Volume I Part 79 (2/2)
But if you give your minds to the sin of pride, Vanish shall your virtue, your honour away will slide.
For pride is hated of G.o.d above, And meekness soonest obtaineth his love.
To your rulers and parents be you obedient, Never transgressing their lawful commandment.
Be ye merry and joyful at board and at bed: Imagine no traitory against your prince and head.
Love G.o.d, and fear him, and after him your king, Which is as victorious as any is living.
Pray for his grace, with hearts that doth not feign, That long he may rule us without grief or pain.
Beseech ye also that G.o.d may save his queen.
Lovely Lady Jane, and the prince that he hath sent them between,[613]
To augment their joy and the Commons' felicity!
Fare ye well, sweet audience, G.o.d grant you all prosperity.
AMEN.
FOOTNOTES:
1. A Select Collection of Old Plays. A new edition, with Additional Notes and Corrections, by the late Isaac Reed, Octavius Gilchrist, and the Editor (J.P. Collier. London, 1825-27-28. 13 vols. post 8vo, including a Supplement).
2. Not only has the editor brought together, and arranged in their proper sequence, certain dramas of great curiosity hitherto not reprinted at all, but he has incorporated with the old series of Dodsley all the pieces in the collections of Dilke, Hawkins, &c., which still remained uncollected. Of course, of those writers of whom we possess valuable texts by Gifford, Dyce, and other scholars, no specimens were necessary.
To the library editions of Jonson, s.h.i.+rley, Greene, Peele, &c., these new volumes, from which they have been intentionally excluded, ought to be acceptable companions.
3. Origin of the English Drama. 1773. 8vo, 3 vols.
4. Old English Plays, being a selection from the early dramatic writers.
1816. 8vo, 6 vols.
5. For many of the notes contributed by Dodsley and his followers, the present editor should not be held answerable; nor would he have retained them, had he not apprehended a complaint that the work was by their omission impaired in value. In certain cases, nevertheless, where a remark or explanation was absolutely erroneous, it seemed to be an imperative duty to suppress it, and if necessary to subst.i.tute another for it. A large proportion of the extracts at the foot of the pages have been collated, by which process a variety of mistakes has been removed.
6. The tone of this inscription almost renders it allowable to infer that Sir Clement Dormer had communicated to Dodsley some of the plays which appear in his collection as originally published. Sir Clement Cotterel, who was probably related to Sir Clement Cotterel Dormer, was master of the ceremonies during the early Georgian era, and curious old books with his book-plate occasionally occur.
7. ”Interlude of the Four Elements: An Early Moral Play.” Edited by James Orchard Halliwell, F.R.S. London: Percy Society, 1848.
8. But see Mr Collier's reason for a.s.signing it to 1517. ”History of English Dramatic Poetry,” ii. 321.
9. See Hazlitt's ”Handbook,” p. 463.
10. That is, a fool. ”Good faith, I am no wiser than a daw.”--”I Henry VI.” ii. 4; Malone's Shakespeare, xviii. 61.--_Halliwell_.
11. Everlasting. It occurs twice in Shakespeare: see ”Macbeth,” iii. 2, _apud_ Malone, xi. l54.--_Halliwell_.
12. That is, animal. This word is not always used by early writers in a bad sense. ”By b.e.s.t.i.a.l oblivion” Hamlet refers to the want of intellectual reflection in animals, there applied to human beings. Still more clearly in ”Oth.e.l.lo”--”I have lost the immortal part, sir, of myself, and what remains is b.e.s.t.i.a.l.” Even ”b.e.s.t.i.a.l appet.i.te,” in change of l.u.s.t, in ”Richard III.,” may be similarly interpreted.--_Halliwell_.
13. Establish or fix firmly in thy mind.
”Why doth not every earthly thing Cry shame upon her? Could she here deny The story that is printed in her blood!”
--_Halliwell. --Much Ado about Nothing_, iv. 1.
14. Wondrously; and so ”wonders” for ”wondrous,” elsewhere in this interlude. In ”Adam Bel,” 1536, we have ”wonderly”--
”These gates be shut so wonderly well.”
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