Note 282 — Chapter V

The fact that the play was never published as a separate work makes it difficult to estimate its popularity with the reading public. The whole collection was freqnently reprinted, 1638, 1640, 1643, 1652, 1664 and 1668 twice. In 1703 appeared the Fickle Shepherdess, 'As it is Acted in the New Theatre in Lincolns-Inn Fields. By Her Majesties Servants. Play'd all by Women.' This piece is said in the epistle dedicatory to Lady Gower to be 'abreviated from an Author famous in his Time.' It is in fact a prose rendering, much compressed, of the main action of Randolph's play, the language being for the most part just sufficiently altered to turn good verse into bad prose.