certainly a first draught, and in two parts; and fo much another play, that only one line of it is retain'd in the second: there is also a firft draught of the Second and Third Parts of Henry VI. publifhed in his life-time under the following title," The whole Contention betweene the two famous Houses, Lancaster and Yorke :" and to thefe plays, fix in number, may be added the first impreffion of Romeo and Juliet, being a play of the fame ftamp: The date of all these quarto's, and that of their feveral re-impreffions, may be seen in a table that follows the Introduction. Othello came out only one year before the folio; and is, in the main, the fame play that we have there: and this too is the cafe of the firft-mention'd thirteen; notwithstanding there are in many of them great variations, and particularly in Hamlet, King Lear, Richard III. and Romeo and Juliet.

As for the plays, which, we fay, are either the poet's firft draughts, or elfe 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 lacunæ, that are in all the other editions, have been judicioufly fill'd 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 prefum'd the true one; in other refpects, they have neither use nor merit, but are meerly curiofities.

Proceed we then to a description 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 extreamly imperfect in them, (fometimes more, fometimes fewer than the scene requires) and their Exits are very often omitted; or, when mark'd, not always in the right place; and few fcenical 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, instead 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 Crefsida,) 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 verfe as profe; or, where rightly printed verse, that verfe is not always right divided and in all thefe pieces, the fongs are in every particular ftill more corrupt than the other parts of them. These are the general and principal defects: to which if you add-tranfpofition 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 these 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 im

preffion of some of these which we are now speaking 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 last mention'd fourteen, the true and genuine copies of the other fix plays, and fixteen that were never publifh'd before: the editors make great profeffions of fidelity, and fome complaint of injury done to them and the author by ftolen and maim'd copies; giving withal an advantageous, if juft, idea of the copies which they have follow'd: but see the terms they make use of. "It had bene a thing, we confeffe, worthie to have bene wifhed, that the author himfelfe had liv'd to have set forth, and overfeen his owne writings; but fince it hath bin ordain'd otherwise, and he by death departed from that right, we pray you do not envie his friends, the office of their care, and paine, to have collected & publifh'd them; and fo to have publish'd them, as where (before) you were abus'd with diverfe ftolne, and furreptitious copies, maimed, and deformed by the frauds and ftealthes of injurious impoftors, that expos'd them: even those, are now offer'd to your view cur'd, and perfect

* There is yet extant in the books of the Stationers' Company, an entry bearing date-Feb. 12, 1624, to Meffrs. Jaggard and Blount, the proprietors of this firft folio, which is thus worded: "Mr. Wm. Shakespear's Comedy's Hiftory's & Tragedy's fo many of the faid Copy's as bee not enter'd to other men : and this entry is follow'd by the titles of all thofe fixteen plays that were firft printed in the folio: The other twenty plays (Othello, and King John, excepted; which the person who furnished this tranfcript, thinks he may have overlook'd,) are enter'd too in thefe books, under their respective years; but to whom the tranfcript fays not.

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 a moft gentle expreffer of it. His minde and hand went together and what he thought, he uttered with that eafineffe, that wee have scarfe received from him a blot in his papers." Who now does not feel himself inclin'd 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 supply'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 use of; and this is principally evident in " First and Second Henry IV. Love's Labour's Loft, Merchant of Venice, Midfummer-Night's Dream, Much Ado about Nothing, Richard II. Titus Andronicus, and Troilus and Crefsida;" for in the others we fee fomewhat a greater latitude, as was observ'd a little above: but in these 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 quarto's are all preferv'd 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 fhould give us but faint hopes of meeting with greater accuracy in the plays which they firft publifh'd; and, accordingly, we find them fubject to all the imperfections that have been noted in the former: nor is their edition in general diftinguifh'd by any mark of preference above the earliest quarto's, but that fome of their plays are divided into acts, and fome others into acts and scenes; and that with due precision,

and agreeable to the author's idea of the nature of fuch divifions. The order of printing these plays, the way in which they are class'd, and the titles given them, being matters of fome curiofity, the Table that is before the first folio is here reprinted: and to it are added marks, put between crotchets, fhewing the plays that are divided; a fignifying-acts, a & facts and scenes.

The plays, mark'd with afterisks, 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 Shakspeare's, under the title of Loves Labours Wonne; a title that feems well adapted to All's well that ends well, and under which it might be first acted. 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, written by Doctor Leg, author of another play, called The Destruction of Jerufalem. And there is in the Mufæum, a manufcript Latin play upon the fame subject, written by one Henry Lacy in 1586: which Latin play is but a weak performance; and yet feemeth to be the play spoken of by Sir John Harrington, (for the author was a Cambridge man, and of St. John's,) in this paffage of his Apologie of Poetrie, prefix'd to his translation of "Ariosto's Orlando, edit. 1591, fol:

and for tragedies, to omit other famous tragedies; that, that was played at S. Johns in Cambridge of Richard the 3.