come down to us, leaving the particular details in this kind to be noted in connection with the several plays themselves.

Of the thirty-eight plays included in this edition, sixteen, or, if we count-in the originals of the Second and Third Parts of King Henry the Sixth, eighteen, were published, severally and successively, in what are known as the quarto editions, during the Poet's life. Some of them were printed in that form several times, but often with considerable variations of text. One more, Othello, was issued in that form in 1622, six years after the Poet's death. Copies of these editions are still extant, though in some cases exceedingly rare. Most of these issues were undoubtedly "stolen and surreptitious"; and it is nowise likely that in any of them a single page of the proofs was ever corrected by Shakespeare himself. In the popular literature of his time, proof-reading generally was done, if done at all, with such a degree of slovenliness as no one would think of tolerating now. And that proof-sheets can be rightly and properly corrected by none but the author himself, or by one very closely and minutely familiar with his mind, his mouth, and his hand, is a lesson which an experience of more than thirty years in the matter has taught me beyond all peradventure. And, in fact, the printing in most of these quarto issues is so shockingly bad, that no one can gain an adequate idea of how bad it is, except by minutely studying the text as there given, and comparing it in detail with the text as given in modern editions.

All the forecited plays, with one exception, Pericles, were set forth anew in the celebrated folio of 1623, seven years after the Poet's death. Most of them are indeed printed much better there than in the earlier issues, though some of them are well known to have been printed from quarto copies. Therewithal the folio set forth, for the first time, so far as is known, all the other plays included in this edition,

except The Two Noble Kinsmen. The volume was published, professedly at least, under the editorial care of the Poet's friends and fellow-actors, John Heminge and Henry Condell.

The printing of the folio is exceedingly unequal: in some of the plays, as, for instance, Julius Cæsar, Twelfth Night, and As You Like It, it is remarkably good for the time, insomuch that the text, generally, is got into an orderly and intelligible state without much trouble; while others, as All's Well, Coriolanus, and Timon of Athens, abound in the grossest textual corruptions, so that the labour of rectification seems to be literally endless. Even where the printing is best, there are still so many palpable, and also so many more or less probable, misprints, that the text, do the best we can with it, must often stand under considerable uncertainty. It is not unlikely that in some parts of the volume the Editors themselves may have attended somewhat to the correcting of the proofs, while in others they left it entirely to the printers. Of course all the plays then first published must have been printed either from the author's own manuscripts, or else from play-house transcripts of them. Doubtless these were made by different hands, sometimes with reasonable care, sometimes otherwise, and so with widelyvarying degrees of accuracy and legibility.

In their "Address to the Readers," the Editors, after referring to the earlier quarto issues, go on as follows: "Even those are now offered to your view cured and perfect of their limbs, and all the rest absolute in their numbers as he [the author] conceived them; who, as he was a happy imitator of Nature, was a most gentle expresser of it and what he thought, he uttered with that easiness, that we have scarce received from him a blot in his papers." Heminge and Condell appear to have been honest and amiable men; but they naturally felt a strong interest in having the volume sell well, and so were moved to recom

mend it as highly as they could to purchasers. Probably there was something of truth in what they said, perhaps enough to excuse, if not to justify them in saying it: nevertheless it is perfectly certain that their words were not true to the full extent; and most likely what was true only of a portion of the volume they deemed it right to put forth in a general way as if applicable to the whole, without staying to express any limitations or exceptions. The folio was reprinted in 1632, again in 1664, and yet again in 1685. The folio of 1632 was set forth with a good many textual changes, made by an unknown hand; sometimes corrections, and sometimes corruptions, but none of them carrying any authority. Changes of text, though less both in number and importance, were also made in the third and fourth folios.

Before passing on from this topic, I must add that, after 1623, single plays continued to be reprinted, from time to time, in quarto form. But as these are seldom of any use towards ascertaining or helping the text, it seems not worth the while to specify them in detail. Probably the most valuable of them is that of Othello, issued in 1630. Others of them are occasionally referred to in the Critical Notes.

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As I have frequent occasion to cite a famous volume, which I designate as Collier's second folio," it appears needful to give some account thereof in this place. In 1849, Mr. J. P. Collier, a very learned and eminent Shakespearian, lighted upon and purchased a copy of the second folio containing a very large number of verbal, literal, and punctuative alterations in manuscript; all of course intended as corrections of the text. At what time or times, and by what hand or hands, these changes were made, has not been settled, nor is likely to be. For some time there was a good deal of pretty warm controversy about them. All, I believe, are now pretty much agreed, and certainly

such is my own judgment, that none of them have any claim to be regarded as authentic: most of them are corruptions decidedly; but a considerable number may be justly spoken of as corrections; and some of them are exceedingly happy and valuable. To be sure, of those that may be called apt and good, the larger portion had been anticipated by modern editors, and so had passed into the current text. Still there are enough of original or unanticipated corrections to render the volume an important contribution towards textual rectification. Nevertheless they all stand on the common footing of conjectural emendation, and so carry no authority in their hand but that of inherent fitness and propriety.

Herewith I must also mention another copy of the same folio, which is sometimes referred to in my Critical Notes. This was owned by the late Mr. S. W. Singer, also one of the most learned and eminent Shakespearians of his time. All that need be said of it here may as well be given in Singer's own words: "In June, 1852, I purchased from Mr. Willis, the bookseller, a copy of the second folio edition of Shakespeare, in its original binding, which, like that of Mr. Collier, contains very numerous manuscript corrections by several hands; the typographical errors, with which that edition abounds, are sedulously corrected, and the writers have also tried their hands at conjectural emendation extensively. Many of these emendations correspond with those in Mr. Collier's volume, but chiefly in those cases where the error in the old copy was pretty evident; but the readings often vary, and sometimes for the better."

Thus much may suffice for indicating generally the condition in which Shakespeare's plays have come down to us. Of course the early quartos and the first folio are, in the proper sense, our only authorities for the Poet's text. But his text has not been, and most assuredly never will be allowed to remain in the condition there given. The labours

and the judgment of learned, sagacious, painstaking, diligent workmen in the field have had, ought to have, must have, a good deal of weight in deciding how the matter should go. And now the question confronts us whether, after all, there is any likelihood of Shakespeare's text being ever got into a satisfactory state. Perhaps, nay, I may as well say probably, not. Probably the best to be looked for here is a greater or less degree of approximation to such a state. At all events, if it come at all, it is to come as the slow cumulative result of a great many minds working jointly, or severally, and successively, and each contributing its measure, be it more, be it less, towards the common cause. A mite done here, and a mite done there, will at length, when time shall cast up the sum, accomplish we know not what.

The Bible apart, Shakespeare's dramas are, by general consent, the greatest classic and literary treasure of the world. His text, with all the admitted imperfections on its head, is nevertheless a venerable and sacred thing, and must nowise be touched but under a strong restraining sense of pious awe.. Woe to the man that exercises his critical surgery here without a profound reverence for the subject! All glib ingenuity, all shifty cleverness, should be sternly warned off from meddling with the matter. Nothing is easier than making or proposing ingenious and plausible corrections. But changes merely ingenious are altogether worse than none; and whoever goes about the work with his mind at all in trim for it will much rather have any corrections he may make or propose flatly condemned as bad, than have that sweetish epithet politely smiled, or sneered, upon them. On the other hand, to make corrections that are really judicious, corrections that have due respect to all sides of the case, and fit all round, and that keep strictly within the limits of such freedom as must be permitted in the presenting of so great a classic so deeply hurt with textual corruptions; this is, indeed, just