Page:The Review of English Studies Vol 1.djvu/123

Rh slips I have noticed. They occur mainly where Dr. Chambers is summarising technical evidence in a formal manner. For instance, in his list of Actors we find: “. Admiral’s, >1590”; “. Admiral’s (?), >1591”; “‘.’ Admiral’s, >1591.” In each case the evidence is identical and is used again to assign Richard Burbage to “Admiral’s c. 1590.” The inconsistencies are small but quite unnecessary. Both Anthony and Humphrey Jeffes are made to begin their careers thus: “Chamberlain’s (?), 1597; Pembroke’s, 1597.” But that the “brothers” Jeffes (as Dr. Chambers rather rashly calls them—unless he is keeping evidence up his sleeve) came to the Admiral’s from Pembroke’s is in fact conjecture, and the evidence by which it is supported on p. 156 is surely an old Fleay–Greg fallacy practically refuted on p. 200. That Humphrey was at some date with the Chamberlain's there is evidence of a sort, but this evidence seems to be used elsewhere to assign John Sincler to “Pembroke’s (?), 1592–3.” Take again: “, Admiral’s, 1599, 1602.” The equation Hunt=Honte implies a possible connexion with the Admiral’s as early as 1596; he was certainly with them about June 1597, and also, as stated, in 1599. His name appears in an Admiral’s document which, on Dr. Chambers’ own showing (s.v. R. Alleyn), cannot be later than November 1601, and is absent from a similar document of 1602. So, again, with the records of the Stationers’ Register in Appendix L. In 1594 group of five plays was entered to Islip, whose name was cancelled in favour of E. White: Dr. Chambers assigns four to Islip and one to White!

In the catalogue of Playwrights the trouble is mainly the less serious one of not being revised up to date. The first issue of Greene’s Quip for an Upstart Courtier, which accounts for the Harveys’ animosity, came up for sale in 1919; the passage in question (afterwards suppressed) was facsimiled in the catalogue, and has been printed since. Churton Collins, by the way, is rebuked for holding, as “inconsistent with the biographical indications of the pamphlets,” the theory “that Greene’s play-writing did not begin much before” 1591; but elsewhere (i. 377) we are told that “It is doubtful whether Greene was writing for the stage at all before about 1590.” The first edition of Edvard IV., 1599, is not recorded, though it was sold in 1921 and a facsimile published in 1922. John a Kent has not been “in the possession of Lord Mostyn” since 1919 (it is now in California), and although one leaf