THE PARLIAMENT OF BEES

Abstract

THE sole extant edition of the Parliament of Bees * is the quarto of 1641. Reference, however, is made to an earlier quarto of I607 in Gildon's edition of Langbaine's Dramatick Poets, I699, in Giles Jacob's Poetical Register,t I7I9, in Baker's Companion to the Playhouse, I764, and in Charles Lamb's Extracts from the Garrick Plays. Sir E. Gosse, too, remembers reading the Bees in a 4to of the early date, which he found after a personal search in the King's Library in the British So far, the efforts that have been made to locate this copy have not met with success ; and it is more than likely, as Bullen suggests, that Gildon, having confused the date of the Bees with that of The Travels of the Three English Brothers, was followed in his blunder by successive writers. In addition to the quarto of 1641 there is a contemporary transcript among the Lansdowne MSS. (No. 725) in the British Museum. On examination, the textual differences, which in some cases are extensive, show the quarto to be a revised version of the MS., though the emendations do not always provide superior readings. The MS., according to the title-page, was found In a Hollow Tree In a garden at Hibla, in a strandge Languadge, And now faithfully Translated into Easie English Verse by John Daye, Cantabrig, whilst on the title-page of the quarto, on which Day's name also appears, we are informed that the Bees is an Allegoricall description of the actions of good and bad men in these our daies. Furthermore, the Address to the Impartiall Reader is omitted from the quarto, and the dedicatee is George Butler instead of the William Augustine of the MS.