It is not always easy to guess at the full meaning of the author in various scenes he introduces, but some of them were obviously inserted for the purpose of exciting the laughter of the audience, and of giving an opportunity of display to a favourite low comedian. One of the actors is expressly mentioned on the title-page, where "Kemp's applauded merriments of the men of Gotham, in receiving the King into Gotham" are made prominent; but unless much were left to the extemporaneous invention of the performer, or unless much has been omitted in the printed copy, which was inserted by the author in his manuscript, it is difficult at this time of day to discover in what the wit, if not the drollery, consisted. As this portion of the play has come down to us, it seems to be composed of mere ignorant and blundering buffoonery, unworthy of a comedian, who undoubtedly afterwards sustained important humorous characters in the plays of Shakespeare. Who was the Bailiff of Hexham, and why he was brought forward on his deathbed near the opening of the drama, we are unable to explain, unless the author's object were that the spectators, when the Bailiff was ultimately carried away by the devil, should have ocular proof of the condign punishment which followed his principles as explained to his sons, and his practices as avowed by himself.
We can establish, almost to a day, when the "Knack to know a Knave" was first represented, for we find it thus entered in "Henslowe's Diary:" it is in an account relating to the performances of the company acting under the name of Lord Strange, at the Rose Theatre, from 19th Feb. 1591-2 to the 22d June 1592--
R[eceive]d at Jeronimo, the 9 of June 1592 xxviij's. Rd at a Knack to know a Knave, 1592, 1 day iij'li. xij's. Rd at Harry the VI, the 12 June 1592 xxxiij's.
Here, therefore, we find (reforming the uncouth spelling of the old manager) that the play under consideration was acted, for the first day,[19] between the 9th and 12th June 1592, and that Henslowe's share of the receipts amounted to 3l. 12s. 0d. It was acted again on 15th and 22d June, when the account ends. William Kemp was at this time a member of the company in the prosperity of which Henslowe was interested, and had not yet joined the association acting under the sanction of the Lord Chamberlain, to which, in 1592, Shakespeare had for some years belonged. "Ed. Allen and his Company," spoken of on the title-page to the printed copy of "A Knack to know a Knave" as those by whom it had been "played," were the actors of Lord Strange.[20]