more than ever they dreamed they had brain to grind it on. So much and such savoured salt of wit is in his comedies, that they seem, for their height of pleasure, to be born in that sea that brought forth Venus. Amongst all there is none more witty than this: and, had I time, I would comment upon it, though I know it needs not, - for so much as will make you think your testern well bestowed, but for so much worth as even poor I know to be stuffed in it. It deserves such a labour, as well as the best comedy in Terence or Plautus: and believe this, that when he is gone, and his comedies out of sale, you will scramble for them, and set up a new English inquisition. Take this for a warning, and, at the peril of your pleasure's loss and judgment's, refuse not, nor like this the less for not being sullied with the smoky breath of the multitude; but thank fortune for the 'scape it hath made amongst you; since, by the grand possessors' wills, I believe you should have prayed for them, rather than been prayed.* And so I leave all such to be prayed for - for the states of their wits' healths — that will not praise it. Vale. Probably them is to be taken as referring not to possessors, but to the comedies for which "a new English inquisition" was to be "set up"; the sense thus being "you should have prayed to get them, rather than have been prayed to buy them." MARGARELON, a Bastard Son of ALEXANDER, Servant to Cressida. Priam. ENEAS, ANTENOR, Trojan Commanders. CALCHAS, a Trojan Priest, taking part with the Greeks. PANDARUS, Uncle to Cressida. AGAMEMNON, the Grecian General. MENELAUS, his Brother. Servant to Troilus. Servant to Paris. Servant to Diomedes. HELEN, Wife to Menelaus. CASSANDRA, Daughter of Priam; a THERSITES, a deformed and scurri- CRESSIDA, Daughter of Calchas. The princes orgulous,' their high blood chafed, 1 Orgulous is proud, disdainful; from the French orgueilleux. |