nd like Vines plant you round about my throne.

_The end of the fift and last Act_.

To the Reader of this Play now come in Print.

That this play's old 'tis true; but now if any
Should for that cause despise it we have many
Reasons, both iust and pregnant, to maintaine
Antiquity, and those, too, not all vaine.
We know (and not long since) there was a time
Strong lines were not lookt after, but, if Rime,
O then 'twas excellent. Who but beleeves
That Doublets with stuft bellies and big sleeves
And those Trunk-hose[177] which now our life doth scorne
Were all in fashion and with custome worne?
And what's now out of date who is't can tell
But it may come in fashion and sute well?
With rigour therefore iudge not but with reason,
Since what you read was fitted to that season.

The Epilogue.

_As in a Feast, so in a Comedy,
Two Sences must be pleas'd; in both the Eye;
In Feasts the Eye and Taste must be invited,
In Comedies the Eye and Eare delighted:
And he that only seekes to please but either,
While both he doth not please, he pleaseth neither.
What ever Feast could every guest content,
When as t'each man each Taste is different?
But lesse a Scene, when nought but as 'tis newer
Can please, where Guests are more and Dishes fewer.
Yet in this thought, this thought the Author eas'd;
Who once made all, all rules all never pleas'd.[178]
Faine would we please the best, if not the many;
And sooner will the best be pleas'd then any.
Our rest we set[179] in pleasing of the best;
So we wish you, what you may give us, Rest_.

FINIS.

INTRODUCTION TO THE NOBLE SOULDIER.

In December, 1633, Nicholas Vavasour entered the _Noble Spanish
Souldier_ on the Stationers' Registers as a work of Dekker's; and in the
following year the same publisher brought out the _Noble Soldier_ with
the initials _S.R_. on the title-page. The running-title of the piece is
_The Noble Spanish Souldier_. There is nothing to hinder us from
supposing that Dekker, unwilling to take the credit due to his dead
friend, informed the publisher of the mistake. Possibly the play had
undergone some revision at Dekker's hands.

Samuel Rowley was at once an actor and a playwright. The first mention
of him is in a list of the Lord Admiral's players, March 8, 1597-8
(Henslowe's _Diary_, ed. Collier, p. 120). On the sixteenth of November,
1599, Rowley bound himself to play solely for Henslowe 'for a year and
as much as to Shraftide' (_Di