O traitors and bawds, how earnestly are you set a-work, and how ill requited! why should our endeavour be so loved and the performance so loathed? what verse for it? what instance for it? Let me see:

Full merrily the humble-bee doth sing,
Till he hath lost his honey and his sting;
And being once subdued in armed tail,
Sweet honey and sweet notes together fail.
Good traders in the flesh, set this in your painted cloths.
As many as be here of pander's hall,

Your eyes, half out, weep out at Pandar's fall;

Or if you cannot weep, yet give some groans,

Though not for me, yet for your aching bones.
Brethren and sisters of the hold-door trade,
Some two months hence my will shall here be made;
It should be now, but that my fear is this,-
Some galled goose of Winchester would hiss:
Till then I'll sweat and seek about for eases,
And at that time bequeath you my diseases.

40

50

[Exit.

NOTES.

ABBREVIATIONS USED IN THE NOTES.

Abbott (or Gr.), Abbott's Shakespearian Grammar (third edition).

A. S., Anglo-Saxon.

A. V., Authorized Version of the Bible (1611).

B. and F., Beaumont and Fletcher.

B. J., Ben Jonson.

Camb. ed., "Cambridge edition" of Shakespeare, edited by Clark and Wright.

Cf. (confer), compare.

Clarke, "Cassell's Illustrated Shakespeare," edited by Charles and Mary CowdenClarke (London, n. d.).

Coll., Collier (second edition).

Coll. MS., Manuscript Corrections of Second Folio, edited by Collier.

D., Dyce (second edition).

H., Hudson (" Harvard" edition).

Halliwell, J. O. Halliwell (folio ed. of Shakespeare).

Id. (idem), the same.

K., Knight (second edition).

Nares, Glossary, edited by Halliwell and Wright (London, 1859).

Prol., Prologue.

S., Shakespeare.

Schmidt, A. Schmidt's Shakespeare-Lexicon (Berlin, 1874).

Sr., Singer.

St., Staunton.

Theo., Theobald.

V., Verplanck.

W., R. Grant White.

Walker, Wm. Sidney Walker's Critical Examination of the Text of Shakespeare (London, 1860).

Warb., Warburton.

Wb., Webster's Dictionary (revised quarto edition of 1879).

Worc., Worcester's Dictionary (quarto edition).

The abbreviations of the names of Shakespeare's Plays will be readily understood; as T. N. for Twelfth Night, Cor. for Coriolanus, 3 Hen. VI. for The Third Part of King Henry the Sixth, etc. P. P. refers to The Passionate Pilgrim; V. and A. to Venus and Adonis; L. C. to Lover's Complaint; and Sonn. to the Sonnets.

When the abbreviation of the name of a play is followed by a reference to page, Rolfe's edition of the play is meant.

The numbers of the lines (except for the present play) are those of the "Globe" ed.

THE PREFACE TO THE QUARTO OF 1609.-The full text of this preface (see p. 10 above) is as follows:

A neuer writer to an euer reader.

Newes.

Eternall reader, you haue heere a new play, neuer stal'd with the Stage, neuer clapper-clawd with the palmes of the vulger, and yet passing full of the palme comicall; for it is a birth of your braine, that neuer under-tooke any thing commicall vainely and were but the vaine names of commedies changde for the titles of commodities, or of playes for pleas, you should see all those grand censors, that now stile them such vanities, flock to them for the maine grace of their grauities; especially this authors commedies, that are so fram'd to the life, that they serue for the most common commentaries of all the actions of our liues, showing such a dexteritie, and power of witte, that the most displeased with playes are pleasd with

L