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A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Volume 13 cover

A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Volume 13

Chapter 99: THE EPILOGUE AT THE FRIARS.
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About This Book

An edited anthology gathers a range of early English stage plays presented in chronological order and accompanied by commentator annotations and new notes by W. Carew Hazlitt. The volume reproduces dramatis personae, act and scene divisions, and full texts of comedies and civic dramas that explore marital matches, social hypocrisy, debt and urban life, often through satirical character types and comic situations. Editorial material and transcriber notes contextualize language, performance practice, and textual variants, making the plays accessible for modern readers while preserving original stage directions and comic dialogue.


THE EPILOGUE AT THE FRIARS.

What shall the Author do? It madness were
To entreat a mercy from you, who are severe
Stern judges, and a pardon never give;
For only merit with you makes things live.
He leaves you therefore to yourselves, and may
You gently 'quit, or else condemn, the play,
As in an upright conscience you'll think fit:
Your sentence is the life and death of wit.
The Author yet hath one safe plea, that though
A Middlesex jury on his play should go,
They cannot find the murder wilful, since
'Twas acted by command in his own defence.