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 Pericles, although he strongly suspects that there once existed a similar edition of Love's Labour's Lost. I have no ground for dissenting from this judgement.

The question whether the actors, in protecting their property from the pirates, could look for any assistance from the official controllers of the press is one of some difficulty. We may perhaps infer, with the help of the conditional entries of The Blind Beggar of Alexandria and The Spanish Tragedy, and the special order made in the case of Dr. Faustus, that before assigning a 'copy' to one stationer the wardens of the Company took some steps to ascertain whether any other stationer laid a claim to it. It does not follow that they also inquired whether the applicant had come honestly or dishonestly by his manuscript. Mr. Pollard seems inclined to think that, although they were under no formal obligation to intervene, they would not be likely, as men of common sense, to encourage dishonesty. If this argument stood alone, I should not have much confidence in it. There is a Publishers' Association to-day, doubtless composed of men of common sense, but it is not a body to which one