[1] “So compared by the Fathers,” Heywood explains in the margin.
[2] Prefixed to his Apology for Actors (1612).
[3] Until recently, Heywood’s plays were only accessible piecemeal and in parts. Dodsley’s collection contained two; Dilke’s contained three, and Baldwyn’s two. Between 1842 and 1851, the Old Shakespeare Society produced altogether twelve; while Mr. Halliwell in 1853 printed the Lancashire Witches separately. At last, in 1874 Mr. John Pearson issued a complete edition in six volumes. Since that date another play in MS. by Heywood, The Captives, was discovered and printed by Mr. A. H. Bullen in the last volume of his Old Plays (1885).
[4] With this main-plot Heywood has interwoven a subordinate and independent story. To dwell upon this under-plot would be superfluous. Yet I may point out that it is borrowed from an Italian Novella by Illicini, the incidents of which Heywood carefully transferred to English scenes. In like manner The Captive, consists of a main-plot borrowed from the Mostellaria of Plautus and an under-plot adapted from a novella of the Neapolitan, Masuccio. See my Shakspere’s Predecessors (p. 462), and a letter written by me to the Academy (Dec. 12, 1885).