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HE author and early date of the present Comedy are ascertained by a quotation in Sir Thomas Wilson’s Rule of Reason of Roister Doister’s letter to Dame Custance.

The first edition of the Rule of Reason, 1550–1, is a very scarce work; of which I have been unable to see a copy. The second edition, 1552, 8vo, ‘newely corrected by Thomas Wilson,’ has not the quotation: which apparently first appears in the third edition of 1553, 4to, the title of which runs, “The Rule of Reason, conteinyng the Arte of Logique. Sette furthe in Englishe, and newly corrected by Thomas Wilson. Anno Domini. M.D.LIII. Mense Ianuarij.”

At folio 66 of this edition, Wilson, in treating of The Ambiguitie, adds to his previous examples, Roister Doister’s letter, with the following heading: