"_Letoy._--But you, Sir, are incorrigible, and Take licence to yourselfe to adde unto Your parts your owne free fancy; and sometimes To alter or diminish what the writer With care and skill compos'd; and when you are To speake to your coactors in the Scene, You hold interloquutions with the Audients. _Byplay._--That is a way, my Lord, has bin allow'd On elder stages to move mirth and laughter. _Letoy._--Yes, in the dayes of Tarlton and _Kempe_, Before the stage was purg'd from barbarisme, And brought to the perfection it now shines with; Then fooles and jesters spent their wits, because The Poets were wise enough to save their owne For profitabler uses." --Brome's _Antipodes_, 1640, Act ii. sc. 1, Sig. D. 3. The passage on this subject in _Hamlet_, Act iii. sc. 2, must be familiar to every reader. [v:3] The term _Jig_ will be afterwards explained. [vi:1] _A Knack to know a Knaue._--Alleyn was concerned in several theatres: the Company mentioned above seems to have acted at the Rose. [vi:2] Collier's _Hist. of Engl. Dram. Poet._ i. 297, 298. [vi:3] In the second 4to. of the former play, 1599, and in the only 4to. of the latter, 1600, "_Kemp_" is prefixed to some speeches of Peter and Dogberry. [vii:1] What character is uncertain: see the names of "The principall Comœdians" at the end of the play in B. Jonson's _Workes_, 1616, fol. [vii:2] See pp. 1, 2, 19. [vii:3] Liber C. fol. 58 b. [viii:1] Act iv. sc. 4.--_Works_, ii. 165, ed. Gifford. [viii:2] _On the Famous Voyage_, Ibid. viii. 242. [viii:3] Sig. F. 8.--In Dekker's _Owles Almanacke_, 1618, 4to, under "A memoriall of the time sithence some strange and remarkeable Accidents vntill this yeare 1617," we find "Since the horrible dance to Norwich ... 14 [years]." Sig. B. 4,--a mistake either of the author or printer. Allusions to Kemp's morris may also be found in Dekker and Webster's _Westward Ho_, 1607, Act v. sc. 1,--see my ed. of Webster's _Works_, iii. 103; and in _Old Meg of Herefordshire for a Mayd Marian, and Hereford Towne for a Morris Daunce_, &c. 1609, 4to.,--see p. 10 of reprint in _Miscell. Ant. Anglic._ 1816. [ix:1] P. 20. [ix:2] The passages in _The Retvrne from Pernassus_ (see p. xi.) "What, M. Kempe, how doth the Emperour of Germany?" and "Welcome, M. Kempe, from dancing the morrice ouer the Alpes," are, I conceive, only sportive allusions to his journey to Norwich. [ix:3] Malone's _Shakespeare_ (by Boswell), iii. 198. [ix:4] Sig. B. 2.--Malone chose to read "played the clownes _part_ more naturally," &c.