and Creffida in 1609, and to that of Othello; by which it appears, that the first was published without his know ledge or confent, and even before it was acted, fo late as feven or eight years before he died; and that the latter was not printed till after his death. The whole number of genuine plays which we have been able to find printed in his lifetime, amounts but to eleven. And of fome of thefe, we meet with two or more editions by different printers, each of which has whole heaps of trash different from the other: which I fhould fancy was occafioned by their being taken from different copies, belonging to dif ferent playhouses.

The folio edition (in which all the plays we now receive as his, were firft collected) was published by two players, Heminges and Condell, in 1623, feven years after his decease. They declare, that all the other editions were ftolen and furreptitious, and affirm theirs to be purged from the errors of the former. This is true as to the li teral errors, and no other; for in all respects else it is far worse than the quarto's.

First, because the additions of trifling and bombaft paffages are in this edition far more numerous. For whatever had been added, fince those quarto's, by the actors, or had ftolen from their mouths into the written parts, were from thence conveyed into the printed text, and all fland charged upon the author. He himself complained of this ufage in Hamlet, where he wishes, that those who play the clowns, would speak no more than is fet down for them. (Act 3. Sc. 4.) But as a proof that he could not efcape it, in the old editions of Romeo and Juliet, there is no hint of a great number of the mean conceits and ribaldries now to be found there. In others, the low fcenes of mobs, plebeians, and clowns, are vaftly shorter than at prefent: and I have feen one in particular, (which feems to have belonged to the playhouse, by having the parts divided with lines, and the actors names in the margin,) where feveral of thofe very paffages were added in a written hand, which are fince to be found in the folio.

In the next place, a number of beautiful paffages which are extant in the first fingle editions, are omitted in this; as it feems, without any other reason, than their willing

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nefs to shorten fome scenes: thefe men (as it was faid of Procruftes) either lopping, or ftretching an author, to make him juft fit for their stage.

This edition is faid to be printed from the original copies; I believe they meant those which had lain ever fince the author's days in the playhouse, and had from time to time been cut, or added to, arbitrarily. It appears, that this edition, as well as the quarto's, was printed (at leaft partly) from no better copies than the prompter's book, or piece-meal parts written out for the use of the actors: for in fome places their very names * are thro' carelessness set down instead of the perfona dramatis ; and in others the notes of direction to the property-men for their moveables, and to the players for their entries, are inferted into the text, thro' the ignorance of the trantic fcribers.

The plays not having been before so much as diftinguished by ads and fcenes, they are in this edition divided according as they played them; often where there is no pause in the action, or where they thought fit to make a breach in it, for the fake of mufic, masks, or monfters.

Sometimes the scenes are tranfpofed, and shuffled backward and forward; a thing which could no otherwise happen but by their being taken from separate and piecemealwritten parts.

Many verfes are omitted entirely, and others tranfpojfed; from whence invincible obfcurities have arisen, paft the guess of any commentator to clear up, but just where the accidental glimpse of an old edition enlightens

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us.

Some characters were confounded and mixed, or two put into one, for want of a competent number of actors. Thus, in the quarto edition of Midfummer-Night's Dream, Act 5. Shakespeare introduces a kind of master of the reinvels, called Philoftrate; all whofe part is given to another character (that of Egeus) in the subsequent editions. So

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• Much Ado About Nothing, A& 2. Enter Prince Leonato, Claudio, and Jack Wilfon, instead of Balthafar. And in Act 4. Cowley and Kemp conftantly through a whole scene.

Edit. fol. of 1623 and 1632.

alfo in Hamlet and King Lear. This too makes it probable, that the prompter's books were what they called the original copies.

. From liberties of this kind, many fpeeches alfo were put into the mouths of wrong perfons, where the author now feems chargeable with making them fpeak out of character; or fometimes perhaps for no better reason, than that a governing player, to have the mouthing of fome favourite fpeech himself, would fnatch it from the unworthy lips of an underling.

Profe from verfe they did not know, and they ac-, cordingly printed one for the other throughout the vo lume.

Having been forced to fay fo much of the players, I think I ought in justice to remark, that the judgment, as well as condition of that clafs of people, was then far inferior to what it is in our days. As then the best playhoufes were inns and taverns, (the Globe, the Hope, the Red Bull, the Fortune, &c.) fo the top of the profeffion were then mere players, not gentlemen of the stage. They were led into the buttery by the steward, not placed at the Lord's table, or Lady's toilette; and confequently were entirely deprived of those advantages they now enjoy, in the familiar converfation of our nobility, and an intimacy (not to say dearness) with people of the firft condition.

From what has been faid, there can be no question, but had Shakespeare published his works himself, (efpecially in his latter time, and after his retreat from the ftage,) we fhould not only be certain which are genume; but fhould find in thofe that are, the errors leffened by fome thoufands. If I may judge from all the! diftinguishing marks of his ftyle, and his manner of thinking and writing, I make no doubt to declare, that those wretched plays, Pericles, Locrine, Sir John Oldcastle, Yorkshire Tragedy, Lord Cromwel, The Puritan, and London Prodigal, cannot be admitted as his. And I fhould conjecture of fome of the others, (particularly Love's Labour's Loft, The Winter's Tale, and Titus Andronicus,) that only fome characters, fingle fcenes, or perhaps a few particular paffages, were of his hand. It is very probable, what occafioned fome plays to be fuppofed Shakespeare's

Shakespeare's, was only this, that they were pieces produced by unknown authors, or fitted up for the theatre while it was under his administration; and no owner claiming them, they were adjudged to him, as they give ftrays to the lord of the manor: a mistake which (one may also observe) it was not for the interest of the house to remove. Yet the players themselves, Heminges and Condell, afterwards did Shakespeare the juftice to reject thofe eight plays in their edition; though they were then printed in his name, in every body's hands, and acted with fome applaufe; as we learn from what Ben Johnson says of Pericles in his ode on the New Inn. That Titus Andronicus is one of this class, I am the rather induced to believe, by finding the fame author openly exprefs his contempt of it in the Induction to Bartholomew fair, in the year 1614, when Shakespeare was yet living. And there is no better authority for thefe latter fort, than for the former, which were equally published in his lifetime.

If we give into this opinion, how many low and vicious parts and paffages might no longer reflect upon this great genius, but appear unworthily charged upon him? And even in those which are really his, how many faults may have been unjustly laid to his account from arbitrary additions, expunctions, tranfpofitions of scenes and lines, confufion of characters and perfons, wrong applications of speeches, corruptions of innumerable paffages by the ignorance, and wrong corrections of them again by the impertinence of his firft editors? From one or other of thefe confiderations, I am verily perfuaded, that the greatest and the groffeft part of what are thought his errors would vanish, and leave his character in a light very different from that disadvantageous one in which it now appears to us.

I will conclude by faying of Shakespeare, that with all his faults, and with all the irregularity of his drama, one may look upon his works, in comparifon of thofe that are more finished and regular, as upon an ancient majeftic piece of Gothic architecture, compared with a neat modern building. The latter is more elegant and glaring, but the former is more ftrong and more folemn. It must be allowed, that in one of thefe there are mateVOL. I. rials

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rials enough to make many of the other. It has much the greater variety, and much the nobler apartments; though we are often conducted to them by dark, odd, and uncouth paffages. Nor does the whole fail to strike us with greater reverence, though many of the parts are childish, ill-placed, and unequal to its grandeur.

N. B. One paragraph of this preface is omitted, as rela ting to matters peculiar to Mr. Pope's edition.