ΤΟ

HIS ROYAL HIGHNESS

AUGUSTUS FREDERICK,

DUKE OF SUSSEX,

EARL OF STRATHERN, &c.

PRESIDENT OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY;

THE

FOLLOWING WORK

IS,

WITH HIS ROYAL HIGHNESSES GRACIOUS PERMISSION,

MOST RESPECTFULLY INSCRIBED

BY

THE AUTHOR.

PREFACE.

THE prevailing ardour for rescuing the Works of our old Poets and Dramatic Authors from the oblivion to which they were fast approaching, is creditable to the taste and liberality of the age; new editions of the old Drama, collectively, and of the separate Works of PEELE, GREENE, WEBSTER, MARLOWE, FORD, MASSINGER, and others have recently been published: the Works of CHAUCER and SPENSER have been repeatedly reprinted, but the Glossaries appended to them have been both meagre and unsatisfactory. Notwithstanding the numerous Commentaries on the Works of SHAKESPEARE, it is an undeniable fact that many of the peculiar phrases and local allusions abounding in his Works, have neither been properly defined or satisfactorily elucidated; this defect has arisen from the want of a competent knowledge of the dialect of the Midland Counties. Numerous words used by SHAKESPEARE being local, are not to be found in any cotemporary Author, and hence the Commentators, unacquainted with the Archaisms of the County of Stafford and other adjoining Counties, were puzzled

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to find among their philological researches the derivation and definition of those words, and therefore adopted many very fanciful and some very absurd ones. The words blood bolter'd may be adduced, among others, to prove the fact. The definition of WARBURTON, adopted by MALONE, has no analogy with the true meaning of the word bolter, which is purely local and in use at the present day.

The Author of the present Work, without pretending to the critical acumen of his Predecessors, has, he flatters himself, elucidated the meaning of many words hitherto unexplained or improperly defined; but where he has taken the liberty of differing with persons whose names deservedly rank high as philologists, he trusts he has done so with the deference which ought always to be paid to the superior talents and great authority of the Authors.