Excerpt from The Papers of the Shakespeare Society: Being Contributions Too Short in Themselves for Separate Publication This work has originated in a desire, on the part of the Council of the Shakespeare Society, to afford a recep tacle for papers illustrative Of our early drama and stage, none of which, by themselves, would be Of sufficient length and importance to form a separate publication. It is to be borne in mind that the Society was formed, not merely for the elucidation Of the productions Of our great Dramatist (although that was certainly the main design), but of those Of his predecessors, contemporaries, and immediate followers; so that few points connected with our popular literature, anterior to the Restoration, do not come within the scope of the Society. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.