms; that, in order to counteract this, he obtained the consent of the theatrical owners to his publication of a correct edition; that some actors considered the printing of plays against their interest (presumably because they thought that if a man could read a play, he would not care to see it acted); and that many plays were lost through negligence and the changes in the theatrical companies. That we are here dealing with the conditions of Shakespeare's time is clear enough, since the edition of If you know not me on which Heywood casts reflections was published in 1605, and in 1604 Marston supplies corroboration in the preface to his Malcontent: