A SELECT COLLECTION OF OLD ENGLISH PLAYS. ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED BY ROBERT DODSLEY IN THE YEAR 1744. _FOURTH EDITION_, NOW FIRST CHRONOLOGICALLY ARRANGED, REVISED AND ENLARGED WITH THE NOTES OF ALL THE COMMENTATORS, AND NEW NOTES BY W. CAREW HAZLITT. BENJAMIN BLOM, INC. [Illustration: New York] THE SPANISH TRAGEDY OR THE SECOND PART OF JERONIMO. _EDITIONS._ _The Spanish Tragedie, Containing the lamentable end of Don Horatio and Bel-imperia: with the pitiful death of olde Hieronimo. Newly corrected and amended of such grosse faults as passed in the first impression. At London Printed by Edward Allde, for Edward White. [Circâ 1594.]_ 4°. _The Spanish Tragedie. Containing the lamentable end of Don Horatio.... At London printed by William White dwelling in Cow-lane. 1599._ 4°. _The Spanish Tragedie: Containing... enlarged with new additions of the Painters part and others, as it hath of late been divers time acted. Imprinted at London by W. W. for T. Pauier.... 1602._ 4°. _Other editions appeared in 1610, &c., an account of which_ _may be found in Halliwell's "Dictionary." Compare also Hazlitt, art._ KYD. PREFACE. [Illustration] This play was the object of ridicule to almost every writer of the time.[1] Heywood refers to it as the work of Thomas Kyd,[2] who is enumerated among the best tragic writers of his time by Meres. Ben Jonson speaks of him in his lines on Shakespeare as _sporting_ Kyd; and Clarke, in his "Polimanteia," 1595, says, "Cornelia's Tragedy, however not respected, was excellently well done by him." There is no exact authority for calling Allde's undated 4to the _second_ edition, as Hawkins did, since we do not know how many others may have preceded it. The play was licenced in October 1592; but of a first edition, not purporting to be amended, no copy has been yet found. The allusion to "Jeronimo," which occurs in the introduction to Jonson's "Bartholomew Fair," probably refers to the "First Part of Jeronimo." Henslowe seems to mention a performance of the "Spanish Tragedy," February 23, 1591-92; and we find from Decker's "Satiromastix," 1602, that Ben Jonson originally performed the part of Jeronimo.[3] Cotton alludes to this play even as late as in the prologue to his "Scoffer Scoff'd"-- "Old tales and songs and an old jest, Our stomachs easily digest, And of all plays _Hieronymo's_ the best," which shows that then it was remembered. DRAMATIS PERSONÆ.