during 1598-1603, and I understand him to believe that the 'further aucthoritie' required for Cloth Breeches and Velvet Hose and A Larum for London and the 'sufficient aucthoritie' required for Troilus and Cressida were of the same nature as the licence from the Lord Chamberlain specifically required for The Merchant of Venice.[1] It is not inconceivable that this may have been so, but one is bound to take the Roberts conditional entries side by side with the eight similar entries made between 1601 and 1606 for other men, and in three at least of these (The Dutch Courtesan, Sir Giles Goosecap, The Fleir) it is obvious that the authority demanded was that of the official correctors. Of course, the correctors may themselves have had a hint from the Lord Chamberlain to keep an eye upon the interests of his servants, but if the eleven conditionally entered plays of 1600-6 be looked at as a group, it will be seen that they are all plays of either a political or a satirical character, which might well therefore call for particular attention from the correctors in the discharge of their ordinary functions. I have already suggested that the normal conditional entries represent cases in which the wardens of the Stationers' Company, while not prepared to license a book on their own responsibility, short-circuited as far as they could the procedure entailed. Properly they ought to have seen the corrector's hand before adding their own endorsement. But if this was not forthcoming, the applicant may have been allowed, in order to save time, to have the purely trade formalities completed by a conditional entry, which would be a valid protection against a rival stationer, but would not, until the corrector's hand was obtained, be sufficient authority for the actual printing. No doubt the clerk should have subsequently endorsed the entry after seeing the corrector's hand, but he did not always do so, although in cases of transfer the transferee might ask for a record to be made, and in any event the owner of the copy had the book with the 'hand' to it. The Lord Chamberlain's 'stay' was, I think, another matter. I suppose it to have been directed, not to the correctors, but to the wardens, and to have taken the form of a request not to enter any play of the Chamberlain's men, otherwise entitled to licence or not, without satisfying themselves that the actors were assenting parties to the transaction. Common sense would certainly dictate compliance with such a request, coming from such a source. The plan seems to have worked well enough so far as As You Like It, Every Man In his
- ↑ Pollard, F. and Q. 66; Sh. F. 45.
