methods and talent of the time, Dr. Chambers apparently regarding the art of acting on the stage as no less outside his province than the art of writing for it. The other chapter of course is based largely on Henslowe’s records, and contrasts his methods with the more communistic ways of the Chamberlain’s men. By the way, is there any confirmation of Platter’s curious gossip (ii. 365) as to the source of the players’ wardrobes?
The Third Book is devoted to the theatrical companies of the period, or rather to such as are traceable in London. With the sixty or more purely provincial companies Dr. Chambers is not directly concerned. Chapter XII. treats of “The Boy Companies,” eleven in number. Of these the Children of Paul’s and the Children of the Chapel are, of course, the most important, but some curiosity at least may be allowed the Children of her Majesty’s Chamber of Bristol (c. 1615), to which were attached John Daniel, brother of the poet, and the restless actor whom Dr. Chambers calls Martin Slater, but whose real name must, I think, have been Slaughter. “The Adult Companies” are treated in Chapter XIII., and number no less than twenty-four. Several, of course, are of small account, and from the general ruck only four rise to eminence, the Queen’s men earlier, and later the Chamberlain-King’s, the Admiral-Prince’s, and (never of the same rank) the Worcester-Queen’s men.
My interest in Father Henslowe here tempts me to comment, but most of the points I should like to discuss I must reserve for another occasion. Only two or three can be taken now. I am not quite certain that Dr. Chambers is right when he says, discussing the restraint of 1597, that Henslowe got “the licence for his house renewed, even before the formal expiration of the restraint on 1 November.” I fancy that the release of the delinquents on 3 October emboldened the Admiral’s men to anticipate the formal removal of the inhibition, and that they were forced to desist. But the evidence, I admit, is obscure. Again, of the cast for The Shoemaker’s Holiday, published by “Dramaticus,” Dr. Chambers remarks: “Fleay and Greg unite in condemning this communication as an obvious forgery; but I rather wish they had given their reasons.” I should have thought that any list of the Admiral’s men between 1597 and 1602 including four otherwise unrecorded members of the company was open to suspicion, and that one that assigned three out of four female parts to grown men stood
