letcher's _Elder Brother_. I have
compared the MS. with Dyce's text, and find the variations to be few and
unimportant. In III. 3 Dyce follows the old copies in reading:--

What a noise is in this house! my head is broken
Within a parenthesis: in every corner,
As if the earth were shaken with some strange colic,
There are stirs and motions.

As the words "within a parenthesis" were found in all the old copies
Dyce did not feel justified in rejecting them, although he had only the
most grotesque meaning to assign to them. Theobald rightly saw that
"within a parenthesis" was a marginal note, mistaken for a part of the
text when the book was sent to press. The MS. gives--

Sweet heart,
What noyse is in this house? my head is broken
In every corner, as the earth were shaken
With some strange Collick: there are stirs and motions:
What planet rules this house? Whos there?

In III. 5 the MS. supports Mason's correction "Their blue veins _and_
blush disclose," where Dyce followed the old reading "_in_ blush."--At
the end of the play, after the Epilogue, are written the three following
Epigrams:--

A freemans life is like a pilgrimage:
What's his life then that lives in mariage?
Tis _Sisyphus_ his toyle that with a stone
Doth doe what surely for ease must be done.
His labours journey's endles; 'tis no riddle,
Since he's but halfe on's way that stands inth' middle.

_Ad Janum_.

Take comfort, _Janus_; never feare thy head
Which to the quick belongs, not to the dead.
Thy wife did lye with one; thou, being dead drunke,
Then art no Cuckold though she bee a Punke.

Tis not the state nor soveraintie of _Jove_
Could draw thy pure affections from my love:
Nor is there any _Venus_ in the skyes
Could from thy lookes withdraw my greedy eyes.

Leaves 30-51 are taken up with _Dick of Devonshire_. Then follows an
unnamed play (leaves 52-73), written in a villainous hand. If I succeed
in transcribing this play I shall print it in the third volume, for it
seems to be an unpublished play of Heywood's. The next piece, entitled
_Calisto_ (leaves 74-95), which is written in the same hand, consists of
scenes from Heywood's _Golden Age_ and _Silver Age_. There are many
variations from the printed copies, showing that the most active of the
old playwrights found time to revise his works. Here is a song that was
omitted in the pri