Address to the Readers, and to be made of doubtful reliability by the equivocal word authors in the Prologue. A consideration of the authorship may be found in the Introd., pp. XXI-XXXI.

As it is now acted. There is no evidence that our play, after its first presentation in 1610, was revived before this year, 1635. Cf. Introd., p. XVI.

her Majesties Servants. The organization from which this company of actors descended was formed under Alexander Foster in 1611, when it entered into a bond with Henslow, probably to act at the Swan. In March, 1613, Henslow's company and Rossiter's (the 2 Revels) amalgamated, and were then called the Lady Elizabeth's Men. They bore this title until the accession of Charles I, 1625, when they passed over to Queen Henrietta and became known as Her Majesty's Servants. Nathan Field, who was also a member of the Queen's Revels, acted with this company. In Jan. and Feb., 1612-13, Beaumont and Fletcher's The Coxcomb was presented by it; in March, 1613, The Honest Man's Fortune; in succeeding years The Nightwalker, Wit without Money and Nice Valour. In Malone's Shakespeare (in Boswell 3. 238), is printed this entry from Sir Henry Herbert's MSS., 1636: The 28 Feb. The Knight of the Burning Pestle played by the Q. men at St. James.' For details regarding Her Majesty's Servants, cf. Fleay, Hist. of the Stage, pp. 186, 204, 263, 312, 321, &c.

6

the Private house in Drury lane. This playhouse should not be confused with the famous Drury Lane Theatre of our own time. The latter was opened in Catherine Street, 1663. The 'Private house in Drury lane' stood in the parish of St. Giles-in-the-Fields, and was generally known as The Cockpit, from the building which had originally occupied this site, and had served as a place for the exhibition of cock-fighting. The exact date of its erection is not ascertainable. The Cockpit Theatre was certainly not converted into a playhouse until after James I had been some time on the throne.... Camden, in his Annals of James I, speaking of the attack upon it in March, 1616-17, says that the Cock

pit Theatre was then nuper erectum, by which we are to understand, perhaps, that it had been lately converted into a playhouse. Howes, in his continuation of Stowe, adverting to the same event, calls it "a new playhouse," as if it had then been recently built from the foundation.'-Collier. Annals of the Stage 3. 328. The attack to the which Collier alludes was made by a mob of apprentices on Shrove Tuesday, March 4, 1616-17.

The Cockpit was occupied continuously by Lady Elizabeth's Men from 1616-17 until the end of James' reign. After June 24, 1625, Her Majesty's Servants acted there under the management of Christopher Beeston. In 1637 these players were transferred to Salisbury Court to make place at The Cockpit for a new company known as Beeston's Boys. Cf. Fleay, Hist. of the Stage, pp. 299, 321, 359.

'On Saturday, March 24, 1640, the house was pulled down by a company of soldiers, "set on by the sectaries of those sad times.' -Wh.-C.

Quod si, &c. Cf. these lines on title-page of the text, and the note regarding them.

ADDRESS TO THE READERS, Q..

the French Kickshoes. The modern spelling is kickshaws. Ed. 1778 reads quelque chose. Cf. variants. The original Fr. spelling was frequent in the 17th century, but the commonest forms follow the pronunciation que'que chose, formerly regarded as elegant, and still current in colloquial French. The word was sometimes correctly taken as sing., with plural choses, &c.; more commonly it was treated as a pl., and a sing. kickshaw afterwards formed from it.'—N. E. D. The term French kickshoes as employed here had a contemptuous force. Cf. Glossary. Cf. Addison, Tatler, No. 148: 'That substantial English Dish banished is so ignominious a Manner, to make Way for French Kickshaws.'

the Author. An evidence of single authorship.

PROLOGUE OF Q2.

THE PROLOGVE. This Prologue is almost an exact transcript of 'The Prologue at the Black fryers' prefixed to Lyly's Sapho and Phao. There are a few trivial alterations of the text, the addition of a few words, (viz.: or mistaking the Authors intention, who never aymed at any one particular in this Play, and the concluding sentence, And thus I leave it, and thee to thine owne censure, to like, or dislike.), and the omission of Lyly's last sentence, which is as follows: 'The Gryffon never spreadeth her wings in the sunne, when she hath any sick feathers: yet have we ventured to present our exercises before your iudgements, when we know them full of weak matter, yielding rather our selves to the curtesie, which we have ever found, then to the preciseness, which wee ought to feare.' Sapho and Phao was first printed in 1584. It was republished in 1591; and in 1632 it was included, in a third edition, with five of Lyly's other plays, in a collection called the Sixe Court Comedies. Dyce corrects Weber's erroneous statement that the play had been presented at court in 1633.

where the Beare cannot finde Origanum to heale his griefe, hee blasteth all other leaves with his breath. Cf. Pliny, Natural History, Bk. 9, chap. 115 (Bostock and Riley's trans.): The breath of the lion is fetid, and that of the bear quite pestilential; indeed, no beast will touch anything with which its breath has come in contact, and substances which it has breathed upon will become putrid sooner than others.'

