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A SELECT COLLECTION OF OLD ENGLISH PLAYS, VOL. IX

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