not au will and pleasure of the conjecturer, thorized by authentic copies printed or manuscript, and to be judged of by their reasonableness or probability." The verdict of Shakesperian scholars upon their "reasonableness or probability" has been unanimous, that an overwhelming majority are unreasonable and improbable; and the good sense and instinctive perception of the intelligent readers of Shakespeare is fast leading them to the same conclusion. Faith in the first folio, and a distrust of the MS. corrector, do not rest upon a petitio principii as the Reviewer would have it. We have the direct and explicit testimony of Shakespeare's friends, fellow actors and principal partners in the theatre, that the first folio was printed from the text of Shakespeare, and, errors excepted, does contain that text; it is undeniably manifest that the corrector did indulge in "mere guess-work ;" and therefore, as against the authorized edition, we must consider all his labors as merely conjectural, and only to be received when they consistently correct the palpable accidental errors of that edition. But were this not so, nine tenths of those peculiar to him would be rejected upon their own merits. They seem to be modelled upon the conjectural effort of the man who, not being able to understand the strong figure, "strain at a gnat and swallow a camel," amended his New Testament to read, "strain at a gate and swallow a saw-mill.” But after all, it is not improbable that Richard Perkins did make some of these corrections. It was admitted, for the argument's sake, that he did make them; but now having seen that his making them gives them no semblance of authority, it is safe to say that it is even more than probable that he had a hand in them. It seems that this Richard Perkins was not only an actor but "also in some measure a poet, as he wrote a copy of verses prefixed to Heywood's Apology for Actors." The murder's out! He was "something of a poet!" This accounts for his turning speech after speech of blank verse into rhyme; for his making Hamlet bring up with a rhyme, after first correcting the line which he thus altered; for his submitting other plays to similar treatment; and for the insertion of several entire lines, which, although two or three of them are not unlike what Shakespeare might have written in those particular passages, are not at all beyond the reach of any man who is "something of a poet" and has read the context. It seems as if Master Perkins had been about to bring out an edition of Shakespeare's works as he thought they should have been written and should be acted. He modernized the language, struck out whatever he thought uninteresting, added rhymes where he thought they were needed, added stage directions to conform to the custom of the day, which was to be very particular in that respect, attended minutely to the punctuation, corrected even the turned letters as Mr. Collier assures us (not at all necessary for a stage copy), changed the old prefix of Beggar in the Induction to the Taming of the Shrew, to Sly (equally unnecessary for the stage), underscored the old rhymes and quotations (also entirely needless in a stage copy), and thought that he would have a very fine edition; and, in truth, it would have been quite as good, and of the same kind, as Pope's and Warburton's. But the publishers of the next edition, in 1664, did not believe in 'Shakespeare according to Perkins,' and they reprinted the old folios, adding even all the plays that had borne Shakespeare's name in his lifetime. Now, Perkins may have acted in Shakespeare's plays while the dramatist was living; he was doubtless something of a poet," and may have had some actors' parts which were "copies of copies of a part of a mutilated copy;" but in spite of all this, when there is any question between what Heminge and Condell and our own souls tell us is Master Shakespeare's, and that which probability and our own souls tell us is Master Perkins's, shall we not decide in favor of Master SHAKESPEARE? For though the one was something of a poet, we believe that the other was a great deal more of a poet. And all the people say Amen! THE END. D. 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