has a direct bearing upon the escapades of Falstaff, the passage on "witches in Scotland" throws an interesting and, I believe, a new light upon the weird sisters in Macbeth, Autolycus is the hero of the chapter on rogues, and so on. Partly in order to increase the utility of the book in this direction, all the chapters and a large number of the extracts have been prefaced with quotations from Shakespeare. But considerations of space have compelled me to make them as brief as possible, and they are sometimes little more than hints to remind the reader of scenes and speeches which he should look up for himself. It will be frequently observed how closely Shakespeare's thought and phrase resemble those of his contemporaries. Such being the general aim of this volume, there has been no attempt to make it an anthology of the best Elizabethan prose. It contains no Hooker and very little Bacon, but, in so far as it draws considerably upon a number of excellent writers of the second rank such as Nashe, Harrison, Stubbes, Earle and Markham, the main characteristics of sixteenth and early seventeenth century prose are, I hope, sufficiently exemplified. I hope also that the reader will not be too conscious of the compiler's scissors, to which, as a matter of fact, Elizabethan prose authors lend themselves with great readiness. There are, for example, the "characterwriters," Earle, Overbury and the rest, whose work has been laid under full contribution, while most of the earlier pamphleteers are continually dropping into the "character" vein and are full of such admirable little vignettes as the portrait of the bookseller from Nashe on p. 153. This, however, is not always the case, and that more use has not been made, for instance, of the work of Greene is to be set down to the fact that interesting passages are not easily detachable from the main body of his text. In collecting material for this scrap-book, I have in all cases given the preference to those specimens which are at once entertaining and complete in themselves. The majority of the extracts, it should be added, have been taken from books or documents written between 1564 and 1616, the dates of Shakespeare's birth and death, out of the sixty-nine used only four being earlier and some half dozen later than this period. Finally, since the collection has been made primarily in the interests of the general reader and the student rather than of the professed scholar, I have striven to make it as attractive and as easy to read as possible. The text has been modernised throughout, an undertaking which has convinced me that Elizabethan editors save themselves a vast deal of trouble and risk by adhering to the original spelling, and, while not shirking the labour, I fear I cannot altogether have avoided the dangers. Free changes also have been made in the punctuation where sense or the modern eye seemed to require them. The glossary at the end ought to explain most of the names, strange words and difficult passages, and the reader will find it more useful if he remembers that words which have a modern look have often altered their meaning since Shakespeare's day. The text of all extracts is based upon the originals, except in the cases for which acknowledgement is here made and in a very few others where the British Museum contains no early edition. The word Rye in brackets following a title indicates that the passage has been taken from W. B. Rye's England as seen by foreigners in the days of Elizabeth and James, a translation from the journals of distinguished visitors to the country. In these instances, of course, the English is modern and not Elizabethan. My thanks are due to the following gentlemen for kind permission to use their text or illustrations; to my friend Mr R. B. McKerrow for the extracts taken from his edition of Nashe, to Dr W. W. Greg for the contract on p. 161 from his Henslowe Papers and the letters on pp. 92 and 179 from the Collections of the Malone Society, to Professor Gollancz and Messrs Chatto and Windus for the last six passages in Chapter X taken from Rogues and Vagabonds in Shakespeare's Youth in The Shakespeare Library, to the last mentioned firm again for the illustration facing p. 208 from their edition of Harrison's Description of England and to Dr Victor E. Albright for permission to reproduce his interesting sketch of the Elizabethan stage. Nor can I close this list of acknowledgments without confessing my obligation to Mr A. R. Waller and to the readers of the University Press for much care and assistance in the production of the book; and to my wife without whose patient help the task could never have been undertaken. J. D. W. September 1911 TABLE OF CONTENTS Part I. Shakespeare's Youth, Stratford 1564—1586 (Midsummer Night's Dream, Induction to the Taming of the Shrew, As You Like It, Winter's Tale) Part II. Shakespeare in London 1586-1608 The state of the roads, means of communication, § 2. FIRST IMPRESSIONS OF LONDON A foreign view, the buildings, the Thames, a water- 92 |