University of Virginia Library

Vol. I, Part i, pp. 8-11.

This copy of Love's Cruelty is in the Bute Collection in the National Library of Scotland. Permission to make full use of it has kindly been given by the Librarian. I would like to thank Miss Marion P. Linton, Assistant Keeper, for her kindness in giving me information about this prompt-book and other play quartos in the Bute Collection. My attention was first drawn to the copy of Love's Cruelty by my friend and colleague, Professor Charles Shattuck. Also in the Bute Collection is a quarto of Middleton and Rowley's A Fair Quarrell (1622) which has been cut for presentation but was never used as a prompt-book.

Shakespearean Prompt-Books, I,i,30; II,i, 4-5. Besides the main prompt hand, two other hands can be distinguished: (a) a more strongly marked secretary hand adds three stage directions on sig. I2 ('Hi: drawes his sword'; 'Stabs him'; 'hee kills her'); (b) a later (?), basically italic hand, marks certain passages for content (sigs. D3v 'Woman'; F2 'Sorrow'; H1 'Wife'; H3 'Chambermaid'). Each marking is followed by what looks like 'C:'. Miss Linton tells me that all Shirley's plays in the Bute Collection (23 of them) contain similar content markings, which suggests that they were made by somebody collecting materials for a commonplace book. The Love's Cruelty quarto has been badly cropped in binding and almost all the prompt-notations have suffered severely. The amount of actual cutting done by the prompter-reviser is comparatively slight, some of it aimed at the removal of bawdry.

Although I cannot be certain (because of cropping) it is likely that 'T S' also played the Page who enters on sig. H1. On sig. B3 the role of the Courtier is assigned to an actor, but all that remains is 'Mr'.

The name is badly damaged. I quote here the most widely accepted interpretation. See Shakespearean Prompt-Books, I,i,9 for other possibilities.

The prompter-reviser has also inserted a number of 'Exit' notations not called for in the text. And 'flor[ish]' is called for twice (sigs. C2, C4).

Shakespearean Prompt-Books, I,i,10-11.

G. E. Bentley, The Jacobean and Caroline Stage (1942), I, 130, 258, 331.

Shakespearean Prompt-Books, I,i,9.

The arguments advanced to support a pre-Restoration date for the Padua prompt-books (Shakespearean Prompt-Books, I,i,7-8) are in no way affected by the Love's Cruelty prompt-book; there is the same lack of scene settings and verbal meddling with the language of the text, the prompter's calls are, with one or two exceptions, non-anticipatory, and there is a single use of the significant imperative prompter's warning.

Bentley, I, 307; II, 400. I am, perhaps unjustifiably, assuming some kind of acting association for Heath on the grounds that he was apparently apprenticed to Andrew Cane. I should note, however, that Bentley does not list him separately in his dictionary of players.

Bentley, II, 479.

Bentley, II, 588.

Bentley, II, 561.

Bentley, II, 560.

W. W. Greg, A Bibliography of the English Printed Drama to the Restoration III (1957), 1274-5.

W. Van Lennep, The London Stage, 1660-1800, Part I, 1660-1700 (1965), 316. L. F. Casson ("Notes on a Shakespearean First Folio in Padua," MLN (1936), LI, 421-423) suggests a middle or late Restoration provenience for the Padua prompt-books largely on the strength of Carlile's name.