fancy the two parts of "Henry the Fourth," and "Midsummer-Night's Dream," might have been so, because I find no other printed with any exactness; and (contrary to the rest) there is very little variation in all the subsequent editions of them. There are extant two prefaces to the first Quarto edition of "Troilus and Cressida," in 1609, and to that of "Othello "; by which it appears, that the first was published without his knowledge or consent, and even before it was acted, so late as seven 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 life time, amounts but to eleven. And of some of these we meet with two or more editions by different printers, each of which has whole heaps of trash different from the other: which I should fancy was occasioned by their being taken from different copies belonging to different play-houses.

The Folio edition (in which all the plays we now receive as his, were first collected) was published by two players, Heminge and Condell, in 1623, seven years after his decease. They declare, that all the other editions were stolen and surreptitious, and affirm theirs to be purged from the errors of the former. This is true as to the literal errors, and no other; for in all respect else it is far worse than the Quartos.

First, because the additions of trifling and bombast passages are in this edition far more numerous. For whatever had been added, since those Quartos, by the actors, or had stolen from their mouths into the written parts, were from thence conveyed into the printed text, and all stand charged upon the author. He himself complained of this usage in "Hamlet," where he wishes.

that those who play the clowns would speak no more than is set down for them. 5 But as a proof that he could not escape 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 scenes of mobs, plebeians, and clowns, are vastly shorter than at present: and I have seen one in particular (which seems to have belonged to the play-house, by having the parts divided with lines, and the actors' names in the margin) where several of those very passages were added in a written hand, which are since to be found in the Folio.

In the next place, a number of beautiful passages, which are extant in the first single editions, are omitted in this; as it seems, without any other reason, than their willingness to shorten some scenes: these men (as it was said of Procrustes) either lopping, or stretching an author, to make him just fit for their stage.

This edition is said to be printed from the original copies; I believe they meant those which had lain ever since the author's days in the play-house, and had from time to time, been cut, or added to, arbitrarily. It appears that this edition, as well as the Quartos, was printed (at least partly) from no better copies than the prompter's book, or piece-meal parts written out for the use of the actors: for in some places their very names are, through carelessness, set down instead of the persona dramatis; and in others the notes of direction to the property-men for their movables, and to the

Act. III. 4.

"Much Ado About Nothing." Act II. 3, Jacke Wilson for Balthazar. Act IV., Andrew Cowley and Kempe for Dogberry and Verges. "III. Henry VI.," Act III., "Enter Siliklo and Humphrey with cross bowes in their hands," etc.

players for their entries, are inserted into the text through the ignorance of the transcribers.

The plays not having been before so much as distinguished by Acts and Scenes, they are in this edition divided according as they played them; often when there is no pause in the action, or where they thought fit to make a breach in it, for the sake of musick, masques, or monsters.

Sometimes the scenes are transposed and shuffled backward and forward; a thing which could not otherwise happen, but by their being taken from separate and piece-meal written parts.

Many verses are omitted entirely, and others transposed: from whence invincible obscurities have arisen, past the guess of any commentator to clear up, but just where the accidental glimpse of an old edition enlightens 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 "Midsummer-Night's Dream," Act V., Shakespeare introduces a kind of master of the revels called Philostrate; all whose part is given to another character (that of Egeus) in the subsequent editions: so also 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 speeches also were put into the mouths of wrong persons, where the author now seems chargeable with making them speak out of character: or, sometimes, perhaps, for no better reason than that a governing player, to have the mouthing of some favourite speech himself, would snatch it from the unworthy lips of an underling.

Prose from verse they did not know, and they accordingly printed one for the other throughout the volume. Having been forced to say so much of the players, I think I ought in justice to remark, that the judgment, as well as condition, of that class of people, was then far inferior to what it is in our days. As then the best play-houses were inns and taverns (the Globe, the Hope, the Red-Bull, the Fortune, &c.), so the top of the profession 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 consequently were entirely deprived of those advantages they now enjoy in the familiar conversation of our nobility, and an intimacy (not to say dearness) with people of the first condition.

From what has been said, there can be no question but had Shakespeare published his works himself (especially in his latter time, and after his retreat from the stage), we should not only be certain which are genuine, but should find, in those that are, the errors lessened by some thousands. If I may judge from all the distinguishing marks of his style, 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 Cromwell," "The Puritan," and "London Prodigal,” and a thing called "The Double Falsehood," cannot be admitted as his. And I should conjecture of some of the others (particularly 'Love's Labour's Lost," "The

* "Taming of the Shrew.”—Induction, sc. 1.

All of these plays except "The Double Falsehood" are published in the Third Folio (1664) as Shakespeare's. "Pericles" is the only one included in modern editions.

Winter's Tale," "Comedy of Errors," and "Titus Andronicus") that only some characters, single scenes, or perhaps a few particular passages, were of his hand. It is very probable what occasioned some plays to be supposed 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 strays 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, Heminge and Condell, afterwards did Shakespeare the justice to reject these eight plays in their edition; though they were then printed in his name, in everybody's hands and acted with some applause (as we learn from what Ben Jonson 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 same author openly express 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 these latter sort, than for the former, which were equally published in his lifetime.

If we give in to this opinion, how many low and vicious parts and passages 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, transpositions of scenes and lines, confusion of characters and persons, wrong application of speeches, corruptions of innumerable passages by the ignorance and wrong corrections of them again by the impertinence of his