Note 585 — BOOK V PLAYS AND PLAYWRIGHTS

Conflict of Conscience; cf. Damon and Pythias, the prologue of which, though it had been a Court play, ‘is somewhat altered for the proper use of them that hereafter shall haue occasion to plaie it, either in Priuate, or open Audience’. The castings, for four, five, or six players, occur in King Darius, Like Will to Like, Longer Thou Livest, Mary Magdalen, New Custom, Tide Tarrieth for No Man, Trial of Treasure, Conflict of Conscience. I find a later example from the public stage in Fair Maid of the Exchange, which has ‘Eleauen may easily acte this comedie’, and a division of parts accordingly. There are pre-Elizabethan precedents, while Jack Juggler is ‘for Chyldren to playe’, the songs in Ralph Roister Doister are for ‘those which shall vse this Comedie or Enterlude’, and The Four Elements has directions for reducing the time of playing at need from an hour and a half to three-quarters of an hour, and the note ‘Also yf ye lyst ye may brynge in a dysgysynge’. Similarly Robin Hood is ‘for to be played in Maye games’. That books were in fact bought to act from is shown by entries in the accounts of Holy Trinity, Bungay, for 1558 of 4d. for ‘the interlude and game booke’ and 2s. for ‘writing the partes’ (M. S. ii. 343). A book costing only 4d. must clearly have been a print.