p. 136.

'After March, 1545-6, the following was the dramatic and musical establishment of the King."] In a contemporary list of the household of Henry VIII., recently sold among the Fairfax Collection, was the following entry of a new name in the drama at that date :—

• Maker of Interludes, Comedies, and Playes-John Young 'per H[enry] 8. 31. 6s. 8d.'

p. 150.

'It is not possible always to ascertain the precise dates referred to.'] Cotton MS. Vitellius, F. V. is here quoted; but, since I had occasion to use it, it has been inlaid and arranged under the care of Mr. Madden, keeper of the MSS. in the British Museum. Most of the dates have now been ascertained by him with most praiseworthy industry and research, and I only regret that I had not the benefit of his labours. I do not believe, however, that I have made any important mistakes.

p. 152.

'A tract, entitled Beware the Cat, bearing the initials G. B. as its author.'] Those initials probably mean Gulielmus Baldwin; but it seems that the tract had been imputed to Maister Stremer,' who is mentioned in it. In one of the volumes of Proclamations, &c., belonging to the Society of Antiquaries, London, is a curious broadside in verse, headed A short Answere to the Boke called Beware the Cat,' which opens thus:

'To the jentil reder harti salutacions,

Desiring thee to knoe Baldwins straunge faschions;

'And if in aunsering I appere sum what quick,

• Thinke it not without cause: his taunts be rive and thick.

'Where as there is a boke called beware the cat,
• The veri truith is so, that Stremer made not that,
'Nor no suche false fabels fell ever from his pen,

Nor from his hart or mouth, as knoe mani honest men. 'But wil ye gladli knoe, who made that boke in dede? 'One Wylliam Baldewine. God graunt him wel to spede.' It proceeds in this strain throughout, and heaps upon Baldwin the coarsest terms of abuse, denying that Beware the Cat was written by Stremer, though how it came to be imputed to him nowhere appears. It ends (without printer's name or date) as follows:

• This miche I have writen that the trueth shold be knowen, ' And that the falsite shuld be quite overthrowen.

p. 159.

• FINIS.'

A play, called Holofernes, at Hatfield.'] Among the Additional MSS. in the British Museum, is a Catalogue of the Bailiffs of Derby, from 5 Henry VIII., with incidental memoranda, among which is the following:

1572. In this year Holofornes was played by the Towns

men.'

For this note I am obliged to Mr. Madden, keeper of the MSS.

p. 175.

In the following year, 1560, the charge for the Revels, &c. was much more considerable.'] On the 10th December, 1560, Queen Elizabeth issued a warrant to the keeper of the Wardrobe, to deliver to Sir Thomas Benger, ‘Master of our Revels,' a variety of silks, velvets, &c., for 'certeyne masking garmentes.' Additional MSS. in British Museum, No. 5750.

p. 239.

'On the 30th December, 1578, Thomas Blagrave was appointed chief officer of the Revels.'] In this capacity, on

the 10th Jan. 1578 (as we find by the Additional MSS. in the British Museum, No. 5750), Blagrave sent to Brydeman, the keeper of the Wardrobe, for a piece of 'black and silver stuff.' The following is a literal copy of an original unsigned note from Lord Leicester to Brydeman, dated three days earlier. It was a task of extreme difficulty to decipher it.

'Mr. Brydeman. The q wod have sent unto you her war'rant for the delyverye to her officers of her Revells such paralls as shalbe specyfyed in a byll subscrybed with her hand, and bycase it is not yet certenly known or wylbe before the 'garments be made, what stuffe shall suffyce, I do hartely pray you to delyver to them all such stuffe as they shall requyre 'to have of the old store, and when all thies shalbe fornyshed, 'I wyll delyver unto you a byll of the partyculars, sygned with her hand, for your discharge, and so I byd you hartely well to 'fare.

From the Crt. 7 Janij 1578.'

p. 319.

6

It had been performed before the Queen in 1600.'] Another play, then presented, was doubtless Dekker's Old Fortunatus, which was printed with the date of 1600, as it was plaied this Christmas,' by the Lord Admiral's servants. According to Henslowe's Diary it had been written in 1595.

Heywood's Fair Maid of the West was written before the death of Elizabeth.'] This remark ought to have been limited to the first part of the play. The date of the second part is more uncertain.

Vol. II. p. 106.

The Stage-player's Complaint in a pleasant dialogue between Cane of the Fortune and Reed of the Friars.'] I conjectured, before I saw any part of it, that this tract (consisting of only four leaves, without date) was published about 1625; but, Mr. Haslewood, to whom I am indebted for the following extract from it, all that (or perhaps more than, is worth quoting, gives it the date, no doubt correctly) of 1641. The interlocutors are called Light [i.e. Reed] and Quick [i.e. Cane].

Light. Pish! I can shew thee many infallible reasons to 'the contrary. We are very necessary and commodious to all people: first for strangers, who can desire no better re'creation than to come and see a play: then for citizens to 'feast their wits: then for gallants, who otherwise perhaps would spend their money in drunkenness and lasciviousness, do find a great delight and delectation to see a play: then for the learned, 'it does increase and add wit constructively to wit: then for ' gentlewomen, it teacheth them how to deceive idleness: then for the ignorant, it does augment their knowledge. Pish! a 'thousand more arguments I could add but that I should weary your patience too much. Well-in a word we are so 'needful for the common good, that in some respect it were ' almost a sin to put us down. Therefore let not these frivolous things perplex your vexatious thoughts.

'Quick. But it makes me fear, I'll assure you, in these 'times, and I think it would be a very good plot to borrow ' good store of money and then run away-What think you ' of it?

"Light. A good plot, quotha! so you may come to lie in a worser plot for it all the days of your life. S'foot! run away 'too: so you may be taken for a young Suckling, and then ' followed presently with a hundred horse.'

The last sentence alludes to the plot of Sir John Suck

ling, Davenant, and Captain Billingley, and to the hundred horse Sir John had raised for the king's service.

p. 11s.

The latest infraction of the act of suppression occurred at Witney.'] In Whitelocke's Memorials, 633, is, however, the following entry

Jan. 1655-6. Players taken in Newcastle and whipped for ' rogues.'

P. 147.

'In cities and large towns.'] In some places there seems to have been a stage belonging to the town; and in Lodge's and Greene's Looking Glass for London and Engand, 1594, the father of one of the low comic characters is represented as 'keeper of the town stage,' or the stage used by the inhabitants for the representation of plays, either by the townsmen or by actors belonging to the town, who sometimes travelled to adjoining places to perform.

p. 196.

Last line, for Childemas read Candlemas.

p. 261.

Note †, for Bollogne read Boulogne.

p. 366.

'It appears to have formed part of a modern Latin play.'] At all events the author, whoever he might be, seems to have availed himself of one of Lucian's Dialogues.

p. 420.

The novels, &c., he thus points out, in fact supplied most of the materials for our romantic drama.'] Gosson might have added other collections, including the 'comic stories, in prose,' by Richard Edwards, 1570, (mentioned by Warton, H. E. P., iv., 117, edit. 8vo.)