A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Volume 9   By: Various

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.

1874 76.

CONTENTS:

How a Man May Choose a Good Wife from a Bad The Return from Parnassus Wily Beguiled Lingua The Miseries of Enforced Marriage

HOW A MAN MAY CHOOSE A GOOD WIFE FROM A BAD.

EDITION

A Pleasant conceited Comedie, Wherein is shewed how a man may chuse a good Wife from a bad. As it hath bene sundry times Acted by the Earle of Worcesters Seruants. London Printed for Mathew Lawe, and are to be solde at his shop in Paules Church yard, neare unto S. Augustines gate, at the signe of the Foxe . 1602. 4to.

[There were editions in 1605, 1608, 1614, 1621, 1630, 1634, all in 4to.

It is not improbable that the author was Joshua Cooke, to whom, in an old hand on the title of edit. 1602 in the Museum, it is attributed.]

[PREFACE TO THE FORMER EDITION.[1]]

This play agrees perfectly with the description given of it in the title; it is certainly a most pleasant conceited comedy, rich in humour, and written altogether in a right merry vein. The humour is broad and strongly marked, and at the same time of the most diverting kind; the characters are excellent, and admirably discriminated; the comic parts of the play are written with most exquisite drollery, and the serious with great truth and feeling. Of the present piece there were seven editions, within a short period, with all of which the present reprint has been carefully collated, and is now, for the first time, divided into acts and scenes.

PERSONS REPRESENTED.

OLD MASTER ARTHUR. OLD MASTER LUSAM. YOUNG MASTER ARTHUR. YOUNG MASTER LUSAM.[2] MASTER ANSELM. MASTER FULLER. SIR AMINADAB, a Schoolmaster . JUSTICE REASON. BRABO. HUGH, Justice Reason's Servant . PIPKIN, Master Arthur's Servant . Boys, Officers, &c . MISTRESS ARTHUR. MISTRESS MARY. MISTRESS SPLAY. MAID.

Scene, London .

A PLEASANT CONCEITED COMEDY; WHEREIN IS SHOWED

HOW A MAN MAY CHOOSE A GOOD WIFE FROM A BAD.

ACT I., SCENE I.

The Exchange .

Enter YOUNG MASTER ARTHUR and YOUNG MASTER LUSAM.

Y. ART. I tell you true, sir; but to every man I would not be so lavish of my speech: Only to you, my dear and private friend, Although my wife in every eye be held Of beauty and of grace sufficient, Of honest birth and good behaviour, Able to win the strongest thoughts to her, Yet, in my mind, I hold her the most hated And loathed object, that the world can yield.

Y. LUS. O Master Arthur, bear a better thought Of your chaste wife, whose modesty hath won The good opinion and report of all: By heaven! you wrong her beauty; she is fair.

Y. ART. Not in mine eye.

Y. LUS. O, you are cloy'd with dainties, Master Arthur, And too much sweetness glutted hath your taste, And makes you loathe them: at the first You did admire her beauty, prais'd her face, Were proud to have her follow at your heels Through the broad streets, when all censuring tongues Found themselves busied, as she pass'd along, T'extol her in the hearing of you both. Tell me, I pray you, and dissemble not, Have you not, in the time of your first love, Hugg'd such new popular and vulgar talk, And gloried still to see her bravely deck'd? But now a kind of loathing hath quite chang'd Your shape of love into a form of hate; But on what reason ground you this hate?

Y. ART. My reason is my mind, my ground my will; I will not love her: if you ask me why, I cannot love her. Let that answer you.