been caufed by any relaxation of his endeavours to render the performance as perfect as he was able. Whatever is the determination concerning it (though the fubject is what he acknowledges himself to feel fome anxiety about), he profeffes himself not to have the flighest inclination to dispute the propriety of any cenfure which may be paffed on his labours, either in part, or in the whole. Perfectly fatisfied with the pleasure he has received in the courfe of this work, he hath no expectation or wifh for fame, on account of his concern in it. The employment hath been a very agreeable one to him. It hath foothed many an hour when depreffed by fickness and pain; and hath contributed, in fome meafure, to the happiness of his life, by the opportunity which he hath by means of it enjoyed of becoming known to feveral gentlemen, whose friendship and acquaintance he esteems highly honourable to him. To those who may be diffatisfied with the manner in which this work is conducted, he can only fay, that the undertaking appeared to him much eafier before he engaged in it, than he found afterwards in its progress through the prefs. He might fafely rely on the candour of those who have experienced the trouble and difficulty

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difficulty attending fuch performances as the prefent; and to those who have not, could wish to addrefs himself in the words of one who had, fays the gentleman who quotes him, long laboured in the province of editorial drudgery; and who thus appeals to the judgement and benevolence of the reader: "If thou "ever wert an editor of fuch books, thou wilt "have fome compaffion on my failings, being "fenfible of the toil of fuch fort of creatures; "and, if thou art not yet an editor, I beg truce "of thee till thou art one before thou cenfureft my endeavours."

PREFACE

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FIRST EDITION.

WHEN I firft conceived the defign of

collecting together the best and scarcest of our old Plays, I had no intention to do more than search out the feveral authors, select what was good from each, and give as correct an edition of them as I could. This I thought would at once ferve as a fpecimen of the different merits of the writers, and fhew the humours and manners of the times in which they lived. But as the publick has been fo kind to favour me with much greater encouragement than I expected, I thought it my duty to omit nothing that might conduce either to the greater perfection of the work, or their better enter

s The Notes to this Preface figned D, are thofe originally added to it by Mr. Dodfley; the remainder by the prefent Editor.

tainment. It was this confideration which led me to think of prefixing to each Play, where any materials were to be had, a brief account of the life and writings of its author; and also, by way of Preface, a fhort hiftorical effay on the rife and progrefs of the English stage, from its earliest beginnings, to the death of king Charles the First, when play-houfes were fuppreffed. But in the profecution of both thefe defigns I have been fo croffed with a want of materials, that I am afraid what I intended fhould merit thanks, must barely hope for pardon.

Before I proceed to my principal defign, it may not be unentertaining to the reader just to take a view of the great fimilarity that appears in the rife and progress of the modern stage in all the principal countries of Europe.

ITALIAN THEATRE.

The Italian is perhaps the earliest of the modern theatres; nay, they pretend it was never intirely filent from the imperial times. But though there might be fome infipid buffooneries performed by idle people ftrolling about from town to town, and acting in open and public places to the mob they gathered round them; yet they had no poetry till the time of the

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