The Authorship and the Manuscript of "The Old Law"
George Price · Huntington Library Quarterly · 1953
A PRIMARY QUESTION about The Old Law' has always been that a of authorship, or more precisely, the nature of the contributions of the collaborators whose names are on the title page. Of the several answers that have been given, the most exhaustive is by E. C. Morris, in an article of fifty years ago.2 Morris's conclusion, however, was almost entirely based on analysis of style. It is reasonable to ask that a textual analysis precede the stylistic. In the present article I attempt to set forth the leading textual clues and to correlate them with the stylistic evidence of authorship; for a more complete textual study, I have outlined the probable history of the text up to publication. It is fundamental to examine the quarto and to discover as well as we can the kind of printer's copy from which it was set. The title page reads as follows: THE / Excellent Comedy, called / THE OLD LAW: / OR / A new way to please you. / By [bracket]