Th' accusers
Are ready, and will prove, etc.
V., 2, 232.—C.: ('Tis) a Roman.
MS.: A Roman.
(C.'s addition required by the sense.)
Prologue—1.—C.: (So far our) author.
MS.: ... author.
Appendix IX. “The Parliament Of Love”
The MS. (No. 39 in the Dyce Collection, Victoria and Albert Museum) comprises nineteen leaves of the same size as those of Believe as You List. It has suffered much from damp, and is in a brittle, dilapidated state. In several passages the MS. has suffered since Gifford's collation (e.g., II., 2, 15). The lacunae in the text—e.g., at I., 4, 55; I., 5, 7; and I., 5, 74—are all caused by the mutilation of the lower edge of the MS. The hand seems to be the same throughout, but bears no resemblance to that in which Believe as You List is written, nor is it so easy to decipher. There are very few corrections in the text, and no marginal notes of any kind except the customary entrances and departures of the characters, which are duplicated as in Believe as You List, but in the same hand. The licence on folio 19a has been cut off. On folio 19b is written in a largish hand, The Parliament of Love, without any author's name. Gifford believed that this MS. was in Massinger's hand, and says “this has since been confirmed.” He does not say how. One thing is certain; the same hand did not write The Parliament of Love and Believe as You List. One instance out of many can be give in proof of this: the letter C, small and capital, in The Parliament of Love is constantly written thus, ⊕. A marked feature of the MS. is the doubling of consonants—e.g., tollerable, vallor, quallities, cullors. It looks as if, while it was in Gifford's hands, ink had been used to restore letters here and there, and towards the end of the play there are several substitutions of words in a later ink. Gifford's collation where I have tested it is correct in the main but I noted one or two mistakes—e.g.: