t
of the chartered existence of the Stationers' Company, John Waley, or
Wally, entered what was no doubt the present play on the Register along
with several other works. The entry runs as follows:

To master John wally these bokes Called Welth and helthe/the
treatise of the ffrere and the boye / stans puer ad mensam another
of youghte charyte and humylyte an a b c for cheldren in englesshe
with syllabes also a boke called an hundreth mery tayles ij^s
[Arber's Transcript, I. 75.]

That Waley printed an edition is therefore to be presumed, but it does
not necessarily follow that the extant copy, which though perfect bears
neither date nor printer's name, ever belonged to it. Indeed, a
comparison with a number of works to which he did affix his name
suggests grave doubts on the subject. Though not a high-class printer,
there seems no reason to ascribe to him a piece of work which for
badness alike of composition and press-work appears to be unique among
the dramatic productions of the sixteenth century.

'Wealth and health' appears among the titles in the list of plays
appended to the edition of Goffe's _Careless Shepherdess_, printed for
Rogers and Ley in 1656. The entry was repeated with the designation
'C[omedy].' in Archer's list of the same year, and, without the
addition, in those of Kirkman in 1661 and 1671. In 1691 Langbaine wrote
'_Wealth and Health_, a Play of which I can give no Account.' Gildon has
no further information to offer, nor have any of his immediate
followers. Chetwood, in 1752, classes it among 'Plays Wrote by Anonymous
Authors in the 16th [by which he means the seventeenth] Century,' calls
it 'an Interlude' and dates it 1602. This invention was only copied in
those lists which depended directly on Chetwood's, such as the
_Playhouse Pocket-Companion_ of 1779. Meanwhile, in his _Companion to
the Play-House_ of 1764, D.E. Baker, relying upon Coxeter's notes, gave
an essentially accurate description of the piece, except that he
asserted it to be 'full of Sport and mery Pastyme,' and described it as
an octavo. This entry has been copied by subsequent bibliographers, none
of whom have seen the original.

The play was among those discovered in Ireland in the spring of 1906 and
sold at Sotheby's on 30 June, when it was purchased for the British
Museum at the price of one hundred and ninety-five pounds. Its
press-mark is C. 34. i. 25.

The extremely careless typography of the