THE MARRIAGE OF WIT AND SCIENCE.
[The title of the old copy is: A new and Pleasaunt enterlude intituled the mariage of Witte and Science. Imprinted at London in Flete Streete, neare vnto sainct Dunstones churche by Thomas Marshe. 4°, black letter.
There is no date, but the size is a small 4to, and it probably appeared in 1570, having been licensed in 1569-70 to Marsh. Some further particulars of the play, now first reprinted from the only known copy in the Malone collection at Oxford, may be found in Hazlitt's "Handbook," 1867, p. 465; Collier's "Extr. from the Stat. Reg.," i. 204; and Collier's "Hist. Engl. Dram. Poetry," ii. 341-7, where there is a somewhat long review of the piece, with extracts. Mr Collier, who bestows considerable praise on this interlude, observes: —"The moral play of 'The Marriage of Wit and Science' contains a remarkable external feature not belonging to any other piece of this class that I remember to have met with: it is regularly divided into five acts, and each of the scenes is also marked." The anonymous author appears to have borrowed to some extent from the older performance by John Redford, printed from a MS. by the Shakespeare Society in 1848; but the two productions must, nevertheless, be regarded as distinct and independent.]