the Hague, I have found accounts of the circumstances under which the tragedy was first performed in London.  The earlier passage runs as follows:—­’The Players heere’, writes Locke in London on August 14th, 1619, ’were bringing of Barnevelt vpon the stage, and had bestowed a great deale of mony to prepare all things for the purpose, but at th’instant were prohibited by my Lo:  of London’ (Domestic State Papers, James I., vol. cx.  No. 18).  The play was thus ready on August 14th, 1619, and its performance was hindered by John King, Bishop of London.  The excitement that the Arminian controversy had excited in England would sufficiently account for the prohibition.  But the bishop did not persist in his obstruction.  On August 27th following Locke tells a different story.  His words are:  ’Our players haue fownd the meanes to goe through with the play of Barnevelt, and it hath had many spectators and receaued applause:  yet some say that (according to the proverbe) the diuill is not so bad as he is painted, and that Barnavelt should perswade Ledenberg to make away himself (when he came to see him after he was prisoner) to prevent the discovrie of the plott, and to tell him that when they were both dead (as though he meant to do the like) they might sift it out of their ashes, was thought to be a point strayned.  When Barnevelt vnderstood of Ledenberg’s death he comforted himself, which before he refused to do, but when he perceaueth himself to be arested, then he hath no remedie, but with all speede biddeth his wife send to the Fr:  Ambr:  which she did and he spake for him, &c.’ (Domestic State Papers, James I., vol. cx.  No. 37).  Locke is here refering to episodes occurring in the play from the third act onwards.  In Act III. sc. iv.  Leidenberch is visited in prison by Barnavelt, who bids him ’dye willingly, dye sodainely and bravely,’ and adds, ’So will I:  then let ’em sift our Actions from our ashes,’—­words that Locke roughly quotes (see p. 262 of Mr. Bullen’s ‘Old Plays,’ vol. ii.).  The first performance of the tragedy we may thus assign to a day immediately preceding the 27th of August, 1619.  When we remember that Barnavelt was executed on May 13th of the same year, we have in this play another striking instance of the literal interpretation given by dramatists of the day to Hamlet’s definition of the purpose of playing.”

I have tried hard to decipher the passages that are scored through (probably by the censor’s pen) in the MS., but hitherto I have not had much success.

Vol.  III.—­The Wisdome of Doctor Dodypoll.

The stealing of an enchanter’s cup at a fairy feast by a peasant is a favourite subject of fairy mythology.  See Ritson’s Fairy Tales.

The Distracted Emperor.