The interlude, presented to the modern reader for the first time in the following pages, was printed from a copy formerly in the possession of Steevens, the eminent Shakspearian critic, before it was noticed that a copy in the British Museum contained several variations and superior readings.[315] These were the more important, settling in some places the distribution of the speeches with greater accuracy than they were arranged in the exemplar we used. Perhaps, indeed, this may in some measure have arisen from the one last mentioned having been what booksellers technically term "cropped," but we have noticed all variations of importance in the notes, and some of them seem incompatible with any supposition, except that there were two different impressions in the same year,[316] or that the Museum copy had been corrected while the work was in the press. Mr Collier conjectures that the "Trial of Treasure" was written some years before it was printed, but subsequently to the composition of "Lusty Juventus," which is, he says, "mentioned in it." But it appears to me that the allusion to "Lusty Juventus" [p. 263], is merely a generic proverbial title, and has no reference whatever to the old play so called. Mr Collier ("Hist. Dram. Poet." ii., 330), has given a brief analysis of the interlude now reprinted. _December_ 21, 1849. FOOTNOTES: [314] [To the former edition. Printed for the Percy Society, 1849.] [315] These have all been adopted in the present reprint. The _variations_ exhibited in the Percy Society's text should be rather called mistakes of the transcriber, and two whole lines were omitted. [316] The Museum copy has a woodcut on the back of the title-page, which is wanting in the other copy, a circumstance which appears to confirm this opinion. THE TRIAL OF TREASURE. _Do all things to edify the Congregation._