The question of authorship has, indeed, always been, more or less, a moot point; the same uncertainty applies also to the question of the date of publication; and, notwithstanding recent research and criticism, these questions cannot even yet be said to be settled beyond a doubt.
Dr. Bradley, one of the editors of the _Oxford English Dictionary_, has recently, in Professor Gayley's _Representative English Comedies_ (Macmillan Co., New York, 1903), sifted the available evidence respecting the date and authorship of the play. I am enabled, through the courtesy of Dr. Bradley and the permission, readily granted, of Messrs. Macmillan and Co., to summarise the facts and inferences which Dr. Bradley adduces against the claims of both Dr. Still and Dr. Bridges, and those which seem to favour the identity of Mr. S. with a William Stevenson, who, born at Hunwick in Durham, matriculated as a sizar in November, 1546, became B.A. in 1549-50, M.A. in 1553, B.D. in 1560, being subsequently ordained deacon in London in 1552, appointed prebendary of Durham in January, 1560-1, and who died in 1575, the year in which _Gammer Gurton_ was printed.
1. The colophon of the earliest known edition of _Gammer Gurton's Needle_ bears date 1575. It also states that it was "played on stage, not longe ago, in Christes Colledge in Cambridge," and was "made by Mr. S., Mr. of Art."
2. The register of the Company of Stationers shows that in 1562-3 Colwell (whose dates as a printer-publisher range from 1561 to 1575) paid 4d. for licence to print a play entitled _Dyccon of Bedlam, &c._
3. "Diccon the Bedlam" is a character in _Gammer Gurton's Needle_, and there is a presumption that the piece licensed to Colwell in 1562-63 was identical with that printed in 1575 under another title; or, as an alternative, that _Gammer Gurton_ was a sequel to _Dyccon_: but that does not affect the value of the argument, as both would probably be by the same author.
4. If _Gammer Gurton's Needle_ is the play licensed in 1563, the performance at Christ's College must have taken place before that date, for it was not the custom to send a play to the press before it had been acted.
5. In the academic year ending Michaelmas, 1563, there is no record of dramatic representation given in the college; in 1561-62, the accounts mention certain sums "spent at Mr. Chatherton's playe"; in 1560-61 there is no mention of any play; but in 1559-60 we find two items:--"To the viales at Mr. Chatherton's plaie, 2s. 6d."--"Spent at Mr. Stevenson's plaie, 5s."