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Transcriber's Note.

A list of the changes made can be found at the end of the book.

  Mark up: _italic_
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                   Representative English Comedies
                  FROM THE BEGINNINGS TO SHAKESPEARE




[Illustration]




                        REPRESENTATIVE ENGLISH
                               COMEDIES

                  WITH INTRODUCTORY ESSAYS AND NOTES
               AN HISTORICAL VIEW OF OUR EARLIER COMEDY
                        _AND OTHER MONOGRAPHS_
                          BY VARIOUS WRITERS

                    UNDER THE GENERAL EDITORSHIP OF

                 CHARLES MILLS GAYLEY, LITT.D., LL.D.
  _Professor of the English Language and Literature in the University of
                               California_

                          FROM THE BEGINNINGS
                                  TO
                              SHAKESPEARE


                               New York:
                        THE MACMILLAN COMPANY.
                     LONDON: MACMILLAN & CO., LTD.
                                 1926

                        _All rights reserved._




                           COPYRIGHT, 1903,
                       BY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY.

           Set up, electrotyped, and published March, 1903.


                             Norwood Press
               _J. S. Cushing & Co.--Berwick & Smith Co.
                        Norwood, Mass., U.S.A._




PREFACE


"'Dost thou think, because thou art virtuous, there shall be no more
cakes and ale... nor ginger hot i' the mouth?' Or knowest not that
while man, casting the dice with Fate and Mistress Grundy, imagineth a
new luck, there shall be new comedy?