We have now brought to completion a task which has cost us nearly six years' labour.

The labour, though severe, has been lightened by the assistance and sympathy of many friends', and of others personally unknown to us: we have throughout been encouraged by kindly criticism, and by a confident hope that the result would be a contribution of permanent value to English literature.

Neither, again, is the work of collating and editing, at least when undertaken on the large scale which we have attempted, merely the dry, mechanical, repulsive task which it is popularly supposed to be. The judgement has to be exercised at every step, in the settlement of the text, in the application of rules previously laid down, and in discriminating between essential and unessential variations. Thus the labour of a conscientious editor, however humble and unambitious in its aim, is neither servile nor mechanical. If it is often unduly depreciated in public opinion, this is in some degree because each successive editor, being bound to correct the errors of his predecessors, necessarily brings these into undue prominence, while as he cannot in all cases acknowledge, he seems to ignore, the services which they have rendered.

'The evil that men do lives after them;

The good is oft interred with their bones.'

The plan which we have adopted gives to each his due, and will, we trust, secure a tardy justice for those whose merits have not been sufficiently recognized. But an editor of Shakespeare, even if he misses his meed of fame and praise, finds a sufficient reward in the labour itself. He feels that he is not, in Hallam's phrase, 'trimming the

1 We have great pleasure in inscribing on the roll of our benefactors the names of the Rev. Alexander Dyce, the Rev. Canon Robertson, the Rev. W. C. Sidgwick of Merton College, Oxford, Mr C. Knight Watson, Secretary of the Society of Antiquaries, and Mr P. A. Daniel. In the present volume we have had especial assistance from the Rev. H. O. Coxe, Librarian of the Bodleian, and Mr Deutsch and Mr Hamilton, of the British Museum. During the progress of the work we have been much indebted to Mr C. J. Clay, of Trinity College, and to the accurate and intelligent printers who work under his direction at the University Press.

lamp of an ancient sepulchre,' but trimming a lamp which lights modern dwellings, and which will continue to light the dwellings of many generations of men yet to come. It is no mean task, but a noble privilege, to live in daily intercourse with the greatest of merely human men, to acquire a constantly increasing familiarity with the thoughts of the subtlest of thinkers and the language of the most eloquent of poets. The more we endeavour to fathom and to grasp the mind of Shakespeare, the more we appreciate his depth and his sublimity. As our knowledge grows, so also our admiration and our pleasure in the study increase, dashed only by a growing sense of the textual imperfections and uncertainties which stand between the author and his readers. For, besides the recognized difficulties, we are convinced that there are many passages, still easily scanned and construed, and therefore not generally suspected of corruption, which nevertheless. have not been printed exactly as they were first written. Some ruder hand has effaced the touch of the master.

And these blemishes cannot be entirely removed, even by the most brilliant conjectural criticism, because the materials are wanting. Little more can be done than has been done already by successive editors and commentators. The attentive readers of our notes will, we are persuaded, come to the same conclusion that we have come to: viz. that the value of these men's labours has been. greatly underrated. Nothing can be more unfounded than the notion, so prevalent in Germany, that Shakespeare has till of late years been neglected and undervalued by his countrymen. Even in England this erroneous assertion is frequently repeated, as if it were too obvious to require proof. The genius of Shakespeare and the stupidity of his commentators is a popular antithesis as trite as it is unjust. In this despised class are found some of the most famous and most accomplished Englishmen of their time. And it is a study of great interest to follow them as they exercise their varied talents on the noblest field which the literature of their country afforded: Rowe, himself a dramatist of no mean skill; Pope, with his deep poctic

insight; Theobald, with his fine tact and marvellous ingenuity; Hanmer, whose guesses, however they may pass the sober limits of criticism, are sometimes brilliant, often instructive and never foolish; Warburton, audacious and arrogant, but now and then singularly happy; Johnson, with his masculine common sense; Capell, the most useful of all, whose conscientious diligence is untiring, whose minute accuracy is scarcely ever at fault; Steevens, Malone, Blackstone, Farmer, Tyrwhitt, Rann, Boswell, Singer and Sidney Walker, with all their varied learning; together with their successors of the present generation in England, Germany and America, who have devoted themselves to the illustration of Shakespeare as to a labour of love.

