significance of the play and its more vital and enduring literary excellencies. It has been the editor's aim to render possible a full appreciation of The Knight of the Burning Pestle, not only as the earliest, and perhaps finest, of our dramatic burlesques, but also as (one of the brightest examples of pure comedy in the language.)

The Introduction is mainly devoted to an exposition of the larger objects of the satire. Comment upon the details of Jacobean life to which the play bears reference is contained in the Notes. Peculiarities of the vocabulary are treated, for the most part, in the Glossary.

I desire to acknowledge my obligations to the following members of Yale University: to Professor Albert S. Cook for inspiration and aid at every stage of my work; to Professor Henry A. Beers and Professor William L. Phelps for useful advice; to Dr. Rudolph Schevill for invaluable suggestions relative to the play's independence of Don Quixote, and its connections with the Spanish romances; to Dr. William S. Johnson for the benefit of frequent consultations; and to Mr. Andrew Keogh and Mr. Henry A. Gruener for assistance in bibliographical matters.

A portion of the expense of printing this thesis has been borne by the Modern Language Club of Yale University from funds placed at its disposal by the generosity of Mr. George E. Dimock, of Elizabeth, New Jersey, a graduate of Yale in the class of 1874.

PRINCETON UNIVERSITY,

April 20, 1907.

CONTENTS

PAGE

i

xi

xxi

xxxi

lxvi

D. ANALOGUES AND ATTRIBUTED SOURCES

1. The Romances of Chivalry and Don

II. TEXT

1. Literary and Theatrical Tastes of the
Middle Classes

III. NOTES

a. The Fashion of Romance-reading and
the Chivalric Drama

b. Miscellaneous Stage-favorites of the
Citizens

2. The Manners of Jacobean Audiences

3. Minor Objects of the Satire

XCV

cii

CX

1

105

275

281

304

INTRODUCTION

A. EDITIONS OF THE TEXT.

The Knight of the Burning Pestle was originally printed in quarto in 1613. A second quarto appeared in 1635, and still a third in the same year. The play, though not included in the First Folio of 1647, is in the Second Folio of 1679, and in all subsequent editions of the collected works of Beaumont and Fletcher. It is to be found, also, in three books of selected plays from English dramatists, and, finally, in a distinct volume in The Temple Dramatists series.

1613. The quarto of 1613 is the only edition of the play which was issued during the lifetime of Beaumont and Fletcher. Though published after the theatregoing public had condemned the stage-presentation, and hence designed for the general reader, its inaccuracies and inconsistencies in punctuation, and, less frequently, in spelling, show that it was not transcribed from the authors' MS., but from the prompters' books or the playhouse copies.

The imprint is a good example of the elementary stage of typography at the time. Frequent and annoying blunders occur. Chief among them are the omission of commas, semicolons, periods, and interrogation points, and the gratuitous substitution of any one of these marks of punctuation for another. Often the sense remains unimpaired in spite of these mistakes; quite as often, however, it is obscured or vitiated by them. Owing, no doubt, to the unsettled condition of orthography at the time, inconsistencies

a

in spelling, also, are to be found in the quarto. Thus we find Rafe and Raph for modern Ralph; cunny, conny, and cony; shaumes and shawnes; of (off) and off; am ('em) and 'em; ben, bene, and beene; faith and feth ; lam and lamb; tane and ta'en for taken. There are numbers of purely typographical errors.

In spite of these discrepancies and blunders, the quarto of 1613 presents the most satisfactory basis of departure for a critical treatment of the play. Many corrections are made in the quartos of 1635 and the folio of 1679; but often, too, an original reading is preferable to its alteration, and neither the quartos nor the folio can be set forth as authoritative. All things considered, it has been deemed best to adopt for this edition the text of the First Quarto, and to subjoin whatever variant readings are helpful in removing difficulties or suggestive of alternative readings.

1635. Two quarto editions were published in 1635. Though they are identical in leaf-collation, neither is a reprint of the other. Copies of these editions are bound together in a single volume preserved in the Boston Public Library. I treat them, according to their arrangement, as Q, and Q.

Q2 effects a valuable improvement in removing all of the misprints in the First Quarto as noted above. There is an advance toward modernization in spelling. There are one or two helpful emendations of the text, i. e. of 'em for 'em (1. 223), and get you to for get to (2. 256). There are many improvements upon the First Quarto in punctuation. On the other hand, there are a number of unwarranted alterations, i. e. by my faith for by faith (1. 264); I shall for shall I (2. 451); bound to thank you for bound to you (3. 319); blowing for bellowing (4.468); Too for To (5. 14); part for depart (5.374).