A Select Collection of Old English Plays

Page 1 of 251

Transcriber's Notes:

1. Passages in italics are surrounded by _underscores_.

2. This transcription uses the caret ^ symbol to indicate superscripted text, and {curly brackets} around multi-character superscripts.

A SELECT COLLECTION

OLD ENGLISH PLAYS.

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED BY ROBERT DODSLEY IN THE YEAR 1744.

_FOURTH EDITION_,

NOW FIRST CHRONOLOGICALLY ARRANGED, REVISED AND ENLARGED WITH THE NOTES OF ALL THE COMMENTATORS, AND NEW NOTES

BY W. CAREW HAZLITT.

BENJAMIN BLOM, INC. New York

First published 1874-1876 Reissued 1964 by Benjamin Blom, Inc. L.C. Catalog Card No.: 64-14702

_Printed in U.S.A. by_ NOBLE OFFSET PRINTERS, INC. NEW YORK 3, N. Y.

CONTENTS Page THE REBELLION 1

LUST'S DOMINION or THE LASCIVIOUS QUEEN 93

ANDROMANA or THE MERCHANT'S WIFE 193

LADY ALIMONY 273

THE PARSON'S WEDDING 369

THE REBELLION.

_EDITION._

_The Rebellion; a Tragedy: As it was acted nine dayes together, and divers times since, with good applause, by his Majesties Company of Revells. Written by Thomas Rawlins. London: Printed by I. Okes, for Daniell Frere, and are to be sold at the Signe of the Red Bull in Little Brittaine._ 1640, 4^o.[1]

INTRODUCTION.

THOMAS RAWLINS, author of "The Rebellion," was a medallist by profession, and afterwards became an engraver of the Mint, a vocation which, in his preface, he prefers to the threadbare occupation of a poet. [He also employed his talents occasionally in engraving frontispieces and portraits for books, of which several signed specimens are known.[2] It is said that he died in 1670.] It is an argument, as well of his personal respectability, as of his easy circumstances, that no fewer than eleven copies of prefatory verses, by the wits of the time, are prefixed to the old edition. Notwithstanding the popularity of the piece, [which, as it appears from the introductory poems, was composed by Rawlins in early life,] and several passages of real merit, it was [only once] republished, perhaps because rebellion soon assumed the whole kingdom for its stage.

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