Transcriber's Notes:
This early English text was printed in a black-letter font. Some of theletters used are not found on a typewriter. In the e-text thoseletters that have no modern equivalent are transcribed with theirmeaning. For example, there is a letter that looks like a "w" with a "t"over it. This means with. You will find this in the text as [with].Others you will find are [the], [that], and [thou]. You will alsofind the suffix [us].
All typos were kept as close as possible to the original. This e-textis based on the 1907 edition which included a long list of these typosand some of their possible meanings along with the editor's note. Thislist had many letters typeset upside down. For this e-text they wererighted.
Long s's are used as the html entity ſ and look like this:ſ. If that character does not look right, your font does not supportlong s's and you may want to try a more complete font.
In the original most of the stage directions were not set apart from therest of the text. I separated the stage directions from the text and put themin italics.
PRINTED FOR THE MALONE SOCIETY BY
CHARLES WHITTINGHAM & CO.
AT THE CHISWICK PRESS
THE INTERLUDE OF WEALTH AND HEALTH
THE MALONE SOCIETY
REPRINTS
1907
This reprint of Wealth and Health has been prepared by the GeneralEditor and checked by Percy Simpson.
March 1907. W.W. Greg.
Early in the craft year which began on 19 July 1557, and was the firstof the chartered existence of the Stationers' Company, John Waley, orWally, entered what was no doubt the present play on the Register alongwith several other works. The entry runs as follows:
To master John wally these bokes Called Welth and helthe/thetreatise of the ffrere and the boye / stans puer ad mensam anotherof youghte charyte and humylyte an a b c for cheldren in englesshewith syllabes also a boke called an hundreth mery tayles ijs[Arber's Transcript, I. 75.]
That Waley printed an edition is therefore to be presumed, but it doesnot necessarily follow that the extant copy, which though perfect bearsneither date nor printer's name, ever belonged to it. Indeed, acomparison with a number of works to which he did affix his namesuggests grave doubts on the subject. Though not a high-class printer,there seems no reason to ascribe to him a piece of work which forbadness alike of composition and press-work appears to be unique amongthe dramatic productions of the sixteenth century.
'Wealth and health' appears among the titles in the list of playsappended to the edition of Goffe's Careless Shepherdess, printed forRogers and Ley in 1656. The entry was repeated with the designation'C[omedy].' in Archer's list of the same year, and, without theaddition, in those of Kirkman in 1661 and 1671. In 1691 Langbaine wrote'Wealth and Health, a Play of which I can give no Account.' Gildon hasno further information to offer, nor have any of his immediatefollowers. Chetwood, in 1752, classes it among 'Plays Wrote by AnonymousAuthors in the 16th [by which he means the seventeenth] Century,' callsit 'an Interlude' and dates it 1602. This invention was only copied inthose lists which depended directly on Chetwood's, such as thePlayhouse Pocket-Companion of 1779. Meanwhile, in his Companion tothe Play-House of 1764, D.E. Baker, relying upon Coxeter's notes, ga