V. ii. 48, occurred in 1596; and in Ben Jonson’s

Every Man out of his Humour (Act V. sc. ii.), writ¬ ten in 1599, reference is made to Justice Silence. That Henry IV, Part II, was written before Henry V is evidenced by the unfulfilled promise in the Epi¬ logue of the present play (see the note on that pas¬ sage).
An acting version of the play, the only known contemporary Quarto edition, was printed in 1600 and entered on the Stationers’ Register on August 23 of that year. The full text of the play appeared for the first time in the First Folio in 1623. Of the many contemporary allusions to the play of Henry IV and the characters of the play, the following refer unquestionably to Part II.
(1) Sir Charles Percy, third son of the twentieth Earl of Northumberland, Lord of Dumbleton in Gloucestershire, a follower of the Earl of Essex, and
King Henry the Fourth
147
an admirer, perhaps a friend, of Shakespeare’s, writes in a letter dated December 27, 1G00 (?): “I am here so pestered with country business that I shall not be able as yet to come to London. If I stay here long in this fashion, at my return you will find me so dull that I shall be taken for Justice Shallow or Justice Silence.”
(2) Dekker in Satiromastix (1602), Ad Lectorem, refers to Master Justice Shallow.
(8) Ben Jonson in Epiccene (1609), II. v., re¬ fers to Doll Tearsheet.
Of early performances and players of Henry IV,