Abbildungen der Seite
PDF
EPUB
[blocks in formation]

PRINTED FOR C. R. KERSTEN.

ORIGINALLY S SCHMERBER'S PUBLICATION IN FRANKFORT 0. M.

1842.

CONTENT S.

TEMPEST.

TWO GENTLEMEN OF VERONA.

MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR.

TWELFTH NIGHT.

EDITOR'S PREFACE.

'CAN it be wondered at (says Mr. Gifford) that Shakspeare should swell into twenty or even twice twenty volumes, when the latest editor (like the wind Cecias) constantly draws round him the floating errors of all his predecessors. Upwards of twenty years ago, when the evil was not so great as it has since become, Steevens confessed that there was an 'exuberance of comment,' arising from the 'ambition in each little Hercules to set up pillars ascertaining how far he had travelled through the dreary wilds of black letter;' so that there was some danger of readers being 'frighted away from Shakspeare, as the soldiers of Cato deserted their comrade when he became bloated with poison-crescens fugêre cadaver.' He saw with a prophetic eye that the evil must cure itself, and that the time would arrive when some of this ivy must be removed, which only served to hide the princely trunk, and suck the verdure out of it.'

« ZurückWeiter »