1379-80 I...innouasion] Hanmer (ed. 1771): “In 1597 a statute was made against vagabonds, including players.”

1379-80 I...innouasion]Johnson (ed. 1773): “I fancy this is transposed: Hamlet inquires not about an inhibition, but an innovation; the answer therefore probably was, I think, their innovation, that is, their new practice of strolling, comes by means of the late inhibition.”

1379-80 I...innouasion] Steevens (ed. 1778): “The drift of Hamlet’s question appears to be this.—How chances it they travel?—i.e. How happens it that they are become strollers?—Their residence, both in reputation and profit, was better both ways.—i.e. to have remained in a settled theater, was the more honourable as well as the more lucrative situation. To this, Rosencrantz replies—-Their inhibition comes by means of the late innovation.—i.e. their permission to act any longer at an established house is taken away, in consequence of the NEW CUSTOM of introducing personal abuse into their comedies. Several companies of actors in the time of our author were silenced on account of this licentious practice. See a dialogue between Comedy and Envy at the conclusion of Mucedorus, 1598, as well as the Preludium to Aristippus, or the Jovial Philosopher, 1630, from whence the following passage is taken: ‘Shews having been long intermitted and forbidden any authority, for their abuses, could not be raised but by conjuring.’ Shew enters, whipped by two furies, and the prologue says to her: ‘—-with tears wash off that guilty sin, Purge out those ill-digested dregs of wit, That use their ink to blot a spotless name: Let’s have no particular man traduc’d —spare the persons &c.’ Alteration therefore in the order of the words seems to be quite unnecessary.”

1379-80 I...innouasion] Malone (ed. 1780, p.354): "To follow Steevens’s note.—There will still, however, remain some difficulty. The statute 39 Eliz. ch. 4. which made to inhibit the players from acting any longer at an established theatre, but to prohibit them from strolling. ‘All fencers, (says the act) bearwards, common players of enterludes and minstrels, wandering abroad, (other than players of enterludes, belonging to any baron of this realm or any other honourable personage of greater degree, to be authorized to play under the hand and seal of arms of such baron or personage) shall be taken, adjudgied and deemed, rogues, vagabonds, and sturdy beggars, and shall sustain such pain and punishments as by this act is in that behalf appointed. This circumstance is equally repugnant to Dr. Johnson’s transposition of the text, and to Mr. Stevens’s explanation of it as it now stands.’ Malone.”

1379-80 I...innouasion] Davies (1784, p.47): "But what innovation? The author did not mean, that the theatre was shut, by an order from above, on account of particular scandal being given by the established players. Mr. Malone has proved, that the intention, of the act referred to, was quite opposite to the interpretation given it by the commentators. The innovation seems to be, the unexpected encouragement given to the singing-boys of the queen’s chapel and St. Paul’s, by which the regular comedians were reduced to the necessity of visiting the provinces. They were therefore obliged to inhibit themselves themselves in the metropolis, from the want of customers. "

1379-80 I...innouasion] Malone (ed. 1785): “There will still, however, remain some difficulty. The statute 39 Eliz. ch. 4. which seems to be alluded to by the words—their inhibition, was not made to inhibit the players from acting any longer at an established theater, but to prohibit them from strolling. ‘All fencers (says the act), bearwards, common players of interludes and minstrels, wandering abroad, (other players of enterludes, belonging to any baron of this realm or any other honourable personage of greater degree, to be authorized to play under the hand and seal of arms of such baron or personage) shall be taken, adjudged and deemed, rogues, vagabonds, and sturdy beggars, and shall sustain such pain and punishments as by this act is in that behalf appointed.’ This circumstance is equally repugnant to Dr. Johnson’s transposition of the text, and to Mr. Steevens’s explanation of it as it now stands.”

1379-80 I...innouasion] Mason (1785, p. 381): “Steevens may be right in his explanation, but it seems to be rather too refined, and I think that if Shakespeare intended the allusion he mentions, he would have expressed himself more clearly. By the late innovation, it is probable that Rosincrantz means the late change of government. The word innovation is used in the same sense in the Triumph of Love, in Fletcher’s four moral representations in one, where Cornelia says to Rinaldo, ‘And in poor habits clad, | (You fled, and the innovation laid aside.)’ And in Fletcher’s play of the Coronation, after Leonatus is proclaimed King, Lysander says to Philocles, ‘What dost thou think of this innovation.’”

