You may here find passions raised to that excellent pitch and by such insinuating degrees that you shall not chuse but consent, and & go along with them, finding your self at last grown insensibly the very same person you read, and then stand admiring the subtile Trackes of your engagement.  Fall on a Scene of love and you will never believe the writers could have the least roome left in their soules for another passion, peruse a Scene of manly Rage, and you would sweare they cannot be exprest by the same hands, but both are so excellently wrought, you must confesse none, but the same hands, could worke them.

Would thy Melancholy have a cure? thou shalt laugh at_ Democritus himselfe, and but reading one piece of this Comick variety, finde thy exalted fancie in Elizium; And when thou art sick of this cure, (for the excesse of delight may too much dilate thy soule,) thou shalt meete almost in every leafe a soft purling passion or spring of sorrow so powerfully wrought high by the teares of innocence, and wronged Lovers, it shall persuade thy eyes to weepe into the streame, and yet smile when they contribute to their owne ruines.

Infinitely more might be said of these rare Copies, but let the ingenuous Reader peruse them & he will finde them so able to speake their own worth, that they need not come into the world with a trumpet, since any one of these incomparable pieces well understood will prove a_ Preface to the rest, and if the Reader can fast the best wit ever trod our English Stage, he will be forced himselfe to become a breathing Panegerick to them all.

Not to detaine or prepare thee longer, be as capritious and sick-brain’d, as ignorance & malice can make thee, here thou art rectified, or be as healthfull as the inward calme of an honest_ Heart, Learning, and Temper can state thy disposition, yet this booke may be thy fortunate concernement and Companion.

It is not so remote in Time, but very many Gentlemen may remember these Authors & some familiar in their conversation deliver them upon every pleasant occasion so fluent, to talke a Comedy.  He must be a bold man that dares undertake to write their Lives.  What I have to say is, we have the precious_ Remaines, and as the wisest contemporaries acknowledge they Lived a Miracle, I am very confident this volume cannot die without one.

What more specially concerne these Authors and their workes is told thee by another hand in the following Epistle of the_ Stationer to the Readers.

Farwell, Reade, and feare not thine owne understanding, this Booke will create a cleare one in thee, and when thou hast considered thy purchase, thou wilt call the price of it a Charity to thy selfe, and at the same time forgive thy friend, and these Authors humble admirer,

JA.  SHIRLEY.

The Stationer to the Readers.

Gentlemen, before you engage farther, be pleased to take notice of these Particulars.  You have here a New Booke; I can speake it clearely; for of all this large Volume of Comedies and Tragedies, not one, till now, was ever printed before.  A Collection of Playes is commonly but a new Impression, the scattered pieces which were printed single, being then onely Republished together:  ’Tis otherwise here.