with a kind of religious addresse; it hath bin the height of our care, who are the Presenters, to make the present worthy of yovr H. H. by the perfection. But, there we must also craue our abilities to be considered, my Lords. We cannot go beyond our owne powers. Country hands reach foorth milke, creame, fruites, or what they haue: and many Nations, (we haue heard,) that had not gummes and incense, obtained their requests with a leauened Cake. It was no fault to approch their Gods, by what meanes they could: And the most, though meanest, of things are made more precious, when they are dedicated to Temples. In that name therefore, we most humbly consecrate to your H. H. these remaines of your seruant SHAKESPEARE; that what delight is in them, may be euer your L. L. the reputation his, & the faults ours, if any be committed, by a payre so carefull to shew their gratitude both to the liuing, and the dead, as is Your Lordshippes most bounden, IOHN HEMINGE. TO THE GREAT VARIETY OF READERS,' From the most able, to him that can but spell: There you are number'd. We had rather you were weighd. Especially, when the fate of all Bookes depends vpon your capacities: and not of your heads alone, but of your purses. Well! It is now publique, and you wil stand for your priviledges wee know: to read, and censure. Do so, but buy it first. That doth best commend a Booke, the Stationer saies. Then, how odde soeuer your braines be, or your wisedomes, make your licence the same, and spare not. Iudge your sixepen'orth, your shillings worth, your fiue shillings worth at a time, or higher, so as you rise to the iust rates, and welcome. But, whatever you do, Buy. Censure will not driue a Trade, or make the Iacke go. And though you be a Magistrate of wit, and sit on the Stage at Black-Friers, or the Cock-pit, to arraigne Playes dailie, know, these Playes haue had their triall alreadie, and stood out all Appeales; and do now come forth quitted rather by a Decree of Court, then any purchas'd Letters of commendation. It had bene a thing, we confesse, worthie to haue bene wished, that the Author himselfe had liu'd to haue 1 We give the Address to the "variety of Readers," and the Dedication, which follows it, precisely as they stand in the origi nal, to the observation of the most minute point. The Dedication was omitted in the folio of 1664, but inserted again in the folio of 1685. This address also precedes the folio of 1623. Malone and others have conjectured that it was written by Ben Jonson, and it is certainly much in his style. 92 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 doe 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 divers stolne, and surreptitious copies, maimed, and deformed by the frauds and stealthes of iniurious 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 conceiued the: 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 vttered with that easinesse, that wee haue scarse receiued from him a blot in his papers. But it is not our prouince, who onely gather his works, and give them you, to praise him. It is yours that reade him. And there we hope, to your diuers capacities, you will finde enough, both to draw, and hold you: for his wit can no more lie hid, then it could be lost. Reade him, therefore; and againe, and againe: And if then you doe not like him, surely you are in some manifest danger, not to vnderstand him. And so we leaue you to other of his Friends, whom if you need, can bee your guides: if you neede them not, you can leade your selues, and others. wish him. And such Readers we COMMENDATORY VERSES, PREFIXED TO THE FOLIO OF 1623. To the Memory of the deceased Author, Master William Shakespeare. Shake-speare, at length thy pious fellows give Shall loath what's new, think all is prodigy Or till I hear a scene more nobly take, Than when thy half-sword parleying Romans spake:' Shall with more fire, more feeling, be express'd, L. DIGGES. 1 Leonard Digges prefixed a long copy of verses to the edition of Shakespeare's Poems in 1640, octavo, in which he makes this passage, referring to JULIUS CAESAR, more distinct; he also there speaks of the audiences Shakespeare's plays at that time drew, in comparison with Ben Jonson's. This is the only part of his production worth adding in a note. "So have I seen, when Cæsar would appear, Were ravish'd! with what wonder they went thence! Sejanus too, was irksome: they priz'd more · Honest' lago, or the jealous Moor. And though the Fox and subtil Alchymist, Long intermitted, could not quite be mist, Though these have sham'd all th' ancients, and might raise And Benedick be seen, lo! in a trice The cock-pit, galleries, boxes, all are full, To hear Malvolio, that cross-garter'd gull. Brief, there is nothing in his wit-fraught book, Whose sound we would not hear, on whose worth look." etc. To the Memory of M. W. Shake-speare. We wonder'd, Shake-speare, that thou went'st so soon From the world's to the grave's tiring-room: We thought thee dead; but this thy printed worth Tells thy spectators, that thou went'st but forth To enter with applause. An actor's art Can die, and live to act a second part: That's but an exit of mortality, This a re-entrance to a plaudite. I. M.' To the Memory of my beloved, the Author, Mr. William To draw no envy, Shakespeare, on thy name. 1 Perhaps the initials of John Marston. 