654; ii. 142) by a writer using the signature 'Audi Alteram Partem', whose rather amazing contentions Mr. Law disposed of in the same periodical (1911, ii. 297, 324, 388; 1912, i. 390, 470) and in More about Shakespeare Forgeries (1913). A recent controversy between Mrs. C. C. Stopes, Mr. Law, and Sir E. M. Thompson (T. L. S. 2, 23, 30 Dec. 1920; 27 Jan., 10, 24 Feb. 1921) has led to no different result.
I do not think that, in view of the palaeographical investigation, it is any longer possible to reject the genuineness of the 1604-5 list, and although that of 1611-12 has not been so minutely tested, it is pretty obviously of a piece with the 'Book' of which it forms a part, and had it stood alone, probably no suspicion would have fallen upon it. In fact, it would really be more plausible—although this also is not in the least plausible—to take the whole documents as forgeries, than to take the lists as forged insertions in genuine accounts.
It must be added that there are some singular things about the substance of the books, with which Mr. Law does not seem to me quite to grapple. On the whole, that of 1604-5 is rather less perplexing than that of 1611-12. But the scribe has been oddly confused about his dates. On f. 1^v he has written 'iij^o', instead of 'ij^o' for the regnal year. And at the top of f. 2 he has apparently written '1605' and then corrected it to '1604'. The Queen's Revels are called by their obsolete name of 'The Boyes of the Chapell', which is odd in an official document, but so they are, much later, in the Treasurer of the Chamber's account for 1612-13. It is more important that, while the Treasurer of the Chamber records payments for two plays to the Queen's Revels, one on 1 Jan. and the other on 3 Jan., the Revels list omits the play on 3 Jan. altogether, and instead records a performance of Love's Labour's Lost by the King's men 'betwin Newers Day and Twelfe Day'. No complete explanation of this is possible. The most that can be said is that there is independent evidence of a performance of Love's Labour's Lost in Jan. 1605, but at a date after and not before Twelfth Night. This is derived from two letters. The first is from Sir Walter Cope to Robert Cecil, Viscount Cranborne, preserved at Hatfield (Hist. MSS. iii. 148) and printed by Halliwell-Phillipps, ii. 83:
'I have sent and bene all thys morning huntyng for players juglers
and such kinde of creaturs, but fynde them harde to fynde; wherfore,
leavinge notes for them to seeke me, Burbage ys come, and sayes ther
ys no new playe that the Quene hath not seene, but they have revyved
an olde one cawled Loves Labore lost, which for wytt and mirthe he sayes
will please her excedingly. And thys ys apointed to be playd tomorowe
night at my Lord of Sowthamptons, unless yow send a wrytt to remove
the corpus cum causa to your howse in Strande. Burbage ys my messenger
ready attendyng your pleasure.'
The letter is undated, but endorsed '1604'. Cecil's title was Viscount
Cranborne from 20 Aug. 1604 to 4 May 1605. A second letter, from
Dudley Carleton to John Chamberlain on 15 Jan. 1605 (S. P. D. Jac. I,
xii. 13) gives within near limits the date of the performance. Carleton
says,
'It seems we shall have Christmas all the yeare and therefore I shall
never be owt of matter. The last nights revels were kept at my Lord
