As for the plays, which, we fay, are either the poet's first draughts, or else imperfect and ftolen copies, it will be thought, perhaps, they might as well have been left out of the account: but they are not wholly ufelefs: fome lacuna, that are in all the other editions, have been judiciously filled up in modern impreffions by the authority of these copies; and in fome particular paffages of them, where there happens to be a greater conformity than ufual between them and the more perfect editions, there is here and there a various reading that does honour to the poet's judgment, and fhould upon that account be prefumed the true one; in other respects, they have neither ufe nor merit, but are merely curiofities. Proceed we then to a defcription of the other fourteen. They all abound in faults, though not in equal degree; and thofe faults are fo numerous, and of fo many different natures, that nothing but a perufal of the pieces themselves can give an adequate conception of them; but amongst them are these that follow. Divifion of acts and scenes they have none; "Othello" only excepted, which is divided into acts: entries of perfons are extremely imperfect in them, (sometimes more, sometimes fewer than the scene requires) and their exits are very often omitted; or, when marked. not always in the right place; and few scenical directions are to be met with throughout the whole: fpeeches are frequently confounded, and given to wrong perfons, either whole, or in part; and fometimes, inftead of the perfon speaking, you have the actor who prefented him: and in two of the plays, ("Love's Labour's Loft, and Troilus and NOTE. Mr. Pope's account of it, who feems to have been the only editor whom it was ever feen by: great pains has been taken to trace who he had it of (for it was not in his collection) but without fuccefs. Creffida") the fame matter, and in nearly the fame words, is fet down twice in fome paffages; which,who fees not to be only a negligence of the poet, and that but one of them ought to have been printed? But the reigning fault of all is in the measure; profe is very often printed as verfe, and verse as profe; or, where rightly printed verfe, that verfe is not always right divided and in all these pieces, the fongs are in every particular till more corrupt than the other parts of them. These are the general and principal defects: to which if you add-transposition of words, fentences, lines, and even speeches; words omitted, and others added without reafon; and a punctuation fo deficient, and fo often wrong, that it hardly deferves regard; you have, upon the whole, a true but melancholy picture of the condition of thefe first-printed plays; which, bad as it is, is yet better than that of those which came after; or than that of the fubfequent folio impreffion of fome of these which we are now fpeaking of. This folio impreffion was fent into the world feven years after the author's death, by two of his fellow-players; and contains, befides the laft-mentioned fourteen, the true and genuine copies of the other fix plays, and fixteen that were never published before. (2) The editors make great profeffions of fidelity, and fome complaint of injury done to them and the author by ftolen and maimed copies; giving withal an advantageous, if juft, idea of the copies which they have followed: but fee the terms they make ufe of. "It had "bene a thing, we confeffe, worthie to have bene wished, NOTE. (2) There is yet extant, in the hooks of the ftationers company, an entry bearing date Febr. 12, 1624, to Meirs. Jaggard and Plount, the proprietors of this first folio, which is thus worded; " Mr. Wm. Shakespear's Comedy's Hiftory's & Tragedy's so many of the said Copy's as bee not enter'd to other men :" and this entry is follow'd by the titles a "that the author himfelfe had liv'd to have fet forthe, and "overseen his own writings; but fince it hath bin ordain'd "otherwife, and he by death departed from that right, we દર pray you do not envie his friends, the office of their care, "and paine, to have collected & publish'd them; and fo to have publish'd them, as where (before) you were "abus'd with diverfe ftolne, and furreptitious copies, maim❝ed, and deformed by the frauds and stealthes of injurious "impoftors, that expos'd them: even thofe, are now of"fer'd to your view cur'd, and perfect of their limbes; and "all the reft, abfolute in their numbers, as he conceived "them. Who, as he was a happie imitator of nature, was moft gentle exprefler of it. His minde and hand went <together: and what he thought, he uttered with that eafi"nefle, that wee have farfe received from him a blot in "his papers." Who now does not feel himself inclined to expect an accurate and good performance in the edition of thefe prefacers? But, alas, it is nothing lefs: for (if we except the fix fpurious ones, whofe places were then fupply'd by true and genuine copies) the editions of plays preceding the folio, are the very bafis of those we have there; which are either printed from thofe editions, or from the copies which they made ufe of: and this is principally evident in" First and Second Henry IV, Love's Labour's Loft, Merchant of Venice, Midsummer Night's Dream. Much Ado about Nothing, Richard II, Titus Andronicus, and Troilus and Creffida;" for in the others we fee fomewhat a greater latitude, as was obferved a little above: but in theft all thofe fixteen plays that were firft printed in the folio: the other twenty plays ( Othello and King John," excepted, which the perfon who furni'd this tranfcript, thinks he might have overlook'd) are enter'd too in these books, under their refpefive years, but to whom the tranfcript fays not.. plays, there is an almost strict conformity between the two impreffions: fome additions are in the fecond, and fome omiffions: but the faults and errors of the quartos are all preferved in the folio, and others added to them; and what difference there is, is generally for the worfe on the fide of the folio editors: which should give us but faint hopes of meeting with greater accuracy in the plays which they first published; and, accordingly, we find them fubject to all the imperfections that have been noted in the former: nor is their edition in general distinguished by any mark of preference above all the earliest quartos, but that some of their plays are divided into acts, and fome others into acts and fcenes; and that with due precifion, and agreeable to the author's idea of the nature of such divifions. The order of printing these plays, the way in which they are classed, and the titles given them, being matters of fome curiosity, the table that is before the first folio is here reprinted and to it are added marks, fhewing the plays that are divided; a fignifying-acts; a & facts and scenes. TABLE of Plays in the folios. (3) COMEDIES. The Tempeft. a & f. Loves Labour loft. The two Gentlemen of Vero- The Merchant of Venice. a. * na. a & f. As you Like it. a & f. The Merry Wives of Wind-The Taming of the Shrew. for. a a & f. Measure for Measure. a &f. a. All is well, that Ends well. a. Twelfe-Night, or what you will. a & f Much adoo about Nothing. a. The Winters Tale. a & f. NOTE. (3) The plays, mark'd with asterisks, are spoken of by name, in a book, call'd- Wit's Treasury, being the second Part of Wit's Commonwealth," written by Francis MERES; at p. 282: who, in the fame paragraph, mentions another play as being SHAKESPEARE'S, under the title of Loves labours wonne;" a title that feems well adapted HISTORIES. TRAGEDIES. The Life and Death of King|[Troylus and Creffida] from John. * a & f. The Life and Death of Richard The Second part of King Hen. The Third part of King Henry The Life & Death of Richard the fecond folio; omitted in The Tragedy of Coriolanus. a. The Tragedy of Macbeth. The Tragedy of Hamlet. Having premised thus much about the ftate and condition of these first copies, it may not be improper, nor will it be absolutely a digreffion, to add something concerning their authenticity in doing which, it will be greatly for the reader's eafe, and our own, to confine ourselves to the quartos: which, it is hoped, he will allow of; especially, as our intended vindication of them will also include in it (to the eye of a good obferver) that of the plays that appeared first in the folio: which therefore omitting, we now turn ourfelves to the quartos. NOTE. to “ All's well, that ends well," and under which it might be firft afted. In the paragraph immediately preceding, he speaks of his "Venus and Adonis," his "Lucrece," and his "Sonnets." This book was printed in 1598, by P. Short, for Cuthbert Burbie; octavo, fmall. The fame author, at p. 283, mentions too a "Richard the third," |