1379-91 I thinke their inhibition...thither.] Malone (ed. 1790): “The suppression to which Fleckno alludes took place in the year 1583-4; but afterwards both the children of the chapel and of the Revels played at our authour’s playhouse in Blackfriars, and elsewhere; and the choir-boys of St. Paul’s at their own house. See the Account of our old theatres in Vol. I. Part II. A certain number of the children of the Revels, I believe, belonged to each of the principal theatres. Our authour cannot be supposed to direct any satire at those young men who played occasionally at his own theatre. Ben Jonson’s Cynthia’s Revels, and his Poetaster, were performed there by the children of Queen Elizabeth’s chapel, in 1600 and 1601; and Eastward Hoe by the children of the revels, in 1604 or 1605. I have no doubt therefore that the dialogue before us was pointed at the choir-boys of St. Paul’s, who in 1601 acted two of Marston’s plays, Antonio and Mellida, and Antonio’s Revenge. Many of Lily’s plays were represented by them about the same time; and in 1607 Chapman’s Bussy Ambris was performed by them with great applause. It was probably in this and some other noisy tragedies of the same kind, that they cry’d out on the top of question, and were most tyrannically clapp’d for’t. At a later period indeed, after our poet’s death, the Children of the Revels had an established theatre of their own, and some dispute seems to have arisen between them and the king’s company. They performed regularly in 1623, and for eight years afterwards, at the Red Bull in St. John’s Street; and in 1627, Shakspeare’s company obtained an inhibition from the Master of the Revels to prevent their performing any of his plays at their house: as appears from the following entry in Sir Henry Herbert’s Office-book, already mentioned: ‘From Mr. Heminge, in their company’s name, to forbid the playinge of any of Shakspeare’s playes to the Red-Bull company, this 11th of Aprill, 1627,— 5 0 0.’ From other passages in the same book, it appears that the Children of the Revels composed the Red-Bull company. We learn from Heywood’s Apology for Actors, that the little eyases here mentioned were the persons who were guilty of the late innovation, or practice of introducing personal abuse on the stage, and perhaps for their particular fault the players in general suffered; and the older and more decent comedians, as well as the children, had on some recent occasion been inhibited from acting in London, and compelled to turn strollers. This supposition will make the words, concerning which a difficulty has been stated (see n. 6) perfectly clear. Heywood’s Apology for Actors was published in 1612; the passage therefore which is found in the folio, and not in the quarto, was probably added not very long before that time. ‘Now to speake (says Heywood,) of some abuse lately crept into the quality, as an inveighing against the state, the court, the law, the citty, and their governments, with the particularizing of private mens humours, yet alive, noblemen and others, I know it distastes many; neither do I any way approve it, nor dare I by any means excuse it. The liberty which some arrogate to themselves, committing their bitterness and liberal invectives against all estates to the mouthes of children, supposing their juniority to be a priviledge for any rayling, be it never so violent, I could advise all such to curbe, and limit this presumed liberty within the bands of discretion and government. But wise and judicial censurers before whom such complaints shall at any time hereafter come, will not, I hope, impute these abuses to any transgression in us, who have ever been carefull and provident to shun the like.’ Prynne in his Histriomastix, speaking of the state of the stage, about the year 1620, has this passage: ‘Not to particularise those late new scandalous invective playes, wherein sundry persons of place and eminence [Gundemore, the late lord admiral, lord treasurer, and others,] have been particularly personated, jeared, abused in a gross and scurrilous manner,’ &c. The folio, 1623, has—berattled. The correction was made by the editor of the second folio.”

1379-80 I...innouasion] Malone (ed. 1793): “There will, however, remain some difficulty. The statute 39 Eliz. ch. 4. which seems to be alluded to by the words—their inhibition, was not made to inhibit the players from acting any longer at an established theater, but to prohibit them from strolling. ‘All fencers (says the act), bearwards, common players of enterludes, and minstrels, wandering abroad, (other players of enterludes, belonging to any baron of this realm or any other honourable person of greater degree, to be authorized to play under the hand and seal of arms of such baron or personage) shall be taken, adjudged and deemed, rogues, vagabonds, and sturdy beggars, and shall sustain such pain and punishments as by this act is in that behalf appointed.This statute, if alluded to, is repugnant to Dr. Johnson’s transcription of the text, and to Mr. Steevens explanation of it as it now stands. Yet Mr. Steevens explanation of it may be right: Shakspeare might not have thought of the act of Elizabeth. He could not, however, mean to charge his friends the old tragedians with the new custom of introducing personal abuse; but must rather have meant, that the old tragedians were inhibited from performing in the city, and obliged to travel, on account of the misconduct of the younger company. See n. 6.”

