Sir,--If there be anything in this collection worthy of being preserved,
it is to you the public is indebted for the benefit. Your obliging
readiness to communicate the stores of which you were possessed,
encouraged me to undertake the design, which otherwise I should have
despaired of prosecuting with success. Under the sanction of your name,
therefore, I beg leave to shelter the remains of these old dramatic
writers, which, but for your generosity had fallen with their authors
into utter oblivion. To your candour I submit the pains I have taken to
give a tolerably correct edition of them, and am with great respect, Sir,
your most obliged and obedient humble servant,

R. DODSLEY.[6]






INTERLUDE OF THE FOUR ELEMENTS.


_A new interlude and a merry of the nature of the Four Elements,
declaring many proper points of philosophy natural, and of divers strange
lands, and of divers strange effects and causes; which interlude, if the
whole matter be played, will contain the space of an hour and a half;
but, if ye list, ye may leave out much of the sad matter, as the
Messenger's part, and some of Nature's part, and some of Experience's
part, and yet the matter will depend conveniently, and then it will not