The Author of this Poem, knowing how hardly the best things protect themselves from censure, had no ambition to make it this way public, holding works of this light nature to be things which need an apology for being written at all, nor esteeming otherwise of them, whose abilities in this kind are most passable, than of masquers who spangle and glitter for the time, but 'tis th[o]rough tinsel. As it was merely out of obedience that he first wrote it, so when it was made, had it not been commanded from him, it had died upon the place where it took life. Himself being so averse from raising fame from the stage, that at the presentment he was one of the severest spectators there, nor ever showed other sign whereby it might be known to be his but his liberty to despise it. Yet he hath at length consented it should pass the press; not with an aim to purchase a new reputation, but to keep that which he hath already from growing worse; for understanding that some at London, without his approbation or allowance, were ready to print a false, imperfect copy, he was loth to be libelled by his own work, or that his play should appear to the world with more than its own faults. Farewell. FOOTNOTES: [176] 8th of October 1638. Rymer's "Fœd." xx. 317.--_Gilchrist._ [177] It was not published till 1664, but the title-page expresses that it was "made English from the original in the year 1638." This fact also appears from the dedication to the Marquis of Newcastle, which is a masterpiece of solid reasoning and critical acumen, where the author mentions that "these pieces were translated for your private entertainment above five-and-twenty years since." He adds that he was then only a student of Christ Church, and that he should have translated more "if the late barbarous times had not broke my study." In the course of this preface (for the epistle is to be so considered) Mayne very severely lashes the republicans for their ignorance and presumptuousness.--_Collier_ (note altered). [178] From the Prologue and Epilogue it appears that this play was acted by command of the king, both at Whitehall and at the Blackfriars Theatre.--_Collier._ [179] Among others he has a poem prefixed to Cartwright's "Plays and Poems," and another "Jonsonius Virbius."--_Gilchrist._ [The late Mr Bolton Corney thought that to Mayne ought to be attributed the verses before the second folio of Shakespeare, signed J. M. S., _quasi_ Jasper Mayne, Student.] THE PROLOGUE TO THE KING AND QUEEN.