≈ Mason (ed. 1785)

1379-80 I...innouasion] Mason (ed. 1793): “By the late innovation, it is probable that Rosencrantz means the late change of government. The word innovation is used in the same sense in The Triumph of Love, in Fletcher’s Four moral representations in one, where Cornelia says to Rinaldo: ‘—and in poor habits clad, (You fled, and the innovation laid aside).’ And in Fletcher’s [Shirley’s] play of The Coronation, after Latanus is proclaimed king, Lysander says to Philocles: ‘What doft thou think of this innovation?’”

1379-80 I...innouasion] Caldecott (ed. 1819): “Hamlet represents the conduct of the players in quitting the capital and strolling, as every was injudicious; considering it ashaving been altogether matter of election and choice in them. Rosencrantz, on the contrary, being of opinion, that with hardly an election given, they had yielded to circumstances, to the changes of fashion and of the times, replies; that he ‘conceives their inhibition (i.e. their forbiddance or cause of removal from the capital) is to be ascribed to the late innovation;’ i.e. a license granted to a new description of actors; and though they, the old company, had not relaxed in their efforts, that fashion was capricious, and the new candidates for public favour had met with the most extravagant applauses and success: and that the old company, like almanacs out of date, and so, as it were inhabited of forbidden, had been superseded and dislodged. Harlequin had never, at a later period, made such inroads upon the old company. It would have been extraordinary, if the circumstances of the squabbles between the rival managers of the playhouse, at that time of day licensed, had been delivered down to us minutely, or even altogether intelligibly.”

1379-80 I...innouasion.] Hunter (-1845, f. 242r): “I do not look upon inhibition as alluding to some public proclamation or any aurg authority prohibiting the Players from performing in London: but was used here for any thing which prevented them from exercising their art as they were wont to do.* The inhibition came from the innovation, which innovation was the appearance of children on the public stages which drew the audience away from the old performers. This appears to have been the case from the play as we have it. But it is more evidently set forth in the first quarto, that copy the discovery of which has wrought such a revolution in the criticism on this drama— There we read ‘Y-faith, novelty carries it away, For the principal public audience that Come to them, are turned to private plays And to the humours of children.’

“This very play of Hamlet was performed as we have seen at Cambridge and Oxford & other places, before it was printed. It was not the practice of Shakspeare’s theatrical corps thus to travel— At least it does not appear that they did on the title pages of his plays. That here we find them travelling, & with a play which must have compelled an audience known greedy of novelty to think that no place would produce anything nobler or even attraction. Perhaps Shakespeare wrote it to put down the aiery of young eyases. No play has been so often performed.

“We have in this part of the play, an apology for travelling which might not be quite necessary, if the practice was more & esteemed, as I presume it was, below the dignity of the London company, His Majesty’s Servants.

*On further consideration I think the structure of the passage requires us to think that Shakspeare uses inhibition as opposite to Residence, moving from place to place. In-habitation perchance. — And here I think we have the key to the very difficult passage in Macbeth III.4. f. 172— I have since seen that Capel explains Inhibition as ‘not acting, ceasing to exhibit.’ Hamlet asks How chances it they travel? — & is answered that their inhibition (want of fixed residence) &c.”

1379-80 I...innouasion] Hudson (ed. 1851-6): "Referring, no doubt, to the order of the Privy Council, June, 1600, quoted in our Introduction to Twelfth Night, Vol i., page 337. By this order, the players were inhibited from acting in or near the city during the season of Lent, besides being very much restricted at all other seasons, and hence ’changes it they travel,’ or stroll into the country.—A’s the matter involves some curious points as to the time or times when this play was written, it may be well to add the corresponding passage from the quarto of 1603: ’Ham. Players? what players be they? Ros. My lord, the tragedians of the city; those that you took delight to see so often. Ham. How comes it that they travel? Do they restie? Guil. No, my lord; their reputation holds as it was wont. Ham. How then? Guil. I ’faith, my lord, novelty carries it away; for the principal public audience that came to them are turned to private plays, and the humour of children.’ H."

