of
London. The excitement that the Arminian controversy had excited in
England would sufficiently account for the prohibition. But the bishop
did not persist in his obstruction. On August 27th following Locke tells
a different story. His words are: 'Our players haue fownd the meanes to
goe through with the play of Barnevelt, and it hath had many spectators
and receaued applause: yet some say that (according to the proverbe) the
diuill is not so bad as he is painted, and that Barnavelt should
perswade Ledenberg to make away himself (when he came to see him after
he was prisoner) to prevent the discovrie of the plott, and to tell him
that when they were both dead (as though he meant to do the like) they
might sift it out of their ashes, was thought to be a point strayned.
When Barnevelt vnderstood of Ledenberg's death he comforted himself,
which before he refused to do, but when he perceaueth himself to be
arested, then he hath no remedie, but with all speede biddeth his wife
send to the Fr: Ambr: which she did and he spake for him, &c.' (Domestic
State Papers, James I., vol. cx. No. 37). Locke is here refering to
episodes occurring in the play from the third act onwards. In Act III.
sc. iv. Leidenberch is visited in prison by Barnavelt, who bids him 'dye
willingly, dye sodainely and bravely,' and adds, 'So will I: then let
'em sift our Actions from our ashes,'--words that Locke roughly quotes
(see p. 262 of Mr. Bullen's 'Old Plays,' vol. ii.). The first
performance of the tragedy we may thus assign to a day immediately
preceding the 27th of August, 1619. When we remember that Barnavelt was
executed on May 13th of the same year, we have in this play another
striking instance of the literal interpretation given by dramatists of
the day to Hamlet's definition of the purpose of playing."

I have tried hard to decipher the passages that are scored through
(probably by the censor's pen) in the MS., but hitherto I have not had
much success.

Vol. III.--_The Wisdome of Doctor Dodypoll_.

The stealing of an enchanter's cup at a fairy feast by a peasant is a
favourite subject of fairy mythology. See Ritson's _Fairy Tales_.

_The Distracted Emperor_.

William Tyndale in his _Practyse of Prelates_, 1530, relates the wild
legend of Charlemagne's dotage:--"And beyond all that, the saying is
that in his old age a whore had so bewitched him with a ring and a pearl
in it and I wot not what imagery graven therein, that he went a salt