From the frontispiece to Kirkman’s “Drolls.” 1672.
THE BEST PLAYS OF THE OLD DRAMATISTS.
THOMAS HEYWOOD
Edited by A. Wilson Verity:WITH AN INTRODUCTION
By J. Addington Symonds.
“I lie and dream of your full Mermaid wine.”—Beaumont.
UNEXPURGATED EDITION.
LONDON:
VIZETELLY & CO., 16, HENRIETTA STREET,
COVENT GARDEN.
1888.
“What things have we seen
Done at the Mermaid! heard words that have been
So nimble, and so full of subtle flame,
As if that every one from whence they came
Had meant to put his whole wit in a jest,
And had resolved to live a fool the rest
Of his dull life.”
Master Francis Beaumont to Ben Jonson.
“Souls of Poets dead and gone,
What Elysium have ye known,
Happy field or mossy cavern,
Choicer than the Mermaid Tavern?”
Keats.
LONDON:
BRADBURY, AGNEW, & CO., PRINTERS, WHITEFRIARS.
CONTENTS.
The world’s a theatre, the earth a stage,[1]
Which God and nature doth with actors fill:
Kings have their entrance in due equipage,
And some their parts play well, and others ill.
The best no better are (in this theátre),
Where every humour’s fitted in his kind;
This a true subject acts, and that a traitor,
The first applauded, and the last confined;
This plays an honest man, and that a knave,
A gentle person this,