For the contempt into which the earlier editors have fallen, they may thank, in part, their own quarrels. People are content to take each at his rival's estimate. Theobald is held to be the worst of dunces because Pope made him the hero of the Dunciad. Bearing this in mind, we have great satisfaction in the thought that there is scarcely an editor of Shakespeare now living to whom we are not indebted for some act of courtesy and kindness.

In the course of our inquiries we have been led to the study of other authors contemporary with or immediately subsequent to Shakespeare, and have thus gathered materials for the elucidation of his text, which must serve for another work, since our limits have compelled us rigorously to exclude them from this. Nevertheless the footnotes of the present work are in effect explanatory, because they contain not only all the material for criticism, but also, in a condensed form, the results of successive speculations. A vast mass of recent criticism, to which we hope to do full justice hereafter, finds no record in these pages, because its results, as far as the improvement of the text is concerned, have been anticipated by earlier com

mentators.

We take this opportunity of re-stating, more explicitly than before, some of the rules by which we have been

guided in the present work, together with our reasons for adopting them.

1. We have given the text according to modern spelling. A recurrence to antiquated and disused forms would be productive of far more inconvenience than advantage. What is called 'modern' spelling is, in fact, not so much an alteration of the old spelling as a reduction to uniformity, which obviates numberless misinterpretations. Hardly a word can be found which was not in old days occasionally spelt as we spell it now. If Shakespeare himself could come to life again and read his own works in a modern edition, nothing in the spelling would seem to him strange.

Moreover the editions which come nearest to the hand of Shakespeare are, as a rule, the most uniform, that is, the most modern, in spelling: it follows therefore that the variations found in other copies are due to the caprice or indifference of transcribers or printers, and are not generally worth recording, much less worth repeating. We have recorded every variation which seemed instructive or curious in itself, besides all such as might help in the determination of doubtful readings.

Had there been any ground for supposing that Shakespeare corrected his own works as they passed through the press, we might have thought ourselves bound to retain the original spelling and even the punctuation, at least in those works which were printed during his lifetime. But in all probability not one of his works was thus corrected, nor, with few exceptions, were they printed from the author's manuscript. In earlier writers, like Chaucer, spelling is of importance, because it indicates the changes which were undergone by words before they came into their present shape, and so marks the various stages in their history, while at the same time it helps to preserve the inflections which were disused altogether before the time of Elizabeth. In the case of Spenser, the spelling is an essential part of the affectedly archaic character of his chief poem,

and on this account should be retained. But none of these reasons apply to Shakespeare.

2. We have somewhere read, or heard, a suggestion that the text of the first Folio ought to be taken as a basis for a critical edition of Shakespeare. Those who have made such a proposal can scarcely be aware of the multitude of errors in reading and punctuation, and of the important omissions, which are found in the first Folio. That volume is far from containing the 'complete works' of Shakespeare. And in the great majority of cases where a previous Quarto exists, the Quarto and not the Folio is our best authority.

Besides, another reprint of the first Folio is unnecessary, since the splendid reproduction by photo-zincography, executed under Mr Staunton's superintendence, and the extremely accurate reprint published by Mr L. Booth, and edited, as we understand, by Mr Charles Wright. adly im

Palmer.

3. In the selection of readings for the text we have conformed to the practice of all judicious editors of ancient classics. The more experience an editor has, the more cautious he will be in the introduction of conjectural emendations, not, assuredly, because his confidence in the earliest texts increases, but because he gains a greater insight into the manifold and far-removed sources of error. The insertions, marginal and interlinear, and doubtless occasional errors, of the author's own manuscript, the mistakes, deliberate alterations and attempted corrections of successive transcribers and of the earliest printer, result at last in corruptions which no conjecture can with certainty emend. Therefore in all cases of doubt we have inclined to the retention of the text which has the best authority. But we have throughout endeavoured to bear in mind that rules are good servants but bad masters, and that high above all rules stands the golden rule of moderation dictated by common sense.

4. While dealing freely with the spelling, we have desired to leave intact the diction of Shakespeare. This