1379-80 I...innouasion] Halliwell (ed. 1865): “This passage probably refers to the limiting of public theatrical performances to the two theatres, the Globe on Bankside, and the Fortune in Golden Lane, in 1600 and 1601. The players, be a ‘late innovation,’ were ‘inhibited,’ or forbidden, to act in or near ‘the city,’ and therefore ‘travelled,’ or strolled, into the country. See History of Engl. Dram. Poetry and the Stage, vol. i. p. 311, &c.—Collier.”

1379-80 inhibition . . . innouasion] Neil (ed. 1877): “Quotes Collier’s Annals of the Stage, p. 305, 312, 353. Quotes Thomas Kenney, The Life and Genius of Shakespeare, p. 374. ‘The passage, which stands thus in quarto 1603, ‘I’faith my lord, noveltie carries it away, For the principal public audience that Come to them are turned to private players And to the humours of children,’ does not appear in 1604, but occurs as in the text in folio 1623.”

1379-80 I...innouasion.] Kinnear (1883, p. 402): <p. 402> “‘the late innovation’— i.e. ‘an aery of children— these are now the fashion’— ‘the boys carry it away.’ ‘expedition’ = journey— so T. G. V. i. 3, 77,— ‘to-morrow you must go. Come on, Pathino: you shall be employ’d To hasten on his expedition.’ 2 Hy. IV. i. 2, 116,— ‘Sir John, I sent for you before your expedition to Shrewsbury.’ The old eds. have ‘inhibition’— clearly a misprint. The change of fashion in the city caused their expedition to other places. All the compared eds. retain the old text.” </p. 402>

1379-80 I...innouasion] MacDonald (ed. 1885): “Does this mean, ‘I think their prohibition comes through the late innovation,’—of the children’s acting; or, ‘I think they are prevented from staying at home by the late new measures,’—such, namely, as came of the puritan opposition to stage-plays? This had grown so strong, that, in 1600, the privy Council issued an order restricting the number of theatres in London to two: by such an innovation a number of players might well be driven to the country.”

1379-80 I...innouasion] Symons (in Irving & Marshall ed. 1890): “The Variorum Ed. Has four pages, the New Variorum two pages and half, on this interesting and long debated passage. The explanation of the allusion given by the Clarendon Press edd. in their Preface (pp. xii-xv) seems to be, as Furness styles it conclusive. After quoting the readings of the Q. of 1603 and of the later Qq., they say: ‘In the earlier play the tragedians are driven to strolling because the public taste was in favour of the private plays and the acting of children; in the later, they are represented as being prohibited from acting in consequence of what is darkly called an ‘innovation.’ Both these causes are combined in the play as is stands in the Folios , where the ‘inhibition’ and the ‘aery of children’ are introduced to account for the tragedians having forsaken the city. Steevens explains the ‘inhibition’ in this way: ‘Their permission to act any longer at an established is taken away, in consequence of the new custom of introducing personal abuse into their comedies,’ and then asserts that ‘several companies of actors in the time of our author were silenced on account of this licentious practice.’ But it is not clear that this is the reference intended. For a very long period there had been a strong opposition in the city to theatrical performances. . . . ‘It is difficult, therefore, to see at what precise period the explanation offered by Steevens could be true. In 1604 the indulgence of the actors in personal abuse could hardly be called an ‘innovation;’ on the contrary, it was a practice from which the stage had never entirely been free. If we were to add the conjectures upon this point we should be disposed to suggest that the ‘innovation’ referred to was the license which had been given on 30th Jan., 1603-4 to the Children of the Queen’s Revels to play at the Blackfriars Theatre and other convenient places. The Blackfriars Theatre belonged to the company of which Shakespeare was a member, formerly the Lord Chamberlain’s, and at this time His Majesty’s servants. The popularity of the children may well have driven the older actors into the country, and so have operated as an ‘inhibition,’ though in the strict sense of the word no formal ‘inhibition’ was used issued. If by ‘inhibition’ Shakespeare merely meant, as we think most probable, that the actors were practically thrown out of employment, it seems also likely that by ‘innovation’ he meant the authority given to the children to act at the regularly licensed theatres. It must be borne in mind, reference to this, that nothing is said either of ‘inhibition’ or ‘innovation’ in 1603, but that the sentence containing both is introduced in 1604. It is to the interval therefore that we must look for the explanation. In offering this conjecture we have not lost sight of the fact that after all, remembering how chary Shakespeare is of contemporary allusions, no special occurrence may be hinted at, although in what follows in the Folio edition a satire upon the children’s performances was clearly intended.’”

