ly through the Crown. Throughout the Elizabethan
period the printing of books was directly under the supervision of Her
Majesty's Government, and not under the law courts. Every book had to
be licensed by the company. The Wardens of the company acted as
licensers in ordinary cases, and in doubtful cases the Archbishop of
Canterbury, the Bishop of London, or some other dignitary appointed for
the purpose. When the license was granted, the permission to print was
entered upon the Register of the company, and it is from these records
that much important knowledge about the dates of Shakespeare's plays is
gained.

The Stationers' Company was interested only in protecting its members
from prosecution and from competition. The author was not considered
by them in the legal side of the transaction. How the printer got his
manuscript to print was his own affair, not theirs.

Many authors were at that time paid by printers for the privilege of
using their manuscript; but it was not considered proper that a
gentleman should be paid for literary work. Robert Greene, the
playwright and novelist, wrote regularly in the employ of printers. On
the other hand, Sir Philip Sidney, a contemporary {116} of
Shakespeare's, did not allow any of his writings to be printed during
his lifetime. Francis Bacon published his essays only in order to
forestall an unauthorized edition, and others of the time took the same
course. Bacon says in his preface that to prevent their being printed
would have been a troublesome procedure. It was possible for an author
to prevent the publication by prosecution, but it was scarcely a wise
thing to do, in view of the legal difficulties in the way.
Nevertheless, fear of the law probably acted as some sort of a check on
unscrupulous publishers.

The author of a play was, however, really less interested than the
manager who had bought it. The manager of a theater seems, from what
evidence we possess, to have believed that the printing of a play
injured the chances of success upon the stage. The play was sold by
the author directly to the manager, whose property it became. Copies
of it might be sold to some printer by some of the players in the
company, by the manager himself, or, in rarer cases, by some
unscrupulous copyist taking down the play in shorthand at the
performance. When a play had got out of date, it would be more apt to
be sold than while it was still on the stage. In some cases, how