2 Referring to lines by William Basse, then circulating in MS., and not printed (as far as is now known) until 1633, when they were falsely imputed to Dr. Donne in the edition of his poems in that year. All the MSS. of the lines, now extant, differ in minute particulars. And though thou hadst small Latin, and less Greek, Pacuvius, Accius, him of Cordova dead, To life again, to hear thy buskin tread And shake a stage: or, when thy socks were on, Of all that insolent Greece, or haughty Rome, And such wert thou. Look, how the father's face Of Shakespeare's mind, and manners, brightly shines In his well-torned and true-filed lines; In each of which he seems to shake a lance, As brandish'd at the eyes of ignorance. To see thee in our waters yet appear; And make those flights upon the banks of Thames, Shine forth, thou star of poets; and with rage, Or influence, chide, or cheer, the drooping stage: Which, since thy flight from hence, hath mourn'd like night, And despair's day, but for thy volume's light! BEN IONSON. Upon the Lines, and Life, of the famous Scenic Poet, Master William Shakespeare. Those hands which you so clapp'd, go now and wring, You Britons brave; for done are Shakespeare's days: His days are done that made the dainty plays, Which made the Globe of heaven and earth to ring. Dried is that vein, dried is the Thespian spring, Turn'd all to tears, and Phoebus clouds his rays; That corpse, that coffin, now bestick those bays, Which crown'd him poet first, then poet's king. If tragedies might any prologue have, All those he made would scarce make one to this; Where fame, now that he gone is to the grave, (Death's public tiring-house,) the Nuntius is: For, though his line of life went soon about, The life yet of his lines shall never out. HUGH HOLLAND. COMMENDATORY VERSES, PREFIXED TO THE FOLIO OF 1632.1 Upon the Effigies of my worthy Friend, the Author, This truer image, and a livelier he, An Epitaph on the admirable Dramatic Poet, W. Shakespeare. What needs my Shakespeare for his honour'd bones, The labour of an age in piled stones; 1 In addition to those in the folio of 1623, also reprinted in 1632. The folios of 1664 and 1685 contain no others. 2 These lines, like the preceding, have no name appended to them in the folio, 1632, but the authorship is ascertained by the publication of them as Milton's, in the edition of his Poems in 1645, octavo. We give them as they stand there, because it is evident that Or that his hallow'd reliques should be hid Dear son of memory, great heir of fame, What need'st thou such weak witness of thy name? For whilst, to the shame of slow-endeavouring art, they were then printed from a copy corrected by the author: the variations are interesting, and Malone pointed out only one, and that certainly the least important. Instead of "weak witness" in line 6, the folio, 1632 has "dull witness:" instead of "live-long monument," in line 8, the folio has "lasting monument:" instead of "heart," in line 10, the folio has "part," an evident misprint: and instead of "itself bereaving," in line 13, the folio has "herself bereaving." On worthy Master Shakespeare, and his Poems.1 Roll back the heavens, blow ope the iron gates Of death and Lethe, where confused lie In that deep dusky dungeon to discern A royal ghost from churls; by art to learn 1 These lines are subscribed I. M. S. in the folio 1632, "probably Jasper Mayne," says Malone. Most probably not, because Mayne has left nothing behind him to lead us to suppose that he could have produced this surpassing tribute. I. M. S. may possibly be Iohn Milton, Student, and no name may have been appended to the other copy of verses by him prefixed to the folio of 1632, in order that his initials should stand at the end of the present. We know of no other poet of the time capable of writing the ensuing lines. We feel morally certain that they are by Milton. To strike up and stroke down, both joy and ire; This, and much more, which cannot be express'd The buskin'd muse, the comick queen, the grand And she whose praise the heavenly body chants; But fine materials, which the muses know, Now, when they could no longer him enjoy, crown'd, Which never fades; fed with ambrosian meat, In a well-lin'd vesture, rich, and neat. So with this robe they clothe him, bid him wear it; For time shall never stain, nor envy tear it. The friendly admirer of his endowments, I. M. S. SHAKESPEARE'S NAME AND AUTOGRAPHS. THE right orthography of the great Poet's name has been, for the last sixty years, as disputed and doubtful a question as any other of the many points which have perplexed and divided his editors and critics. Shake-speare, Shakespeare, Shakspeare, Schackspeere, Shaxspeare, Shakspear, Shakespear, Shakspere, Shaxpere, are among the variations, of more or less