have been guilty of the like in another. Some of the plays may have been printed not from Shakespeare's own manuscript, but from transcripts made from them for the use of the theatre. And this hypothesis will account for strange errors found in some of the plays-errors too gross to be accounted for by the negligence of a printer, especially if the original MS. was as unblotted as Heminge and Condell describe it to have been. Thus too we may explain the great difference in the state of the text as found in different plays. It is probable that this deception arose not from deliberate design on the part of Heminge and Condell,-whom as having been Shakespeare's friends and fellows we like to think of as honourable men,-but partly at least from want of practice in composition, and from the wish rather to write a smart preface in praise of the book than to state the facts clearly and simply. Or the preface may have been written by some literary man in the employment of the publishers, and merely signed by the two players.

Be this as it may, their duties as editors were probably limited to correcting and arranging the manuscripts and sending them to the press. The 'overseeing' of which they speak, probably meant a revision of the MSS., not a correction of the press, for it does not appear that there were any proof sheets in those days sent either to author or editor. Indeed we consider it as certain that, after a MS. had been sent to press, it was seen only by the printers and one or more correctors of the press, regularly employed by the publishers for that purpose*.

The opinions of critics have varied very much as to the merits of the first Folio, some praising it as among the most correct, and others blaming it as one of the most incorrect editions of its time. The truth seems to be that it is of very varied excellence, differing from time to time

A passage in the Return from Parnassus compared with one in Bale's preface to his Image of Both Churches puts this almost beyond a doubt.

VOL. I.

according to the state of the MS. from which it was printed, the skill of the compositor, and the diligence of the corrector. There is the widest difference, for instance, between the text of the Two Gentlemen of Verona and that of All's well that ends well.

As is the case with most books of that time*, different copies of the first Folio are found to vary here and there; generally, however, in a single letter only. It is probable that no one copy exactly corresponds with any other copy. We have indicated these variations, wherever they were known to us, in a note either at the foot of the page or at the end of each play.

A reprint of the first Folio, not free from inaccuracies, was published in 1807. A second reprint is now in course. of publication by Mr Lionel Booth. The first part, containing the Comedies, has already appeared. It is probably the most correct reprint ever issued.

The second Folio (F) is a reprint of the first, preserving the same pagination. It differs, however, from the first in many passages, sometimes widely, sometimes slightly, sometimes by accident, sometimes by design. The emendations are evidently conjectural, and though occasionally right, appear more frequently to be wrong. They deserve no more respect than those of other guessers, except such as is due to their author's familiar acquaintance with the language and customs of Shakespeare's day, and possible knowledge of the acted plays.

Capell's copy of the second Folio has been of great use to us in our collations. He has annotated the margin with. a multitude of marks in red ink,-conventional symbols indicating where and how it differs from the first. We have hardly in a single instance found his accuracy at fault.

* Mr Wright in his preface to Bacon's Essays mentions that he has collated ten copies of the edition of 1625, which though bearing the same date, are all different from each other in points of no great importance.'

The third Folio (F) was first published in 1663, and reissued in the following year with a new title-page*, and with seven additional plays, viz.: Pericles, Prince of Tyre: The London Prodigal: The History of the Life and Death of Thomas Lord Cromwell: The History of Sir John Oldcastle, the good Lord Cobham: The Puritan Widow: A Yorkshire Tragedy: and The Tragedy of Locrine. With regard to the plays which it contains in common with the former Folios, it is on the whole a tolerably faithful reprint of the second, correcting, however, some obvious errors, making now and then an uncalled-for alteration, and occasionally modernizing the spelling of a word. The printer of course has committed some errors of his own.

The fourth Folio (F.) was printed from the third, but with a different pagination, in 1685. The spelling is very much modernized, but we have not been able to detect any other evidence of editorial care.

The first octavo edition was that of Nicholas Rowe, published in 1709, dedicated to the Duke of Somerset, in words which we take pleasure in recording: "Tis the best security a poet can ask for to be sheltered under that great name which presides over one of the most famous Universities of Europe.' It contained all the plays in the fourth Folio in the same order, except that the seven spurious plays were transferred from the beginning to the end. The poems were added also.

It is evident that Rowe took the fourth Folio as the text from which his edition was printed, and it is almost certain that he did not take the trouble to refer to, much less to collate, any of the previous Folios or Quartos. It seems, however, while the volume containing Romeo and Juliet was in the press he learned the existence of a Quarto edition, for he has printed the prologue given in the

* Mr Bohn is mistaken in saying that the Capell copy has both titles. It has that of 1664 only, with the portrait, and B. J.'s verses underneath on the opposite page.

Quartos and omitted in the Folios, at the end of the play. He did not take the trouble to compare the text of the Quarto with that of F. When any emendation introduced by him in the text coincides with the reading of F1, as sometimes happens, we are convinced that it is an accidental coincidence. Being, however, a man of natural ability and taste he improved the text by some happy guesses, while, from overhaste and negligence, he left it still deformed by many palpable errors. The best part of the work is that with which his experience of the stage as a dramatic poet had made him familiar. In many cases he first prefixed to the play a list of dramatis personæ, he supplied the defects of the Folios in the division and numbering of Acts and Scenes, and in the entrances and exits of characters. He also corrected and further modernized the spelling, the punctuation, and the grammar.

A characteristic specimen of blunders and corrections occurs in the Comedy of Errors, V. I. 138.

important] F, impoteant F.. impotent F3F4, all-potent

Rowe.

A second Edition, 9 Volumes 12mo, was published in 1714

Pope's edition in six volumes, 4to, was completed in 1725. On the title-page we read, The Works of Shakespeare, in six volumes.' The six volumes, however, included only the plays contained in the first and second Folios. The poems, with an Essay on the Rise and Progress of the Stage, and a Glossary, were contained in a seventh volume edited by Dr Sewell.

Pope, unlike his predecessor, had at least seen the first Folio and some of the Quartos of separate plays, and from the following passage of his preface it might have been inferred that he had diligently collated them all:

This is the state in which Shakespeare's writings be at present; for since the above-mentioned folio edition [ie. F], all the rest have implicitly followed it without

having recourse to any of the former, or ever making the comparison between them. It is impossible to repair the injuries already done him; too much time has elaps'd, and the materials are too few. In what I have done I have rather given a proof of my willingness and desire, than of my ability, to do him justice. I have discharg'd the dull duty of an editor, to my best judgment, with more labour than I expect thanks, with a religious abhorrence of all innovation, and without any indulgence to my private sense or conjecture. The method taken in this edition will show itself. The various readings are fairly put in the margin, so that every one may compare 'em, and those I prefer'd into the text are constantly ex fide codicum, upon authority.'

This passage, as any one may see who examines the text, is much more like a description of what the editor did not do than of what he did. Although in many instances he restored, from some Quarto, passages which had been omitted in the Folio, it is very rarely indeed that we find any evidence of his having collated either the first Folio or any Quarto, with proper care. The 'innovations' which he made, according to his own 'private sense and conjecture,' are extremely numerous. Not one

in twenty of the various readings is put in the margin, and the readings in his text very frequently rest upon no authority whatever. The glaring inconsistency between the promise in the preface and the performance in the book may well account for its failure with the public.

It would, however, be ungrateful not to acknowledge that Pope's emendations are always ingenious and plausible, and sometimes unquestionably true. He never seems to nod over that 'dull labour' of which he complains. His acuteness of perception is never at fault.

What is said of him in the preface to Theobald's edition is, in this point, very unjust*.

*

Capell's copy now before us contains the following note in Capell's hand