RAM-ALLEY
OR
MERRY TRICKS.
EDITIONS.
(1.) Ram-Alley: Or Merrie Trickes. A Comedy Divers times here-to-fore acted by the Children of the Kings Reuels. Written by Lo: Barrey. At London Printed by G. Eld, for Robert Wilson, and are to be sold at his shop in Holborne, at the new yate of Grayes-Inne. 1611. 4.
(2.) Ram-Alley; Or Merry-Trickes. A Comedy. Divers times here-to-fore acted by the Children of the Kings Revels. Written by Lo. Barrey. London. Printed by John Norton, for Robert Wilson. 1636. 4.
INTRODUCTION.
Lodowick Barry is said to have been a gentleman of Irish birth, and Anthony Wood is pleased to compliment him with the title of Lord, which is very probably a mistake. No circumstances concerning him remain, not even the times of his birth and death; though the latter was not unlikely to be soon after the publication of the following play, the only one which he wrote. The writer of his article in the "Biographia Dramatica" says that "the plot in this play of William Small-shanks decoying the Widow Taffata into marriage is the same with that in Kiligrew's 'Parson's Wedding,' and both taken from the 'English Rogue.'" The latter part of this assertion is entirely without foundation, and the least attention to dates would have prevented the writer's falling into so gross an error. Both plays were published before "The English Rogue" appeared; "Ram-Alley"[318] above fifty years; and "The Parson's Wedding" about ten or twelve.
FOOTNOTES:
[235] "Here (i.e., at Edmonton) lieth interred vnder a seemlie Tombe without Inscription, the Body of Peter Fabell (as the report goes) vpon whom this fable was fathered, that he by his wittie deuises beguiled the deuil: belike he was some ingenious conceited gentleman, who did vse some sleightie trickes for his owne disports. He liued and died in the raigne of Henry the Seuenth, saith the booke of his merry pranks."—Weever's "Funeral Monuments," fol. 1631, p. 534. Norden says: "There is a fable of one Peter Fabell that lyeth in the same church also, who is saide to have beguiled the Devill by pollicie for Money."—"Speculum Britanniæ" (Middlesex), p. 18.
[236] A monosyllable (perhaps is or lives) has dropt out here, and rendered the line imperfect.—Collier. [The metre is quite correct.]