1379-80 I...innouasion] Dowden (ed. 1899, appendix, pp. 229-30): “The discussion of this matter by Prof. W. Hall Griffin in The Anthenaeum, April 25, 1896, seems to me highly satisfactory. At Michaelmas 1600, Henry Evans took possession of the Blackfriars Theatre, — a private theatre, — which he leased from Richard Burbage, and ther he set up ‘a companie of boyes,’ who became exceedingly popular. This is referred to in Q.1.</p. 229>

<p. 230>“Q (1604) refers to an inhibition and an innovation. Probably this is a veiled allusion to the popularity of the children, an innovation, which had almost the effect of an inhibition. If we must find an express inhibition, that due to the visitation of the Plague, 1603, may answer the purpose. In January 1604 the children became “the Children of her Majesty’s Revels”; in 1603 Shakespeare’s company became the King’s servants. It was inexpedient that the King’s servants should censure the Queen’s children. Hence the omission of any reference to boy actors in Q 1604.

“The passage in F refers not only to boy actors, but probably also to the ‘war of the theatres,’ in which Jonson, Marston, Dekker took prominent parts. The children performed Cynthia’s Revels, 1600, and The Poetaster, 1601. Jonson admits that he had ‘tax’d’ the players, but only some of them, and that ‘sparingly’ (see Apologeticall Dialogue appended to The Poetaster). A far less probable suggestion as to the ‘inhibition’ is, that it refers to the disgrace of Shakespeare’s company at court in 1601, owing to the share they had taken, by a performance of Richard II., in the conspiracy of Essex. See S. Lee’s Life of shakespeare, pp. 213-217.”

1379-80 Lawrence (1926, p. 263) thinks that this inhibition had to do with Privy Council Order of 22 June 1600 that the number of professional theaters be limited to Globe and Fortune, and the acting by the players of those theaters. The order was not signed into law by the Common Council due to hatred for the Privy Council, but might have sent some troupes of actors traveling; the boy-actors never had that effect. Q1 and F1 add the little eyases as a reason for traveling as a way to keep the lines, and this had to have been after Q2. “ . . . Scholarship when most in agreement on matters of pure conjecture is most to be suspected.” He ends by saying that Marston in Antonio and Mellida copied Hamlet rather than vice versa.

1379-80 Spens (1926, p. 323): Boas has shown that the inferences drawn on the word innovation, which means ’riot’ or ’insurrection,’ cannot stand. She also thinks that Marsden may have given something to Sh. as well as vice versa; it isn’t only Hamlet but also Antonio and Mellida that has touches of Lr. and Mac. The text is very bad, which is why it’s difficult to see Marston’s talent.

Spens anticipates Werstine: “ . . . while the character of Hamlet is consistent in Q2 and also consistent in F1, it is neither comprehensible nor consistent in the modern texts, which are made up of the whole of Q2 and the whole of F1.”

1379-80 Lawrence (1926, p. 339) says he is well aware of Dr. F. S. Boas’s article “Hamlet at the Universities,” Fortnightly Review, August 1913, where innovation is connected to riot or insurrection in two other plays. But Boas did not say that other meanings were impossible. The N.E.D. shows that other meanings are available. Dr. Spens will have trouble connecting a riot or insurrection with the result of a troupe traveling. “The inference is not in accord with Elizabethan stage history or Governmental procedure.”

1379-80 I . . . innouasion] Wilson (ed. 1934): “Much discussed, but without agreement. A few points may be made: (I) The ‘innovation’ has nothing to do with the ‘little eyases,’ as many have assumed, since it is expressly stated to be the cause of an ‘inhibition,’ i.e. a prohibition of playing by authority. (II) As Boas (Sh. and the Universities, p. 23 n.) shows, ‘innovation’ always means a political upheaval of some kind in Sh. He quotes 1 Hen. IV, [(2715)] ‘hurlyburly innovation’ and Oth.[(1151)], to which I may add Cor.[(1877)] ‘ a traitorous innovator’ and More (Sh.’s Addition), [(92-30] ‘You shall perceive how horrible a shape | Your innovation bears.’ And if the passage (as I think) was written in 1601, the ‘innovation’ can hardly be other than that of the Earl of Essex in Feb. of that year. (III) Sh.’s company were certainly not inhibited on account of the Essex rising, since they were acting at court on the eve of the Earl’s execution. Nor have we any direct evidence that the Admiral’s men were inhibited; but they seem to have ceased playing for a time in Feb. and March, 1601, and were involved in legal troubles of some kind in the same year (v. Chambers, Eliz. Stage, II. 174-5). Cf. also Chambers, Will Shak. I. 65, 423.”

