ABSTRACT
8o Epilogue to Constantine the Great Date and publication. Lee’s play was first performed in early November 1683 (from Luttrelľs date, below), by the United Company at Drury Lane, with a Prologue by Otway and an Epilogue by D. The Prologue and Epilogue were first printed in a folio half sheet headed The Prologue and Epilogue, To the Last New Play; Constantine the Great (1683; MS date 12 November on Luttrelľs copy (Noyes)). Published by ‘C. Tebroc’ (i.e. ‘C. Corbet’; this disguised imprint is also found on A New Song (1682) against Shaftesbury (Wing N744B); for Corbet see also 11. 40-5«); this was probably a pirated edition deriving from a shorthand transcription in the theatre (J. H. Smith, P M L A lxviii (1953) 257-8«). Tonson subsequently published A True Coppy of the Epilogue to Constantine the Great. That which was first Published being false printed and surreptitious, a folio half sheet (1684; MS date 14 November 1683 on Luttrelľs copy (Noyes)). The Epilogue was also included in Lee’s Constantine the Great; A Tragedy (1684) published by Bentley and Tonson. The 1683 text has several errors; the 1684 folio text is followed here, emended at 1. 13 from the 1684 play text.
