Note v:2 — INTRODUCTION.

“Letoy.—But you, Sir, are incorrigible, and Take licence to yourselfe to adde unto Your parts your owne free fancy; and sometimes To alter or diminish what the writer With care and skill compos’d; and when you are To speake to your coactors in the Scene, You hold interloquutions with the Audients. Byplay.—That is a way, my Lord, has bin allow’d On elder stages to move mirth and laughter. Letoy.—Yes, in the dayes of Tarlton and Kempe, Before the stage was purg’d from barbarisme, And brought to the perfection it now shines with; Then fooles and jesters spent their wits, because The Poets were wise enough to save their owne For profitabler uses.” —Brome’s Antipodes, 1640, Act ii. sc. 1, Sig. D. 3.