authority; besides one or two others, like Shaxbred, which are evidently blunders of a careless or ignorant scribe. More recent and minutely accurate researches seem to me to have proved, from the evidence of deeds, parish-registers, town-records, etc., (see the various extracts in Collier's "Life,") that the family name was Shakspere, with some varieties of spelling, such as might occur among illiterate persons in an uneducated age. The evidence that the Poet himself considered this as his family name, (which before seemed most probable,) has been, within a few years, confirmed by the discovery of his undoubted autograph, in a copy of the first edition of Florio's translation of Montaigne, in folio—a book, of his familiarity || with which there are many traces in his later works, and which he has used in the way of direct imitation, and almost of transcription, in the TEMPEST-act ii. scene 1. (See the notes in this edition.) I, therefore, fully agree with Sir Frederick Madden, in his tract on this point, and with Mr. Knight, in his Biography and Pictorial edition of Shakespeare, that the Poet's legal and habitual signature was William Shakspere. Yet I, nevertheless, concur with Dr. Nares, (Glossary,) Mr. Collier, Mr. Dyce, and others, in retaining the old orthography of "SHAKESPEARE," by which the Poet was alone known as an author, in his own day and long after. The following reasons seem to me conclusive: Whether from the inconvenience of the Stratford mode of spelling the name not corresponding, in London, with its fixed pronunciation, or for some other reason, the Poet, at an early period of his literary and dramatic career, adopted, for all public purposes, the orthography of Shakespeare. His name appears thus spelled in the first edition of his VENUS AND ADONIS, (1593,) where the dedication of the first heir of his invention" to the Earl of Southampton, is subscribed at full length, William Shakespeare." This very popular poem passed through at least six editions, during the author's lifetime, between 1593 and 1606, and several more within a few years after his death, in all of which the same spelling is preserved. This was followed, in 1594, by his poem of LUCRECE, where the same orthography is preserved, in the signature to the dedication to the same noble friend and patron. All the preceding editions, of which there were at least four during the 66 author's life, retain the same orthography. Again, in his Sonnets, first printed in 1609, we have nearly the same orthography, it differing only in printing the name Shake-speare. All the editions of Shakespeare's several poems differ from those of his plays published during his life in that typographical accuracy which denotes an author's own care, while the contemporary old quarto editions of his plays, published separately, commonly swarm with gross errors either of the printer or the copyist. Again, all those editions of his genuine plays, thus published during his life, as well as others falsely ascribed to him, concur in the same mode of spelling the name-it being given invariably either Shake-speare, or Shakespeare. His name appears thus in at least sixty title-pages, of single plays, published by different printers, during his own life. Finally, in the folio collection of 1623, made by his friends Heminge and Condell, we find the same orthography, not only in the title and dedication, and list of performers, but in the verses prefixed by the Poet's personal friends, Ben Jonson, Holland, Digges― the only variance being that the editors and Ben Jonson write "Shakespeare," and Digges has the name "Shake-speare." All the succeeding folios retain the same mode, and two at least of those were published while many of the Poet's contemporaries still lived. Moreover, all the Poet's literary contemporaries, who have left his name in print, give it in the same way, as Ben Jonson, several times; Drayton, Meares, (in his often quoted list of Shakespeare's works written before 1598;) Allot, (in his collection called the "English Parnassus ;")-with several others. So again, in the next generation, we find the same mode universally retained,—as, for example, by Milton, by Davenant, who was certainly the Poet's godson, and who seems to have been willing to pass for his illegitimate son; and by the pains-taking Fuller. The last writer, in his notice of Shakespeare, in his "Worthies of England," refers to "the warlike sound of his surname, (whence some may conjecture him of a mili tary extraction,) Hasti-vibrans, or Shake-speare." The heraldic grant of armorial bearing confirmed to the Poet, in his ancestors' right, bearing the crest of a Falcon, supporting (or brandishing) a spear, etc., seems to be founded on the very same signification and pronunciation of the name. Thus Shakespeare remained the only name of their great dramatist known to the English public, from 1593, for almost two centuries after, until, in the last half of the last century, the authority of Malone and his fellow-commentators substituted, in popular use, Shakspeare-a version of the |