The Welsh Embassador (Classic Reprint)

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Excerpt from The Welsh Embassador The only known manuscript of the Welsh Embassador is now in the Cardiff Public Library. The librarian, Mr. Harry Farr, kindly drew the attention of our Honorary Secretary to the fact that the play had passed into public keeping and might be worth printing. For this hint, and for the granting of facilities for the transcription and collation of the manuscript, the Society owes its thanks to Mr. Farr and the Cardiff Library Committee. The play cannot be said to have any historical foundation beyond the usual jumble of historical names, and we find allusions to the bad time-keeping qualities of German clocks, to tobacco shops kept by women, and other matters not usually known to have been subjects of popular comment in the time of Athelstone and Penda. An allusion in the last act (l. 2162) renders the date 1623 probable as that of composition. The author gives no clue to his identity, but perhaps the printing of his play may lead in time to his detection. He seems to have taken some hints from Fluellen and Macmorris and parson Evans, but his knowledge of Welsh and Irish dialect seems to have been limited to the stage Welshmen and stage Irishmen of the time. He may have had Middleton rather than Shakespeare before him: the Mayor of Queenborough is a play of kindred type to this one, and Middleton, like our author, alludes to 'the Welsh embassador' as a nickname for the cuckoo (l. 1500, and A Trick to catch the Old One, IV. v. 173). In the present title, however, the phrase is used not symbolically but literally. Possibly the Clown may have been intended to satirize some particular person. Certain speeches towards the end of the play have been deleted - whether through self-criticism on the author's part or out of fear of the censor need not be here debated. All cancelled passages have been carefully reproduced. The marginal warnings of the players to 'bee redy' show that the piece was prepared for representation. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully, any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.