R. W. Bond, ed. The Complete Works of John Lyly, 1902, notes that the passage is a reminiscence of Euphues 1. 208, 11. 20-6: The filthy sow when she is sicke, eateth the Sea Crabbe and is immediately recured: the Torteyse having tasted the Viper, sucketh Origanum and is quickly revived: the Beare readye to pine, lycketh vpp the Ants and is recovered,' &c. Lyly adopted these ideas directly from Pliny, Bk. 8, chap. 41. Cuvier remarks upon this and the following Chapter, that they are entirely fabulous. The diseases,

S

remedies, and instructions given by the animals are equally imaginary, although the author has taken the whole from authors of credit.'-Bostock and Riley.

to breed (if it might be) soft smiling, not loud laughing. 'Noticeable as an acknowledgement, made to a popular audience, of a purpose sufficiently apparent in the plays themselves, of weaning popular taste from coarse farce and rough-and-tumble clownage to appreciate a more refined style of Comedy. We may compare the effort at tragic dignity announced by Marlowe in the Prologue to Tamburlaine.'-Bond.

They were banished the Theatre of Athens, &c. 'Probably amplified from Horace's brief account of the suppres sion of the license of 'vetus comœdia' at Athens (Ars Poetica, 281 sqq.), and the preceding uncomplimentary reference to the wit of Plautus, 1. 270.'—Bond. The lines in Horace are thus translated by Howes (Art of Poetry, ed. Cook, p. 20):

Our forefathers, good-natured, easy folks,

Extolled the numbers and enjoyed the jokes

Of Plautus, prompt both these and those to hear,
With tolerant- not to say with tasteless-ear.

The account of the 'vetus comœdia' is rendered as follows:

The Antique Comedy was next begun,

Nor light applause her frolic freedom won;

But, into slanderous outrage waxing fast,

Called for the curb of law; that law was passed;

And thus, its right of wronging quickly o'er,

Her Chorus sank abashed, to rise no more.

the Authors intention. This throws no light on the question of joint composition, since Authors may be either the plural or the possessive of the singular. Cf. variants.

THE SPEAKERS' NAMES.

The Speakers Names. Dyce's additions to this list, together with his corrections of inaccuracies, should be noted. Cf. variants.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

ABBOTT, E. A. A Shakesperian Grammar. London, 1891. ARBER, EDWARD, ed. A Transcript of the Registers of the Company of Stationers of London: 1554-1640. 5 vols. London, 1875-94.

ASCHAM, ROBERT. The Schoolmaster, 1570. Arber's Reprints. London, 1870.

BATES, K. L., and GODFREY, L. B. English Drama. A Working Basis. Wellesley College, 1896.

BEAUMONT, FRANCIS, and FLETCHER, JOHN. Works, ed. A. Dyce. 11 vols. London, 1843-6. (For other editions, cf. Introduction, pp. I-XI).

BESANT, WALTER. London. London, 1892.

BOYLE, R. Beaumont, Fletcher, and Massinger. Englische Studien, Vols. 5-8.

1882-5.

Beaumont and Fletcher's Knight of the Burning

Pestle. Englische Studien, Vol. 12. 1889.

BRAND, JOHN. Popular Antiquities of Great Britain. 3 vols. London, 1849.

BROME, RICHARD. Dramatic Works. London, 1873.

CENTURY Dictionary.

CERVANTES, MIQUEL de. Don Quixote, tr. Th. Shelton, 1612. 3 vols. London, 1900.

CHAMBERS, E. K. The Medieval Stage. 2 vols. Oxford, 1903. CHAMBERS, ROBERT. The Book of Days. 2 vols. Edinburgh, 1863-4.

CHAPMAN, GEORGE. Works, ed. R. H. Shepherd. London, 1874. CHAPPELL, WILLIAM. Popular Music of the Olden Time. 2 vols. London, 1859.

CHILD, F. J. English and Scottish Popular Ballads. 5 vols. Cambridge, 1883-94.

COLLIER, J. P. The History of English Dramatic Poetry to the time of Shakespeare: and the Annals of the Stage to the Restoration. 3 vols. London, 1831.

Punch and Judy. London, 1873.