Page:The Elizabethan stage (Volume 3).pdf/214

 and some lines before it is actually required for use. The book-keeper must be responsible, too, for the directions into which, as not infrequently happens, the name of an actor has been inserted in place of that of the personage whom that actor represented. On the other hand, we may perhaps safely assign to the author directions addressed to some one else in the second person, those which leave something to be interpreted according to discretion, and those which contain any matter not really necessary for stage guidance. Such superfluous matter is only rarely found in texts of pure play-house origin, although even here an author may occasionally insert a word or two of explanation or descriptive colouring, possibly taken from the source upon which he has been working. In the main, however, descriptive stage-directions are characteristic of texts which, whether ultimately based upon play-house copies or not, have undergone a process of editing by the author or his representative, with an eyesings first, and Wit after, dialoguewise, both to musicke if ye will'; Locrine, i. 1, 'Let there come foorth a Lion running after a Beare or any other beast'; Death of R. Hood, ii, 'Enter or aboue [Hubert, Chester]'; ''2 Hen. VI'', ii. 33, 'Enter Cade [etc.] with infinite numbers'; ix. 9, 'Enter Multitudes with Halters about their Neckes'; T. A. i. 70, 'as many as can be'; ''Edw. I, 50, 'Enter and others as many as may be'; Sir T. More'', sc. ix. 954, 'Enter so many Aldermen as may'; What You Will, v. 193, 'Enter as many Pages with torches as you can'.]