**This sign, [, occurring at the commencement of a sentence, indicates that a considerable time had elapsed between the writing of that which follows it and that which goes before. In discussing conjectural emendations the word of the original is placed in "double quotation marks,” a proposed emendation, in italic letters. Definitions, proverbs, and cant phrases, as well as quotations within quotations, appear in 'single quotation marks.' HISTORICAL SKETCH OF THE TEXT OF SHAKESPEARE. every touch that woo'd its stay Hath brush'd its brightest hues away. BYRON. The Giaour. A COMPREHENSIVE glance at the history of the text of Shakespeare will be a fitting introduction to the following pages; especially for those who are not familiar with that history or with Shakesperian literature, and who doubtless form the greater number of those whom I salute as 'gentle readers.' The few whose enthusiasm or steady devotion has enabled them to wade through the heaps of rubbish which have accumulated around the works of Shakespeare, during the last century and a half, will excuse a concession to the happy ignorance of their less learned, but perhaps not less devoted and appreciative fellow admirers. The Plays of Shakespeare, unlike his Poems, were, with a few exceptions, given to the world without his concurrence or even his consent. Eighteen of them, to wit:—Merry Wives of Windsor, Much Ado about Nothing, Midsummer Night's Dream, Love's Labours Lost, Merchant of Venice, Richard II., Henry IV. Part I. and Part II., Henry V., Henry VI. Part II. and Part III., Richard III., Troilus and Cressida, Titus Andronicus, Pericles, King Lear, Romeo and Juliet, and Hamlet, were printed in quarto form during his lifetime. The copies of most of these plays used by the printer were, almost without doubt, surreptitiously obtained, and they are of comparatively little authority in determining the text; their office being merely auxiliary. It is worthy of notice here, that such was the value of Shakespeare's name, such his indifference to his dramatic reputation outside the theatre, and such the impunity of the press in his time, that during his life six other plays were also published under his name, which there are no grounds for receiving as his, which were repudiated by his first editors,-his fellow players and business partners in the theatre,—and which have been rejected by all his subsequent editors, except Nicholas Rowe. In 1623, seven years after his death, the first collected edition of Shakespeare's Plays was published in folio, under the title, "Mr. William Shakespeare's Comedies, Histories and Tragedies. Published according to the True Originall Copies." This is known in Shakesperian literature as the first folio; and it is the only admitted authority for the text of his Dramatic Works. It contains all his plays except one nineteen which had been surreptitiously or carelessly printed before its publication (one,―Othello,— having been published in quarto after his death), and seventeen which appeared in it for the first time. The play not included, is Pericles, Prince of Tyre; and it is conjectured that the refusal of the holder of the copyright of that play to part with it, or to come into the enterprise of publishing the first folio, caused its omission. The Preface of the editors of this first folio,-who, it should be constantly remembered, were Shakespeare's friends, fellow actors, and joint theatrical proprietors,-shows beyond all cavil, it would seem, that the publication was made, as its title professes that it was," according to the true original copies," and that it has an unquestionable claim to implicit deference from the editors of subsequent editions, except in those instances in which illegible manuscript or careless proof-reading has palpably obscured or perverted the author's meaning. John Heminge and Henry Condell say with regard to their labor of love : "It had bene a thing, we confesse, worthy to have bene wished, that the Author himselfe had liv'd to haue set forth, and ouerseen his owne writings: But since it hath bin ordain'd otherwise, and he by death departed from that right, we pray you do not envie his friends the office of their care and paine, to have collected and publish'd them and so to haue publish'd them, as where (before) you were abus'd with diverse stolne and surreptitious copies, maimed and deformed by the fraudes and stealthes of injurious impostors, that expos'd them: even those are now offer'd to your view cur'd and perfect of their limbes; and all the rest, absolute in their numbers, as he conceived them. Who, as he was a happie imitator of Nature, was a most gentle expresser of it. His mind and hand went together; and what he thought, he uttered with that easinesse, that we have scarce received from him a blot in his papers.” Few readers of Shakespeare can have failed to peruse this Preface, which appears in nearly every edition of his works; but the above extract from it deserves to be ever present in the minds of all who come to the critical consideration of his text. Indeed, such is the authority of this first folio, that had it been printed with ordinary care, there would have been no appeal from its text; and editorial labors in the publication of Shakespeare's works, except from such as might think it necessary and proper to obtrude explanatory notes and critical comments upon his |