A Collection of Old English Plays, Volume 3 — Reading Notes

The Editor's Confessional Preface

Bullen's preface is unusually forthcoming about the difficulties of editing early modern drama. He thanks Alfred Henry Huth for lending books 'from his magnificent collection' and acknowledges F. G. Fleay's proofreading, but also takes responsibility for 'some slight but annoying misprints.' The most striking revelation is that a penciled quotation from Milton's Lycidas—'That last infirmity of noble minds'—was mistakenly incorporated into the text of Sir John van Olden Barnavelt. Bullen implores readers to 'expunge the line.' He also lists a dozen specific corrections (e.g., 'for with read witt'), showing that the edition is a work in progress. This transparency invites the reader to approach the plays with an awareness of their textual instability.

The Distracted Emperor: A Fragment of Courtly Chaos

The excerpt from The Distracted Emperor plunges the reader into a court rife with suspicion and miscommunication. Orlando's long speeches are built on a pattern of self-pity and cosmic grievance: he complains that 'my ill fate would have gotten her with childe—Of a son, too,' and that Fortune 'fixed stands / And onlye against me.' The dialogue is dense with legal and astrological vocabulary ('observatyon,' 'coneinge in the carryadge'), and the characters trade accusations of flattery and treachery. Bus. calls Didier 'a grosse flatterer' and 'a parasytte,' while Orlando himself rails against 'the studyed envye of mallignant starrs.' The scene offers no resolution, only a mounting sense of verbal and emotional disorder.

Comic and Tragic Voices in the Collection

The volume contains four plays that span a range of tones. Sir Gyles Goosecappe is described in the introduction as a 'clever, though somewhat tedious, comedy' influenced by Ben Jonson and Lyly. The Wisdome of Dr. Dodypoll and The Tryall of Chevalry are also reprinted, while The Distracted Emperor appears in print for the first time. Bullen's headnotes provide brief critical assessments—he notes that the comic portions of Sir Gyles show 'the influence of Ben Jonson'—but he does not claim to have solved questions of authorship. The reader is thus presented with a miscellany of dramatic styles, from courtly intrigue to chivalric romance, each with its own textual challenges.

Reading the Plays as Textual Artifacts

Because Bullen's edition is a scholarly reconstruction, the reader should pay attention to the footnotes and the preface's errata list. Words like 'anottomye' for 'anatomy' or 'dietie' for 'deity' are not misprints but 'recognised though erroneous forms' that reflect period spelling. The marginal note that became a line in Barnavelt is a cautionary tale: the boundary between editor and author is porous. When reading The Distracted Emperor, note how the manuscript's punctuation and lineation affect the rhythm of Orlando's tirades. The plays are best approached not as polished literary works but as documents that bear the marks of their transmission.

Bullen's volume rewards a reader who treats the editorial apparatus as part of the text. The preface's errata and acknowledgments are not mere formalities; they reveal the collaborative and fallible process of recovering early modern drama. As you read each play, consider what the editor has chosen to correct or annotate, and what questions remain open. The plays themselves are lively and uneven, but the real drama may be in the margins.

Bullen’s Volume 3 always felt like a lantern held to shadowed corners, those errant lines set right by careful hands. I recall the same quiet ache in The Tenth Man: A Tragic Comedy in Three Acts — Text and Context, where every correction seems to whisper of human frailty mended. Two volumes, patient custodians of imperfect voices, keeping their secrets warm.