Note 623 — BOOK V PLAYS AND PLAYWRIGHTS

The editors of the Shakespeare F1 claim that they are replacing ‘stolne, and surreptitious copies’ by plays ‘absolute in their numbers, as he conceiued them’, and that ‘wee haue scarse receiued from him a blot in his papers’; and those of the Beaumont and Fletcher F1 say they ‘had the Originalls from such as received them from the Authors themselves’ and lament ‘into how many hands the Originalls were dispersed’. The same name ‘original’ was used for the authoritative copy of a civic miracle-play; cf. Mediaeval Stage, ii. 143.