to me, since the investigations of Mr. Neidig, mere affectation. It is surely a little misleading to say of five manuscript plays that “some of them may be in the authors’ autographs” when one is definitely so regarded by experts, and none of the others are claimed as such. We are told that “Dr. Greg may be right in identifying Sam and Charles” in a “plot” of June 1597 “with the Samuel Rowley and Charles Massey who became members [sc. sharers] of the company at a later date”—pretty certainly the next year. At that later date Dr. Chambers himself identifies “Mr. Charles” and “Mr. Sam” in another “plot” with Massey and Rowley sans phrase. Elsewhere we read: “One Hunt, whose Christian name is unknown, was with the Admiral’s in 1601”—in other words, “Mr. Hunt” appears in the later of these “plots”: but “Thomas Hunt” appears in full in the earlier. These identifications are as certain as anything resting on circumstantial evidence can be, and a good deal more so than many things universally accepted on direct evidence. In his fear of committing himself Dr. Chambers merely succeeds in making an already intricate subject unnecessarily bewildering. And this nervousness in the handling of evidence occasionally leads to looseness of statement, as when we are told that the Admiral’s men “settled down” at the Rose “in the autumn of 1594”—the evidence placing them there in the middle of June. In the same way, although Dr. Chambers is of course aware of Henslowe’s untrustworthiness, he commonly accepts his dates sooner than risk emendation. For instance, he tells us that the Chamberlain’s men played at Newington “from the 3rd to the 13th of” June, 1594, though it is almost certain that the correct dates are the 5th and 15th. But, of course, I gladly admit that over-caution, though irritating at times, is a fault on the right side.
And having had the temerity to hint at a fault, I had better be quite frank in such criticisms as I have to make. I have only one serious complaint: it is that in a difficult subject the reader does not receive the amount of material assistance which he has a right to expect. The work is to a great extent one of reference, and reference has not been made easy. One may be familiar with the difficulties of cross-reference and yet feel that to be referred for some small fact to Chapter So-and-So, which may run to fifty pages or more, is not fair. And the number So-and-So is not even given in the headline. It should have been, and so should the names of the companies and theatres in Chapters XII., XIII., XVI., and
