The commonly accepted date, 1608, for the composition of the _Foure Playes in One_ is derived from Fleay, who mistakenly quotes a reference in the 1619 quarto of _The Yorkshire Tragedy_ to the _Foure Playes_ as if it were of the 1608 quarto where the reference does not appear.[181] While Fletcher may have written the first draft of his contribution before the middle of 1610, it is evident from Field's Address _To the Reader_ in the first quarto of the _Woman is a Weather-cocke_ (entered S. R., November 23, 1611), that Field's contribution was made after November 23, 1611. In that Address he makes it plain that this is his first dramatic effort: "I have been vexed with vile plays myself a great while, hearing many; now I thought to be even with some, and they should hear mine too." We have already noticed[182] that Field had not written even his _Weather-cocke_, still less anything in collaboration with Fletcher, at the time of the publication of _The Faithfull Shepheardesse_ (between January and July, 1609); for in his complimentary poem for the quarto of that "Pastorall," Field acknowledges his unknown name and his Muse in swaddling clouts, and timidly confesses his ambition to write something like _The Shepheardesse_, "including a Morallitie, Sweete and profitable." That Field's contribution to the _Foure Playes_ was not made before the date of the first performance of _The Weather-cocke_ by the Revels' Children at Whitefriars, _i. e._, January 4, 1610 to Christmas 1610-11 (when its presentation before the King at Whitehall probably took place), further appears from his dedication _To Any Woman that hath been no Weather-cocke_ (quarto, 1611) in which he alludes not to _The Triumph of Honour_, or of _Love_, but to _Amends for Ladies_, as his "next play," then on the stocks, and, he thought, soon to be printed.[183] The evidence, external and internal, amply presented by Oliphant, Thorndike, and others, but with a view to conclusions different from mine as to date and authorship, confirms me in the belief that Fletcher's _Time_ and _Death_, though written at least two years earlier, were not gathered up with Field's _Induction_, _Honour_, and _Love_, into the _Foure Playes in One_ until about 1612; and that the series was performed at Whitefriars by Field's company of the Queen's Revels' Children, shortly after they had first acted _Cupid's Revenge_ at the same theatre.