Note 254 — XV—THE LATEST PLAYS

Variorum Shakespeare, 1821, xv. 423. In the early weeks of 1611 Shakespeare’s company presented no fewer than fifteen plays at Court. Payment of £150 was made to the actors for their services on February 12, 1610-11. The council’s warrant is extant in the Bodleian Library MS. Rawl. A 204 (f. 305). The plays performed were not specified by name, but some by Shakespeare were beyond doubt amongst them, and possibly ‘The Tempest.’ A forged page which was inserted in a detached account-book of the Master of the Court-Revels for the years 1611 and 1612 at the Public Record Office, and was printed as genuine in Peter Cunningham’s Extracts from the Revels’ Accounts, p. 210, supplies among other entries two to the effect that ‘The Tempest’ was performed at Whitehall at Hallowmas (i.e. November 1) 1611 and that ‘A Winter’s Tale’ followed four days later, on November 5. Though these entries are fictitious, the information they offer may be true. Malone doubtless based his positive statement respecting the date of the composition of ‘The Tempest’ in 1611 on memoranda made from papers then accessible at the Audit Office, but now, since the removal of those archives to the Public Record Office, mislaid. All the forgeries introduced into the Revels’ accounts are well considered and show expert knowledge (see p. 235, note I). The forger of the 1612 entries probably worked either on the published statement of Malone, or on fuller memoranda left by him among his voluminous manuscripts.