Excerpt from The Works of Ben Jonson, Vol. 5 of 9: With Notes Critical and Explanatory, and a Biographical Memoir
In noticing the date of Barflwlomew Fair, I had occasion to ob serve that Jonson appeared to concern himself little, if at all, with the printing of the plays in the present collection; and the Devil is an Ass, as well as the Staple of News, furnishes no slight proof of it. In the folio, 1616, which the author certainly revised, he is altogether Sparing of his marginal directions, while the dramas just mentioned abound in them. They are, however, of the most trite and trifling nature; they tell nothing that is not told in action, and generally in the same words, and are, upon the whole, such a worth less incumbrance on the page, that the reader will thank me for discarding them altogether. They bear no trace of the poet’s hand.
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