4a 
4 
4 
The First London Theatre 157 
the comon lawe, but alfo an other bonde of 200" made for the 
performance of an Arbytrament made betwene the faid parties 
w™ the faid p' pretendeth to be alfo forfyted by the deft And 
therefore as the faid Councell alledged the p' hathe no neade of 
the Ayde of this Courte for the faid leafe and profittes It ys 
therevpon thought fitt and foe ordered by this Courte that the faid 
p! fhall proceede at the comon lawe againit the faid defend* vpon 
the faid bondes To thend yt may be feene whether the p! can 
Relive him felfe vpon the faid bondes or not But if yt fall out 
that the p' canot be Relived vpon the faide bondes Then the 
matter fhall Receave a fpedy heringe in this Corte And fuche 
order fhalbe geven therevpon As the equity of the cavfe fhall 
Require And in the meane tyme the mattr ys Reynd|= Re- 
teyned] in this courte 
[End of the case in Chancery. This final order, with modern spelling 
and wrong date of 1596 for 1595, was printed first by J. P. Collier, Actors 
if S.); pe 10. 
Myles was unable to get relief at the Common Law. The secret of the 
matter is that the case of Widow Brayne and Myles had no foundation in 
either law or equity, and that it was prosecuted solely by Myles’s money 
from the first, out of malicious enmity by her and him toward the Bur- 
bages. Failing in both the Chancery and the Common Law, Myles again 
took up the case, after the death of James Burbage in 1597, this time in 
the Court of Requests, as shown in the next document, to harass his 
widow and his sons Cuthbert and Richard Burbage. 
It would have been remarkable if Shakespeare had not fused some of 
Myles’s traits into immortal features, particularly his Shylock-like insist- 
ence on the pound of flesh. Such annoyances to the close business asso- 
ciates of the great dramatist, hindering the success of the company, can 
hardly have failed to leave a residuum of human experience plastic to the 
hand of the poet.] 
157 
