Produced by Jason Isbell and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries)
This early English text was printed in a black-letter font. Some of the letters used are not found on a typewriter. In the e-text those letters that have no modern equivalent are transcribed with their meaning. 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 [per], [the], [that], and [thou]. You will also find the suffix [us].
All typos were kept as close as possible to the original. This e-text is based on the 1907 edition which included a long list of these typos and some of their possible meanings along with the editor's note. This list had many letters typeset upside down. For this e-text they were righted.
Long s has been changed to standard short s.
In the plain text version, letters with a macron over them are denoted by placing them in brackets with an = beside them, such as [=e] for an e with a macron over it. For smoother reading, a and o are shown with tilde.
Speaker names are surrounded by + like +Health+.
For those that wish to consult the original, black and white pngs have been included in the archive.]
This reprint of _Wealth and Health_ has been prepared by the General Editor and checked by Percy Simpson.
Early in the craft year which began on 19 July 1557, and was the first of the chartered existence of the Stationers' Company, John Waley, or Wally, entered what was no doubt the present play on the Register along with several other works. The entry runs as follows:
To master John wally these bokes Called Welth and helthe/the treatise of the ffrere and the boye / stans puer ad mensam another of youghte charyte and humylyte an a b c for cheldren in englesshe with syllabes also a boke called an hundreth mery tayles ij^s [Arber's Transcript, I. 75.]
That Waley printed an edition is therefore to be presumed, but it does not necessarily follow that the extant copy, which though perfect bears neither date nor printer's name, ever belonged to it. Indeed, a comparison with a number of works to which he did affix his name suggests grave doubts on the subject. Though not a high-class printer, there seems no reason to ascribe to him a piece of work which for badness alike of composition and press-work appears to be unique among the dramatic productions of the sixteenth century.