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Notes
It is not necessary to distinguish the roles of the book-keeper and the shadowy 'stage-reviser' in this connection.
Recent studies of the relation between Q2 and F Hamlet urge a return to the earlier view (see W. W. Greg, The Editorial Problem in Shakespeare [2nd ed. 1951], p. 186) against the notion of dependence of F on a copy of Q2 (see W. W. Greg, The Shakespeare First Folio [1955], p. 427). In each view, however, promptbook influence is significant to explain the textual differences between Q and F.
The count excludes items characterized as Latin plays "for acting in schools", entertainments, masks, tilts, royal receptions, dialogues, monologues, shows, civic pageants, jigs, hoax shows, improvisations, farces, dramatic festivals, barriers and Cornish mysteries, most of which were marked as "closet plays," "Unacted" or "Privately acted" by such groups as "Strollers in Yorkshire", "Apprentices", "Tradesmen", "Chapel players", "Amateurs", "Henrietta's maids" at places which indicate private performance ("Ely House", "Kendal Castle", "Red Bull", "Inner Temple", "Essex House" and "Syon House") or are outside London.
Buc's uncle, Edmund Tilney, was Master until around 1609; Buc was assigned reversion of the office in 1603 but when he actually started to assist Tilney is not known (Mark Eccles, "Sir George Buc, Master of the Revels", in Thomas Lodge and other Elizabethans, ed. Charles J. Sisson [1933], p. 434). Buc was insane in March, 1622 (Eccles, p. 481) and unable to perform his functions.
The First Part of the Reign of King Richard the Second or Thomas of Woodstock, ed. Wilhelmina P. Frijlinck (1922); Charlemagne or the Distracted Emperor, ed. John Henry Walter (1938); The Second Maiden's Tragedy, 1611, ed. W. W. Greg (1909); Sir John Van Olden Barnavelt By John Fletcher and Philip Massinger, ed. T. H. Howard-Hill (1980).
Wilson, Frank P., "The Malone Society; the first fifty years, 1906-56" in Malone Society, Collections (1956), IV, 2. Although Greg attempted to relinquish the General Editorship in 1936, successors were not found until 1939 (Wilson, ib., pp. 8-9). (Cf. Ian Lancashire, "Medieval drama" in Editing Medieval Texts, ed. George Rigg [1978], p. 64).
Samuel A. Tannenbaum, "Textual errors in the Malone Society's The Second Mayden's Tragedy", PQ, 9 (1930), 304-306 listed 105 "mistakes" from examination of photostats of the manuscript, a number Greg could readily reduce to 21 "genuine errors" (ib., 10 (1931), 30-32), of which "not more than four are of any consequence. . . . I should have expected more, and I do not think that subscribers . . . have any cause for complaint."
Greg notes that "servant" was added in pencil in the margin at l. 708, to the right, but he ignores the pencil cross at l. 707 (left margin) and before "frend" in 1. 708, and the pencil underscoring of "frend", which were all noticed by the Revels Plays editor (see note 13 below).
Frijlinck's Barnavelt aimed to reproduce the original manuscript "with strict fidelity on the principles followed in the publications of the Malone Society" (p. xii). The editor acknowledged Greg's service in "checking the proofsheets with the manuscript" (Preface); nevertheless, 38 pencil markings were ignored.
"The Honest Mans Fortune"; a critical edition of ms. Dyce 9 (1625), ed. Johan Gerritsen (Groningen: 1952), f. 163v, l. 143. The Book of Sir Thomas More, ed. by W. W. Greg (Malone Society Reprints, 1911) omits pencil at τ889-94, τ913, τ920, τ939-45, τ990-5, 10, 157-62, 171-6, 210 (f. 13v), and 73.
Crosses at the ends of text lines in More which are apparently modern (cf. ll. 203, 544, 26, 145, and others) resemble some in SMT (ll. 311, 572, 1767) and in The Faithful Friends (Victoria and Albert museum Dyce ms. 10) at ll. 775, 782, 1851, 1920 and 1948. By "modern" I mean "added in the nineteenth or twentieth centuries" although the former is more likely. Modernity may be assumed because the crosses do not relate in any way to the processes by which a manuscript was prepared for the stage but seem, rather, to relate to the preparation of an edition or study of the manuscript.
The Revels edition records all the pencil marks (see "Pencil marks on ms.", pp. 273-274) except for the faint, possibly erased, cross in the left margin at 1. 380 (I.ii.110), the large pencil cross, perhaps smeared, in the left margin at 1. 1817 (IV.iii.77), and pencil lines through the text at ll. 699-730 (II.i.65-94) and 754-6 (II.i.115-117).
Buc's crosses can be examined in facsimiles printed in MSR Charlemagne (f. 127), MSR and Revels SMT (f. 55v) and Frijlinck's Barnavelt (f. 23) and Dramatic Documents (f. 23v). The crosses were made by the pencil forming the downstroke first and then moving, often with a faint connection (as at SMT 1354, 1841) or tail (as at SMT 1425, 1446) to draw the crossbar from left to right. They occur in SMT at ll. 2, 192, 268, 380, 707, 712, 1354, 1385, 1425, 1546, 1817, 1840, and 2403.
It is not my purpose to assert that because Buc inserted a marginal cross, accompanying corrections must necessarily be by him; that would be most improbable. Buc's function was to point to text requiring amendment, not to reform it himself. Accordingly it cannot be an objection to the identification of the crosses as Buc's that corrections were not made, or, if made, were not in his hand.
Pencilled instructions for colouring the blazons are in the hand of Roger Hill (d. 1667), a baron of the Exchequer, who was a later owner of the manuscript. See R. C. Bald, "A Manuscript Work by Sir George Buc", PMLA, 30 (1935), p. 2.
Renvurser is obscured by ink overwriting and my reading may be inexact. OED records the verb "Renverse" to mean "to reverse, turn upside down", and the adjective is an heraldic term. One cannot be certain that the cross was written before the names.
Two of the scraps of paper from the Revels Office on which Buc wrote his history bear dates in 1615 and 1619. Folio 3v of the Commentary is written over a cancelled draft of a titlepage prepared for the History.—Pencil may be seen on folios 18v, 19, 20, 33v, 34, 44, 44v, 45, 46, 46v, 47 et sequ. in curly brackets, sometimes crossed, as on ff. 48, 48v, 49, 50v, 53v, and 62. A bracket and a separate asterisk in pencil occur on f. 19. Pencil crosses may be seen on ff. 33v, 67v, 68 and 68v.
No editor appears to have noticed the small pencil cross before frend, in the same style as the left marginal cross.
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