EPILOGUE. Since you at land no more can hurried be, Which she by signs-for Mermaids seldom speak- * It would seem that it was very common to hang out the picture of a fish, real or imaginary, at ordinaries. Thus in Mayne's City Match, 1639. Roseclap" (The keeper of an Ordinary.) "Faith, I do grant His other picture in the fields, where some In the same play, Timothy, a merchant's son, while in a state of inebriety and asleep, is exhibited by his companions, by way of fun, as 'a strange fish," and the spectators pay for admission. 66 Such audiences as learning do forbear; This prospect of the sea cannot be shewn: THIS is one of the six plays printed for the first time, in the folio edition of Sir William Davenant's Works, 1673. It was one of his earlier productions, having been licensed by Sir Henry Herbert, Master of the Revels, 1st August 1635, and, in all probability, performed shortly afterwards. There is no record, however, existing of such performance. Geneste remarks that "this is far from a bad comedy, but there is little or no plot. Of this defect" he further, although deducing from false premises, remarks,—“ Davenant was sensible,—he says in the Prologue, 'We could not raise From a few seamen, wind-bound in a port, "It is clear," he goes on to observe, "that Davenant had originally laid the scene at Portsmouth, as the widow Carrack, towards the close of the first act, characterises her house as the best in Portsmouth. From certain expressions in the Prologue and Epilogue, it was highly probable that this play came out at the Globe; but the matter is put past a doubt by Davenant's poems, in which the Epilogue is printed, a second time, as the Epilogue to a vacation play at the Globe-the name of the play is not mentioned." |