[2] Two other letters from Field to Henslowe are printed for the first time in Malone's Shakespeare, by Boswell, xxi. 395 and 404. One is subscribed "Your loving and obedient son," and the other "Your loving son," and both request advances of money; the first on a play, in the writing of which Field was engaged with Robert Daborne, and the second, in consequence of Field having been "taken on an execution of £30." They have no dates, but others with which they are found are in 1613. [3] It is tolerably clear that the drama was written in 1609. See the allusion to the war in Cleveland, as then going on, at p. 28. [4] Mr Gifford also states (Massinger, i. 67), that he joined Heminge and Condell in the publication of the folio Shakespeare of 1623. [5] Ben Jonson, in his "Bartholomew Fair," act v. sc. 3, couples him with Burbage, and speaks of him as the "best actor" of the day. This play was produced in 1614. [6] Taylor the Water-poet, in his "Wit and Mirth," introduces a supposed anecdote of "Master Field the player," which is only a pun upon the word _post_, and that not made by Field. Taylor had it, probably, from some earlier collection of jokes, and the compiler of Hugh Peters' Jests, 1660, had it from Taylor, and told it of his hero. TO ANY WOMAN THAT HATH BEEN NO WEATHERCOCK. I did determine not to have dedicated my play to anybody, because forty shillings I care not for![7] and above few or none will bestow on these matters, especially falling from so fameless a pen as mine is yet. And now I look up, and find to whom my dedication is, I fear I am as good as my determination: notwithstanding, I leave a liberty to any lady or woman, that dares say she hath been no weathercock, to assume the title of patroness to this my book. If she have been constant, and be so, all I will expect from her for my pains is that she will continue so but till my next play be printed, wherein she shall see what amends I have made to her and all the sex,[8] and so I end my epistle without a Latin sentence. N.F. FOOTNOTES: [7] Malone, in his "History of the Stage," quotes this passage to show that such was, in Field's day, the ordinary price of the dedication of a play. Malone's Shakespeare, by Boswell, iii. 164. [8] Referring to his "Amends for Ladies," first printed in 1618, and afterwards in 1639. TO THE READER.