HARVARD COLLEGE LIBRARY FROM THE BEQUEST OF 1918 13486.136.20 (Hannet filius William Shakspese THE following Tables are the result of a Collation of the Four Folios, principally undertaken in connexion with Shakspere's EmphasisCapitals, but in whose course there was accumulated much various information as to the Text, which, as this Edition progresses, will gradually be brought forward in its appropriate place. In such an extensive survey, which aimed at the examination of every word,— indeed, of every letter,—in Shakspere's Works, perfect accuracy cannot be expected, but these Tables may be accepted as approximately correct, and as forming reliable materials on which to found and build thought. It will be observed in them, that of the 42,386 Emphasis-Capitals in the First Folio, about 7,469 were lost in the Course of its three Successors; the Second and Third Folios being about equal defaulters in this respect, and the Fourth losing only about one half of what each of these lost. And this may be the proper place for recording a fact which we have ascertained in our long journey through the Folios, viz., that when one of the original Emphasis-Capitals has been dropped by one of the After Folios, it is almost never taken up by any of its successors: it is abandoned in the march. We think, indeed, that all we have noticed, relinquished by one, and replaced by another of the old Editions, would not amount to twenty. This is a strange circumstance, and only to be accounted for by supposing, that, in its blind eagerness to recover such of Shakspere's Capitals as had been omitted by the Printers in 1623, each had entirely overlooked their own fallibility and the possibility of there being any since lost, of those which were actually in the Original Edition. It will be seen, on the other hand, that to the number of the Capitals of this character found in the First, its three successors, among them, added as many as 17,527, the Fourth Folio contributing nearly 15,000 of these, and the whole number being thus brought up to about 60,000. A.-EMPHASIS-CAPITALS LOST DURING COURSE OF THE THREE AFTER FOLIOS-1632, 1664 AND 1685. The Life and Death of King John, The Tragedy of Troilus and Cressida, 2333 722 12 43 116 2241 512 29 42 126 2661 750 47 27 105 2855 589 10 Total Number of Emphasis-Capitals in First Folio, 42,386. |