1. A Select Collection of Old Plays. A new edition, with Additional Notes and Corrections, by the late Isaac Reed, Octavius Gilchrist, and the Editor (J.P. Collier. London, 1825-27-28. 13 vols. post 8vo, including a Supplement). 2. Not only has the editor brought together, and arranged in their proper sequence, certain dramas of great curiosity hitherto not reprinted at all, but he has incorporated with the old series of Dodsley all the pieces in the collections of Dilke, Hawkins, &c., which still remained uncollected. Of course, of those writers of whom we possess valuable texts by Gifford, Dyce, and other scholars, no specimens were necessary. To the library editions of Jonson, Shirley, Greene, Peele, &c., these new volumes, from which they have been intentionally excluded, ought to be acceptable companions. 3. Origin of the English Drama. 1773. 8vo, 3 vols. 4. Old English Plays, being a selection from the early dramatic writers. 1816. 8vo, 6 vols. 5. For many of the notes contributed by Dodsley and his followers, the present editor should not be held answerable; nor would he have retained them, had he not apprehended a complaint that the work was by their omission impaired in value. In certain cases, nevertheless, where a remark or explanation was absolutely erroneous, it seemed to be an imperative duty to suppress it, and if necessary to substitute another for it. A large proportion of the extracts at the foot of the pages have been collated, by which process a variety of mistakes has been removed. 6. The tone of this inscription almost renders it allowable to infer that Sir Clement Dormer had communicated to Dodsley some of the plays which appear in his collection as originally published. Sir Clement Cotterel, who was probably related to Sir Clement Cotterel Dormer, was master of the ceremonies during the early Georgian era, and curious old books with his book-plate occasionally occur. 7. "Interlude of the Four Elements: An Early Moral Play." Edited by James Orchard Halliwell, F.R.S. London: Percy Society, 1848. 8. But see Mr Collier's reason for assigning it to 1517. "History of English Dramatic Poetry," ii. 321. 9. See Hazlitt's "Handbook," p. 463. 10. That is, a fool. "Good faith, I am no wiser than a daw."--"I Henry VI." ii. 4; Malone's Shakespeare, xviii. 61.--_Halliwell_. 11. Everlasting. It occurs twice in Shakespeare: see "Macbeth," iii. 2, _apud_ Malone, xi. l54.--_Halliwell_. 12. That is, animal. This word is not always used by early writers in a bad sense. "By bestial oblivion" Hamlet refers to the want of intellectual reflection in animals, there applied to human beings. Still more clearly in "Othello"--"I have lost the immortal part, sir, of myself, and what remains is bestial." Even "bestial appetite," in change of lust, in "Richard III.," may be similarly interpreted.--_Halliwell_. 13. Establish or fix firmly in thy mind.