My object in this book has been as much to tell stories of life and people in Shakespeare's day as to add to our knowledge of the Elizabethan stage and drama or to record texts rescued from their burial in legal evidences and now submitted to the unforeseen test of literary criticism, which they can scarcely abide with equanimity.

I have therefore avoided footnotes as far as possible, and have relegated to an appendix a list of documents which have furnished me with material and are available for re-examination. I have also refrained from the exact reproduction of quotations and have generally extended abbreviations, except in so far as the texts themselves are recorded as literary documents, and also in documents of especial importance. I have even, on occasion, taken upon me to put narrative in dialogue form, while preserving the actual words of the document. I have not, however, modernised my sources. Those who may care to follow my steps through a jungle of law-records and other material will find, I hope, essential faithfulness in the use I have made of them for my purpose. The manuscript of the jig Fool's Fortune, for example, was as reverently examined and deciphered as if it had been a jewel of price, as indeed in its way it is. Mr A. E. Stamp, Deputy Keeper of Public Records, kindly checked with me some doubtful readings.