ELIZABETHAN PLAYS 102713 Expurgated and Adapted for Modern Readers BY H. MACAULAY FITZGIBBON, M.A. EDITOR OF EARLY ENGLISH AND SCOTTISH POETRY," CAMPBELL'S "GERTRUDE 'Fly far from hence All private taxes, all immodest phrases, Whatever may but show like vicious!" The Knight of the Burning Pestle, Induc., p. 93. LONDON: W. H. ALLEN & CO., 13, WATERLOO PLACE, PALL MALL, S.W. 1890. [All rights reserved.) ༢ PREFACE. IT T is much to be regretted that the dramatic masterpieces of Shakspere's contemporaries, in their entirety, are wholly unfitted for general reading. The reason is obvious; the plays in question abound in strong pictures of gross subjects, many passages being absolutely inconsistent with the delicacy of the present day, and some of the very finest scenes being polluted by occasional coarseness of language. Consequently they are totally unknown to the vast majority of readers, and are also necessarily excluded from all educational courses. The present volume is an attempt to obviate these objections, by expunging or altering slightly all those passages and expressions which have appeared to the editor to be objectionable in point of morality or otherwise. It may be placed in the hands of all with the utmost confidence. These necessary erasures are much fewer in number, and more trivial in nature, than a casual observer might imagine (as will appear from the synopsis at the foot of the various "reading tables " prefixed to the plays); and |