her body, and to their heirs males; and for default of such issue, the said premises to be and remain to my said niece Hall, and the heirs males of her body lawfully issuing; and for default of such issue, to my daughter Judith, and the heirs males of her body lawfully issuing; and for default of such issue, to the right heirs of me the said William Shakespeare for ever. Item, I give unto my wife my second best bed with the furniture. Item, I give and bequeath to my said daughter Judith my broad silver gilt bowl. All the rest of my goods, chattel, leases, plate, jewels, and household stuff whatsoever, after my debts and legacies paid, and my funeral expenses discharged, I give, devise, and bequeath to my son-in-law, John Hall, gent., and my daughter Susanna, his wife, whom I ordain and make executors of this my last will and testament. And I do intreat and appoint the said Thomas Russell, esquire, and Francis Collins, gent., to be overseers hereof, and do revoke all former wills, and publish this to be my last will and testament. In witness whereof I have hereunto put my hand, the day and year first above-written. By me WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE. Witness to the publishing hereof, FRA: COLLINS, JULIUS SHAW, JOHN ROBINSON, HAMNET SADLER, ROBERT WHATTCOTT. Probatum coram magistro Willielmo Byrde, legum doctore comiss. &c. xxijdo. die mensis Junii, anno Domini 1616, juramento Johannis Hall, unius executorum, &c. cui &c. de bene &c. jurat. reservat. potestate &c. Susannæ Hall, alteri executorum &c. cum venerit petitur. &c. (Inv. ex.) DEDICATION PREFIXED TO THE FOLIO OF 1623. To the most noble and incomparable pair of Brethren, WILLIAM, Earl of PEMBROKE, &c., Lord Chamberlain to the King's most excellent Majesty, and PHILIP, Earl of MONTGOMERY, &c., Gentleman of his Majesty's bedchamber; Both Knights of the most noble order of the Garter, and our singular good lords. RIGHT-HONOURABLE: - Whilst we study to be thankful in our particular for the many favours we have received from your Lordships, we are fallen upon the ill-fortune, to mingle two the most diverse things that can be, fear and rashness, — rashness in the enterprise, and fear of the success. For when we value the places your Honours sustain, we cannot but know their dignity greater than to descend to the reading of these trifles; and while we name them trifles, we have deprived ourselves of the defence of our dedication. But since your Lordships have been pleased to think these trifles something heretofore, and have prosecuted both them and their author living with so much favour, we hope that (they outliving him, and he not having the fate, common with some, to be executor to his own writings) you will use the like indulgence toward them you have done unto their parent. There is a great difference whether any book choose his patrons, or find them: this hath done both. For so much were your Lordships' likings of the several parts when they were acted, as, before they were published, the volume asked to be yours. We have but collected them, and done an office to the dead, to procure his orphans guardians; without ambition either of self-profit or fame; only to keep the memory of so worthy a friend and fellow alive as was our Shakespeare, by humble offer of his plays to your most noble patronage. Wherein, as we have justly observed no man to come near your Lordships but with a kind of religious address, it hath been the height of our care, who are the presenters, to make the present worthy of your Honours by the perfection. But there we must also crave our abilities to be considered, my lords. We cannot go beyond our powers. Country hands reach forth milk, cream, fruits, or what they have; and many nations, we have heard, that had not gums and incense, obtained their requests with a leavened cake. It was no fault to approach their gods by what means they could; and the most, though meanest, of things are made more precious when they are dedicated to temples. In that name, therefore, we most humbly consecrate to your Honours these remains of your servant Shakespeare, that what delight is in them may be ever your Lordships', the reputation his, and the fault ours, if any be committed by a pair so careful to show their gratitude both to the living and the dead as is Your Lordships' most bounden, JOHN HEMINGE, ADDRESS PREFIXED TO THE FOLIO OF 1623. To the great Variety of Readers. FROM the most able to him that can but spell: there you are numbered. We had rather you were weighed: especially when the fate of all books depends upon your capacities; and not of your heads alone, but of your purses. Well, it is now public; and you will stand for your privileges, we know, — to read and censure. Do so, but buy it first: that doth best commend a book, the stationer says. Then how odd soever your brains be or your wisdoms, make your license the same, and spare not. Judge your six-pen'orth, your shilling's-worth, your five-shillings'worth at a time, or higher, so you rise to the just rates, and welBut, whatever you do, buy. Censure will not drive a trade, or make the jack go. And, though you be a magistrate come. of wit, and sit on the stage at Black-friars or the Cock-pit, to arraign plays daily, know, these plays have had their trial already, and stood out all appeals, and do now come forth quitted rather by a decree of court than any purchased letters of commendation. It had been a thing, we confess, worthy to have been wished, that the author himself had lived to have set forth and overseen his own writings. But, since it hath been ordained otherwise, and he by death departed from that right, we pray you do not envy his friends the office of their care and pain, to have collected and published them; and so to have published them as, where before you were abused with divers stolen and surreptitious copies, maimed and deformed by the frauds and stealths of injurious impostors that exposed them, even those are now offered to your view cured and perfect of their limbs, and all the rest absolute in their numbers as he conceived them; who, as he was a happy imitator of Nature, was a most gentle expresser of it: his mind and hand went together; and what he thought, he uttered with that easiness, that we have scarce received from him a blot in his papers. But it is not our province, who only gather his works and give them you, to praise him. It is yours that read him and there we hope, to your divers capacities, you will find enough both to draw and hold you; for his wit can no more lie hid than it could be lost. Read him, therefore; and again and again and if then you do not like him, surely you are in some manifest danger not to understand him. And so we leave you to other of his friends, who, if you need, can be your guides: if you need them not, you can lead yourselves and others. And such readers we wish him. JOHN HEMINGE, COMMENDATORY VERSES PREFIXED TO THE FOLIO OF 1623. To the Memory of my beloved, the Author, Master WILLIAM To draw no envy, Shakespeare, on thy name, I, therefore, will begin: Soul of the age, A little further, to make thee a room: Thou art a monument without a tomb, * * An allusion to the following lines by William Basse, which are found in Mss. with several variations: they appear to have been first printed in 1633 among the poems of Donne, to whom they were wrongly attributed: Renowned Spenser, lie a thought more nigh To learned Chaucer; and, rare Beaumont, lie Until doomsday; for hardly will a fifth, |