etween Milton's words and the playwright's;
but by some unlucky chance my marginal pencilling was imported into the
text. I now implore the reader to expunge the line. On p. 116, l. 12 (in
the same volume), for _with_ read _witt_; p. 125 l. 2, for _He_ read
_Ile_; p. 128, l. 18, for _pardue_ read _perdue_; p. 232, for _Is_ read
_In_; p. 272, l. 3, for _baste_ read _haste_; p. 336, l. 6, the speaker
should evidently be not _Do_. (the reading of the MS.) but _Sis_., and
_noble Sir Richard_ should be _noble Sir Francis_; p. 422, l. 12, del.
comma between _Gaston_ and _Paris_. Some literal errors may, perhaps,
still have escaped me, but such words as _anottomye_ for _anatomy_, or
_dietie_ for _deity_ must not be classed as misprints. They are
recognised though erroneous forms, and instances of their occurrence
will be given in the Index to Vol. IV.

5, WILLOW ROAD, HAMPSTEAD, N.W.
January 24, 1884.

INTRODUCTION TO SIR GYLES GOOSECAPPE.

This clever, though somewhat tedious, comedy was published anonymously
in 1606. There is no known dramatic writer of that date to whom it could
be assigned with any great degree of probability. The comic portion
shows clearly the influence of Ben Jonson, and there is much to remind
one of Lyly's court-comedies. In the serious scenes the philosophising
and moralising, at one time expressed in language of inarticulate
obscurity and at another attaining clear and dignified utterance,
suggest a study of Chapman. The unknown writer might have taken as his
motto a passage in the dedication of Ovid's _Banquet of Sense_:--
"Obscurity in affection of words and indigested conceits is pedantical
and childish; but where it shroudeth itself in the heart of his subject,
uttered with fitness of figure and expressive epithets, with that
darkness will I still labour to be shrouded." Chapman's _Gentleman
Usher_ was published in the same year as _Sir Gyles Goosecappe_; and I
venture to think that in a passage of Act III., Scene II., our author
had in his mind the exquisite scene between the wounded Strozza and his
wife Cynanche. In Strozza's discourse on the joys of marriage occur
these lines:--

"If he lament she melts herselfe in teares;
If he be glad she triumphs; if he stirre
She moon's his way: in all things his _sweete Ape_."

The charming fitness of the expression "sweet ape" would impress any
capable reader. I cannot think that by mere accident the anonymous
writer light