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 Master for the excision or alteration of obnoxious passages. It is a curious document. The draft of the original author has been patched and interpolated with partial redrafts in a variety of hands, amongst which, according to some palaeographers, is to be found that of Shakespeare. One wonders that any licenser should have been complaisant enough to consider the play at all in such a form; and obviously the instance is a crucial one against the theory of scrivener's copies. It may also be argued on a priori grounds that such copies would be undesirable from the company's point of view, both as being costly and as tending to multiply the opportunities for 'surreptitious' transmission to rivals or publishers. Naturally it was necessary to copy out individual parts for the actors, and Alleyn's part in ''Orlando Furioso'', with the 'cues', or tail ends of the speeches preceding his own, can still be seen at Dulwich. From these 'parts' the 'original' could be reconstructed or 'assembled' in the event of destruction or loss. Apparently the book-keeper also made a 'plot' or scenario of the action, and fixed it on a peg for his own guidance and that of the property-man in securing the smooth progress of the play. Nor could the companies very well prevent the poets from keeping transcripts or at any rate rough copies, when they handed over their 'papers', complete or in instalments, as they drew their 'earnests' or payments 'in full'. It does not follow that they always did so. We know that Daborne made fair copies for Henslowe; but the Folio editors tell us that what Shakespeare thought 'he vttered with that easinesse,