¹ W. W. Greg, ed., The Old Wives Tale, 1595, Malone Society (Oxford Univ. Press, 1908), pp. v–vi.

² See A. H. Bullen, The Works of George Peele (London, 1888), i, 299; C. M. Gayley, Representative English Comedies, i (New York, 1930), 383; A. W. Verity, Cornus (Cambridge, 1927), pp. xxix–xxx.

³ Poems upon Several Occasions . . . by John Milton (London, 1785), p. 126.

⁴ Ibid., p. 127.

⁵ Ibid., pp. 591–593.

⁶ T. Larsen, “The Growth of the Peele Canon,” The Library, xi (1930), 305–306.

⁷ Isaac Reed, ed., David Erskine Baker, Biographia Dramatica (London, 1782), ii, 436 ff.

⁸ Ibid., p. 262.

⁹ Biographia Dramatica, ed. Stephen Jones (London, 1812), iii, 97. The only change in wording is the substitution of “us” for “me” in the first sentence of the summary.

¹⁰ Warton, op. cit., p. 593. Larsen, op. cit., p. 306.

¹¹ Op. cit., p. 306.

¹² Printed in John Wooll, Biographical Memoirs of . . . Joseph Warton (London, 1806), p. 398.

¹³ To avoid confusion, italics and small capitals in the originals have been suppressed. But the brackets are those of Reed and Warton.

¹⁴ Greg, op. cit., p. vii and passim.

¹⁵ Ibid., p. ix and passim.

¹⁶ Ibid., facsimile title page opposite p. [x]. Correctly, “Wives” should be spelled with a u, “plaied” with a y, “John” (both appearances) with an I, “Ralph” without the l; “G. P.” and the names of printer and booksellers should be italicized; there should be periods after “Tale” and “Hardie,” and a comma after “Hancocke.”

¹⁷ Ibid., ll. 729–731.