1379-80 innouasion] Chambers (1944, p. 69) <p.69> says that Sh. uses the word and its cognates “very rarely, and only in the sense of a political upheaval, or something analogous to that. [. . . ] I do not now see how the innovation by an inhibition of Hamlet can well be anything but the outbreak of the Earl of Essex on 8 February 1601. It is true that we have no record of any inhibition ordered by the Privy Council at that time. Possibly one was imposed by the City ad local Justices themselves without waiting for instructions.” </p. 69>

1379-80 I...innouasion] Jenkins (ed. 1982): "The fundamental problem is to decide whether the innovation is or is not, as traditionally assumed, the emergence of the child actors referred to in l. 337. The chief ground for supposing that it is that it was so understood by the reporter of Q1, which simply gives, as the reason for the players’ travelling, ’Noveltie carries it away, For the principall publike audience that Came to them, are turned to private playes, And to the humour of children’. But against this are (1) the run of the dialogue in the full text, and (2) the meanings of the key words. (1) Although at a glance the account of the children may seem to enlarge upon the ’innovation’ which prevents the players from continuing in town, closer consideration suggests that Hamlet asks and Rosencrantz answers two separate questions of which the second gives no sign of arising from the first : the innovation explains why they have declined in popularity. Mention of the children at once prompts further questions, but the dialogue seems to have accepted the ’innovation’ as self-explanatory. Instead of seeking details about that, Hamlet turns to the other topic of the players’ reputation (estimation, l. 332). (2) A closure due to loss of audience is not at all the same as the formal ban implied in inhibition, so that the telescoped version of Q1 shows the reporter in some confusion, which may extend not mean merely ’novelty’ (or that child actors, familiar at the Blackfriars twenty years before, could not be regarded as novel) ; but the word usually connoted a challenge to the established order and often had the specific sense of an uprising. In 1H4 V. i. 78 ’hurlyburly innovation’ is synonymous with ’rebellion’ and ’insurrection’, and this is also the unmistakable sense in the only other Shakespearean instances, Oth. II. iii. 36 and Sir Thomas More, MSR, Addn II, 216, while in Cor. III. i. 174 ’a traitorous innovator’ is ’a foe to the public weal’. It is in this sense that an ’innovation’ could well lead to an ’inhibition’, and ’the late innovation’ implies a past and particular rather than a continuing event (cf. Boas, Shakespeare and the Universities, p. 23n.).

“The further problem is then to identify the event. Unless Fortinbras’s ’enterprise’ (1. i. 102) should be thought to qualify, it is not easily traceable in the plot of the play, so that the allusion is generally assumed to be to some contemporary happening. Dover Wilson (NCS, p. 177) and Chambers (Shakespearean Gleanings, p. 69) confidently take this to be the Essex rebellion of February 1601. That the word would not be unique in such a context appears from a contemporary letter to Sir Robert Cecil which, referring to ’these late conspiracies’ is scandalized by the idea of popular ’innovation’ (Hist. MSS Commission, Calendar of the MSS of the Marquis of Salisbury, XI. 538.) There is no evidence that the rebellion in fact led to a closure of the theatres, wherefore Honigmann (SS 9, 27-9), discounting a political interpretation altogether, accepts the oft-held view that the ’inhibition’ is the order of 22 June 1600, which forbade more than two playhouses in London. But attempts to connect this with the ’innovation’ of child actors are unconvincing. So, I think, is Harbage’s supposition (Shakespeare and the Rival Traditions, pp. 114-15) that broils occasioned by the theatrical rivalries called forth a warning that an ’inhibition’ might follow. But he at least perceives the fallacy of assuming that a topical allusion must show complete correspondence between fact and fiction. That an ’innovation’ did not lead to a ban in actuality need not prevent its doing so in the play. It may seem odd that the ’innovation’ should have been brought in if no more was to be made of it ; but as I see it, Shakespeare, in need of an explanation for the players’ travelling, referred it to a political disturbance, and if the passage is rightly dated after February 1601, must have done so in the knowledge, if not with the design, that the audience would instantly identify ’the late innovation’ with the Essex rebellion. And this in itself may be why the matter received no further enlargement."