Hi Stower, the punctuation glitch haunts everyone who copies and pastes certain punctuation marks from other sources. It's especially interesting with other languages, e.g. Gaelic.

I don't know for sure about the evidence on Dowling but his usual style is totally different to the Kemp's Jig found in the lute manuscript Dd.2.11, c. 1590-95 - which is not the Playford tune.

I'd be prepared to make a bet that it wasn't one of Dowling's tunes. But you know how it is these days on the internet, someone makes a half-baked statement which may not have a basis in truth, and other people pick it up and repeat it, and by repetition it becomes truth.

I think Matthew Holmes transcribed lute tunes that he had heard so the tunes could have been around for some time before he wrote them down. Your logic is correct that if Kemp's 9 day's wonder occurred in 1600 then the tune cannot have been composed in his honour, but he was a member of Shakespeare's troupe for many years so someone else may have composed the tune either for one of Kemp's performances or as some sort of tribute to him.

Helen