"... After the Comedies and Tragedies were wrought off, we were forced (for expedition) to ſend the Gentlemens Verſes to ſeverall Printers, which was the occaſion of their different Character; but the Worke it ſelfe is one continued Letter, which (though very legible) is none of the biggeſt, becauſe (as much as poſſible) we would leſſen the Bulke of the Volume."
This matter of size seems to have been the cause of no little solicitude and care. Speaking of adding more plays to the volume, he says:
"And indeed it would have rendred the Booke ſo Voluminous, that Ladies and Gentlewomen would have found it ſcarce manageable, who in Workes of this nature muſt firſt be remembred."
There are thirty-six plays in the collection: as the stationer tells us in the preface to the reader quoted above, all those previously printed in quarto are included, except the Wild Goose Chase, which had been lost. It is added at the end of the volume with a separate title-page dated 1652.
The following epigram by Sir Aston Cockain, addressed to the publishers, the two Humphreys, is not without interest in this connection as showing that the difficulties arising from the joint authorship were early sources of perplexity:
"In the large book of Plays you late did print
(In Beaumonts and in Fletchers name) why in't
Did you not juſtice? give to each his due?
For Beaumont (of thoſe many) writ in few: