I shall now lay before the reader fome of those almost innumerable errors, which have rifen from one fource, the ignorance of the players, both as his actors, and as his editors. When the nature and kinds of these are enumerated and confidered, I dare to fay that not Shakespeare only, but Ariftotle or Cicero, had their works undergone the fame fate, might have appeared to want fenfe as well as learning.

It is not certain that any one of his plays was published by himself. During the time of his employment in the theatre, feveral of his pieces were printed feparately in quarto. What makes me think that most of these were not published by him, is the exceffive careleffness of the prefs: every page is fo fcandalously false spelled, and almost all the learned or unusual words fo intolerably mangled, that it is plain there either was no corrector to the prefs at all, or one totally illiterate. If any were supervised by himself, I fhould fancy The Two Parts of Henry the Fourth, and Midfummer-Night's Dream might have been so: because I find no other printed with any exactness; and (contrary to the reft) there is very little variation in all the fubfequent editions of them. There are extant two prefaces to the firft quarto edition of Troilus and Creffida in 1609, and to that of Othello; by which it appears, that the firft was published without his knowledge or confent, or 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 life-time, 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 trafh different from the other: which I should fancy was occafioned by their being taken from different copies belonging to different play-houses.

The

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, seven 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 literal errors, and no other; for in all refpects elfe it is far worse than the quartos.

First, because the additions of trifling and bombaft paffages are in this edition far more numerous. For whatever had been added, fince thofe quartos, by the actors, or had ftolen 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 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 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 fcenes of mobs, plebeians, and clowns, are vaftly shorter than at prefent and I have seen one in particular (which feems to have belonged to the play-house, by having the parts divided with lines, and the actors names in the margin) where feveral of those 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 single editions, are omitted in this as it feems without any other reason, than their willingness to shorten fome fcenes: these men (as it was faid of Procruftes) either lopping, or stretching an author, to make him juft fit for their ftage.

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 play-house, and had

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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 fome places their very names are through careleffnefs fet 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 through the ignorance of the transcribers.

I

The plays not having been before fo much as diftinguished by Ats and Scenes, 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 mufick, mafques, or monsters.

Sometimes the scenes are tranfpofed and fhuffled backward and forward; a thing which could no otherwife happen, but by their being taken from separate and piece-meal written parts.

Many verses are omitted entirely, and others tranfposed; from whence invincible obfcurities have arisen, paft the guess of any commentator to clear up, but juft 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 MidfummerNight's Dream, A&t v. Shakespeare introduces a kind of mafter of the revels called Philoftrate; all whose part is given to another character (that of Egeus) in the fubfequent editions: fo alfo in Hamlet and King Lear. This too makes it probable that the prompter's books were what they called the original copies.

1 Much Ado about Nothing, Act il. Enter Prince Leonato, Claudio, and Jack Wilson, instead of Balthafar. And in Activ. Corley and Kemp conftantly through a whole fcene. Edit. fol. of 1623, and 1632. [G]

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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 verse they did not know, and they accordingly printed one for the other throughout the volume.

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 play-houses 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 ftage: 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 thofe advantages they now enjoy in the familiar converfation of our nobility, and an intimacy (not to fay dearnefs) with people of the first condition.

From what has been faid, there can be no queftion but had Shakespeare publifhed his works himself (efpecially in his latter time, and after his retreat from the ftage) we should not only be certain which are genuine, but fhould find in those that are, the errors leffened by fome thousands. If I may judge from all the diftinguishing marks of his ftile, and his manner of thinking and writing, I make no doubt to declare that those wretched plays Pericles, Locrine, Sir John Oldcaftle, Yorkshire Tragedy, Lord Cromwell, 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, single scenes,

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or perhaps a few particular paffages, were of his hand. It is very probable what occafioned fome plays to be fuppofed Shakespeare's was only this; that they were pieces produced by unknown authors, or fitted up for the theatre while it was under his adminiftration; 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 alfo obferve) it was not for the intereft 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 Jonfon fays of Pericles in his ode on the New Inn). That Titus Andronicus is one of this clafs I am the rather induced to believe, by finding the fame author openly express his contempt of it in the induction to Bartho lomew-Fair, in the year 1614, when Shakespeare was yet living. And there is no better authority for these latter fort, than for the former, which were equally published in his life-time.

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 application of fpeeches, 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 these 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.

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