:

A Prologve to the Play of Queene Elizabeth as it was last revived at
the Cock-pit, in which the Author taxeth the most corrupted copy now
imprinted, which was published without his consent.

PROLOGUE

Playes have a fate in their conception lent,
Some so short liv'd, no sooner shew'd than spent;
But borne to-day, to morrow buried, and
Though taught to speake, neither to goe nor stand.
This: (by what fate I know not) sure no merit,
That it disclaimes, may for the age inherit.
Writing 'bove one and twenty: but ill nurst,
And yet receiv'd as well performed at first,
Grac't and frequented, for the cradle age,
Did throng the Seates, the Boxes, and the Stage
So much: that some by Stenography drew
The plot: put it in print: (scarce one word trew:)
And in that lamenesse it hath limp't so long,
The Author now to vindicate that wrong
Hath tooke the paines, upright upon its feete
To teache it walke, so please you sit, and see't.

The third passage occurs in the address to the reader prefixed to _The
English Traveller_, 1633:

True it is that my plays are not exposed to the world in volumes, to
bear the titles of Works (as others). One reason is that many of
them by shifting and changing of companies have been negligently
lost; others of them are still retained in the hands of some actors
who think it against their peculiar profit to have them come in
print; and a third that it was never any great ambition in me in
this kind to be voluminously read.

From these passages we gather that Heywood considered it dishonest to
sell the same play to the stage and to the press; that some of his plays
were stolen through stenographic reports taken in the theater and were
printed in corrupt forms; that, in order to counteract this, he obtained
the consent of the theatrical owners to his publication of a correct
edition; that some actors considered the printing of plays against their
interest (presumably because they thought that if a man could read a
play, he would not care to see it acted); and that many plays were lost
through negligence and the changes in the theatrical companies. That we
are here dealing with the conditions of Shakespeare's time is clear
enough, since the edition of _If you know not me_ on which Heywood casts
reflections was published in 1605, and in 1604 Marston supplies
corroboration in the preface to