University of Virginia Library

Quoted and described by permission of the Folger Shakespeare Library.

Hugh Macdonald, John Dryden: A Bibliography (1939), no. 74b. Note that these additions had actually been made in at least one remainder copy of the 1670 edition: see J. M. Osborn, "Macdonald's Bibliography of Dryden: An Annotated Check List," MP, XXXIX, (1941), 85. These changes, other than the added scene of 39 lines, are not extensive, representing largely verbal improvements. No significant changes were made in the stage directions.

Page references will be given both to the 1672 quarto (Macdonald 74b) and to the Montague Summers edition of the Dramatic Works; this reference is, then p. 1 [335]. Tyrannic Love appears in vol. II of Summers' edition.

P. 29 [359]. The word "black" can confidently be reconstructed, as it appears again later in connection with the same setting.

P. 29 [360]. The cut extends from line 16 to line 201, pp. 29-35 [360-364].

P. 35 [364]. The bottom part of the words within brackets is visible, and the reconstruction is fairly certain. The four question marks indicate a gap before the tail of the "y" which leaves room for a word of about four letters of which no trace remains. The word "down" might be suggested to fill the gap, but I have so little confidence in it that I have not ventured to place it in the brackets.

Leslie Hotson, The Commonwealth and Restoration Stage (1928), pp. 251-253.

Nicoll records a performance at court for Tyrannic Love for May 18, 1676: History of Restoration Drama, 3rd. ed. (1940), p. 308. Summers notes revivals in 1677, 1686, 1694, and 1702. Fuller pointed out in his claim that the play had run for fourteen days at about a hundred pounds a day income, while, he continues, the normal income from a play was forty or fifty pounds a performance. See Hotson, op. cit., p. 252.

The evidence presented does not preclude the possibility that this prompt copy was made for a production in the provinces, but even if this were the case, it is likely that any production of the play after 1672 must necessarily be something like that represented by the markings in the Folger copy, and on the basis of this cutting, a reasonable idea can be gained of the manner of production of the play in London from the time of the fire until the death of Betterton.