THE DRAMATIC WORKS AND POEMS OF JAMES SHIRLEY, NOW FIRST COLLECTED; WITH NOTES BY THE LATE WILLIAM GIFFORD, Esq. AND ADDITIONAL NOTES, AND SOME ACCOUNT OF SHIRLEY BY THE REV. ALEXANDER DYCE. IN SIX VOLUMES. VOL. I. CONTAINING SOME ACCOUNT OF SHIRLEY AND HIS WRITINGS. LOVE TRICKS, OR THE SCHOOL OF COMPLEMENT. THE BROTHERS. THE WITTY FAIR ONE. THE WEDDING. LONDON: JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET. MDCCCXXXIII. PREFACE. The present edition of Shirley's Works, as far as the second drama of the sixth volume, was conducted by Mr. Gifford. After his decease, (as I am obligingly informed by his executor, the Dean of Westminster), no memoranda were discovered among his papers either for that portion of Shirley's writings which was yet to be reprinted, or for a biographical memoir of the author To the dramas which Mr. Gifford carried through the press, I have added all those pieces which were absolutely requisite to complete the edition; as well as some Poems by Shirley, hitherto unprinted, from Rawlinson's MSS. in the Bodleian Library, Oxford; and several effusions addressed by him to different friends, which, in the course of my reading, I had found prefixed to their respective publications. The scattered Commendatory Verses on Shirley, I have placed together in the first volume, the station which Mr. Gifford intended them to оссиру. In the hope of being enabled to throw new light on the personal history of Shirley, I examined every probable source of information concerning him; and I can only regret, that, after much careful inquiry, the following memoir should be little more than an enumeration of his works. I have gratefully to express my thanks to the Rev. Dr. Bliss, who searched, though without success, the public Registers of Oxford, for a notice of Shirley's admission into that University; to the Rev. S. Reay of the Bodleian Library, who collated the proof-sheets of the Poems now first printed with the original MS. in Rawlinson's Collections; and to the Rev. J. W. Bellamy, who allowed me to inspect the Entry-books belonging to MerchantTaylors' School, by which the date of our author's birth has been ascertained. WHOY WOW! ALEXANDER DYCE. |