A TRUE ROMAN TRAGEDY.

WITH THE

SEVERAL SONGS, IN THEIR APT PLACES, BY

VALERIUS, THE MERRY LORD AMONG THE ROMAN PEERS.

THE COPY REVISED;

AND SUNDRY SONGS BEFORE OMITTED, NOW INSERTED IN

THEIR RIGHT PLACES.

ACTED BY HER MAJESTY'S SERVANTS AT THE RED BULL.

TO THE READER.

IT hath been no custom in me of all other men, courteous reader, to commit my Plays to the press; the reason though some may attribute to my own insufficiency,—I had rather subscribe in that to their severe censure, than by seeking to avoid the imputation of weakness, to incur greater suspicion of honesty; for though some have used a double sale of their labours, first to the stage, and after to the press, for my own part, I here proclaim myself ever faithful in the first, and never guilty of the last; yet since some of my Plays have, unknown to me, and without any of my direction, accidentally come into the printer's hands, and therefore so corrupt and mangled, copied only by the ear, that I have been as unable to know them, as ashamed to challenge them: this, therefore, I was the willinger to furnish out in his native habit; first being by consent; next, because the rest have been so wronged in being published in such savage and ragged ornaments. Accept it, courteous gentlemen, and prove as favorable readers as we have found you gracious auditors.

Your's,

T. H.