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Midsommer Nights
Dreame.* [a.]
The Merchant of Venice.*
[a.]

As you like it. [a & s.]
The Taming of the Shrew.
All is well, that Ends
well. [a]
Twelfe-Night, or what
you will. [a & s.]
The Winters Tale. [a &
s.]

HISTORIES.

The Life and Death of King John.* [a & s.] The Life & Death of Richard the second.* [a & s.] The First part of King Henry the fourth. [a & s.] The Second Part of K. Henry the fourth.* [a & s.] The Life of King Henry the Fift.

The First part of King
Henry the Sixt.
The Second part of King
Hen. the Sixt.
The Third part of King
Henry the Sixt.
The Life & Death of
Richard the Third.*
[a & s.]

The Life of King Henry the Eight. [a & s.]

TRAGEDIES.

[Troylus and Cressida] from the second folio; omitted in the first. The Tragedy of Coriolanus. [a] Titus Andronicus.* [a.] Romeo and Juliet.* Timon of Athens. The Life and death of Julius Cæsar. [a.] The Tragedy of Macbeth. [a & s.] The Tragedy of Hamlet. King Lear. [a & s.]

would move (I thinke) Phalaris the tyraunt, and terrifie all tyranous minded men, fro following their foolish ambitious humors, seeing how his ambition made him kill his brother, his nephews, his wife, beside infinit others; and last of all after a short and troublesome raigne, to end his miserable life, and to have his body harried after his death."

Othello, the Moore of Ve- Cymbeline King of Brinice. [a & s.] taine. [a & s.] Antony and Cleopater.

Having premis'd thus much about the state and condition of these first copies, it may not be improper, nor will it be absolutely a digression, to add something concerning their authenticity: in doing which, it will be greatly for the reader's ease, and our own, to confine ourselves to the quarto's: which, it is hop'd, he will allow of; especially, as our intended vindication of them will also include in it (to the eye of a good observer) that of the plays that appear'd first in the folio: which therefore omitting, we now turn ourselves to the quarto's.

We have seen the slur that is endeavour'd to be thrown upon them indiscriminately by the player editors, and we see it too wip'd off by their having themselves follow'd the copies that they condemn. A modern editor, who is not without his followers, is pleas'd to assert confidently in his preface, that they are printed from " piece-meal parts, and copies of prompters :" but his arguments for it are some of them without foundation, and the others not conclusive; and it is to be doubted, that the opinion is only thrown out to countenance an abuse that has been carry'd to much too great lengths by himself and another editor,-that of putting out of the text passages that they did not like. These censures then, and this opinion being set aside, is it criminal to try another conjecture, and see what can be made of it? It is known, that Shakspeare liv'd to no great age, being taken off in his fifty-third year; and yet his works are

so numerous, that, when we take a survey of them, they seem the productions of a life of twice that length for to the thirty-six plays in this collection, we must add seven, (one of which is in two parts,) perhaps written over again;' seven others that were publish'd some of them in his life-time, and all with his name; and another seven, that are upon good grounds imputed to him; making in all, fifty-eight plays; besides the part that he may reasonably be thought to have had in other men's labours, being himself a player and a manager of theatres: what his prose productions were, we know not but it can hardly be suppos'd, that he, who had so considerable a share in the confidence of the Earls of Essex and Southampton, could be a mute spectator only of controversies in which they were so much interested; and his other poetical works, that are known, will fill a volume the size of these that we have here. When the number and bulk of these pieces, the shortness of his life, and the other busy employments of it are reflected upon duly, can it be awonder that he should be so loose a transcriber of them? or why should we refuse to give credit to what his companions tell us, of the state of those transcriptions, and of the facility with which they were pen'd? Let it then be granted, that these quarto's are the poet's own copies, however they were come by; hastily written at first, and issuing from presses most of them as corrupt and licentious as can any where be produc'd, and not overseen by himself, nor by any of his friends and there can be no stronger reason for subscribing to any opinion, than may be drawn in favour of this from the condition of

Vide, this Introduction, p. 327.

all the other plays that were first printed in the folio; for, in method of publication, they have the greatest likeness possible to those which preceded them, and carry all the same marks of haste and negligence; yet the genuineness of the latter is attested by those who publish'd them, and no proof brought to invalidate their testimony. If it be still ask'd, what then becomes of the accusation brought against the quarto's by the player editors, the answer is not so far off as may perhaps be expected: it may be true that they were "stoln;" but stoln from the author's copies, by transcribers who found means to get at them: " and " maim'd” they must needs be, in respect of their many alterations after the first performance: and who knows, if the difference that is between them, in some of the plays that are common to them both, has not been studiously heighten'd by the player editors,― who had the means in their power, being masters of all the alterations,-to give at once a greater currency to their own lame edition, and support the charge which they bring against the quarto's ? this, at least, is a probable opinion, and no bad way of accounting for those differences.3

2

But see a note at p. 330, which seems to infer that they were fairly come by: which is, in truth, the editor's opinion, at least of some of them; though, in way of argument, and for the sake of clearness, he has here admitted the charge in that full extent in which they bring it.

Some of these alterations are in the quarto's themselves; (another proof this, of their being authentick,) as in Richard II: where a large scene, that of the king's deposing, appears first in the copy of 1608, the third quarto impression, being wanting in the two former: and in one copy of 2 Henry IV. there is a scene too that is not in the other, though of the same year; it is the first of Act the third. And Hamlet has some still more considerable; for the copy of 1605 has these words:

It were easy to add abundance of other arguments in favour of these quarto's ;-Such as, their exact affinity to almost all the publications of this sort that came out about that time; of which it will hardly be asserted by any reasoning man, that they are all clandestine copies, and publish'd without their authors' consent: next, the high improbability of supposing that none of these plays were of the poet's own setting-out: whose case is render'd singular by such a supposition; it being certain, that every other author of the time, without exception, who wrote any thing largely, publish'd some of his plays himself, and Ben Jonson all of them: nay, the very errors and faults of these quarto's,―of some of them at least, and those such as are brought against them by other arguers,-are, with the editor, proofs of their genuineness; for from what hand, but that of the author himself, could come those seemingly-strange repetitions which are spoken of at p. 329? those imperfect exits, and entries of persons who have no concern in the play at all, neither in the scene where they are made to enter, nor in any other part of it? yet such there are in several of these quarto's; and such might well be expected in the hasty draughts of so negligent an author, who neither saw at once all he might want, nor, in some instances, gave himself sufficient time to consider the fitness

"Newly imprinted and enlarged to almost as much againe as it was, according to the true and perfect Coppie:" now though no prior copy has yet been produc'd, it is certain there was such by the testimony of this title-page: and that the play was in being at least nine years before, is prov'd by a book of Doctor Lodge's printed in 1596; which play was perhaps an imperfect one; and not unlike that we have now of Romeo and Juliet, printed the year after; a fourth instance too of what the note advances.

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