Not very long since a present of a most creditable and well-edited
republication of "Four Old Plays" was sent to me from Cambridge, U.S.,
consisting of "Three Interludes: _Thersytes_, _Jack Jugler_, and
Heywood's _Pardoner and Frere_; and _Jocasta_, a tragedy by Gascoigne
and Kinwelmarsh." They are preceded by a very well written and
intelligent, and at the same time modest, Introduction, signed F.J.C.,
the initials of Mr. Francis James Child; who in fact was kind enough to
forward the volume to me, and who, if I am not mistaken, was formerly a
correspondent of mine in a different part of the republic.
My particular reason for noticing the book is to impress upon editors in
this country the necessity of accuracy, not only for the sake of readers
and critics here, but for the sake of those abroad, because Mr. Child's
work illustrates especially the disadvantage of the want of that
accuracy. It so happens that two, if not three, of the pieces included
in the Cambridge volume, are absolutely unique, and are now in the
library of the Duke of Devonshire. They went through my hands some years
ago, and as they had been previously reprinted in London (two of them
for the Roxburghe Club), I took the opportunity of collating my copies
of them.
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