THE FIRST AND SECOND PARTS OF KING EDWARD IV. HISTORIES BY THOMAS HEYWOOD. REPRINTED FROM THE UNIQUE BLACK LETTER FIRST IN BLACK LETTER, AND WITH THOSE OF WITH AN INTRODUCTION AND NOTES, BY BARRON FIELD, ESQ. "If I were to be consulted as to a Reprint of our Old English Dramatists, COUNCIL OF THE SHAKESPEARE SOCIETY. President. THE MOST NOBLE THE MARQUESS OF NORMANBY. Vice-Presidents. RT. HON. LORD BRAYBROOKE, F.S.A. RT. HON. LORD F. EGERTON, M.P. RT. HON. THE EARL OF GLENGALL. RT. HON. EARL HOWE. RT. HON. LORD LEIGH. RT. HON. THE EARL OF POWIS. AMYOT, THOMAS, ESQ., F.R.S., TREAS. S. A. BOTFIELD, BERIAH, ESQ., M.P. BRUCE, JOHN, ESQ., F.S.A. COLLIER, J. PAYNE, ESQ., F.S.A., DIRECTOR. CRAIK, GEORGE L., ESQ. CUNNINGHAM, PETER, ESQ., TREASURER. DYCE, REV. ALEXANDER. FIELD, BARRON, ESQ. HALLAM, HENRY, ESQ., F.R.S., V.P.S.A. HALLIWELL, J. O., ESQ., F.R.S. F.S.A. HARNESS, REV. WILLIAM. MACREADY, WILLIAM C., ESQ. MILMAN, REV. HENRY HART. OXENFORD, JOHN, ESQ. PETTIGREW, T. J., ESQ., F.R.S., F.S.A. PLANCHÉ, J. R., ESQ., F.S.A. THOMS, WILLIAM J., ESQ., F.S.A. TOMLINS, F. GUEST, ESQ., SECRETARY. WATSON, SIR FREDERICK BEILBY, K.C.H., F.R.S. WRIGHT, THOMAS, ESQ., M.A., F.S.A. The Council of the Shakespeare Society desire it to be understood that they are not answerable for any opinions or observations that may appear in the Society's publications; the Editors of the several works being alone responsible for the same. INTRODUCTION. The following plays are interesting not only in themselves, but inasmuch as they run parallel with certain parts of Shakespeare's historical series. We have either seen or heard of no fewer than five editions of them; but they are all now so scarce, that the modern reader may be said to have here, for the first time, an opportunity of comparing the similar scenes of the Duke of Glocester's hypocrisy and cruelty, in the two writers. He will doubtless come to the conclusion of the late Charles Lamb, that Heywood was but a prose Shakespeare; but he will remember that these plays are meant only to be "histories," not comedies or tragedies; that plot and poetry are not essential to them; and he will close even this specimen with a conviction that Thomas Heywood was a very practised and clever playwright, as (to be sure) the writer or assistant in two hundred and twenty plays, and an actor, to boot, could scarcely fail of being. Perhaps Shakespeare would not have left untouched so pathetic a tragedy as that of Jane Shore, if he had |