For whatever had been added, fince thofe quarto's 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 ufage in Hamlet, where he wishes that thofe who play the Clowns would speak no more than is fet down for them. (Act. iii. Sc. iv.) 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 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 paffages were added in a written hand, which are fince to be found in the folio.

In the next place, a number of beautiful pa fages which are extant in the first single editions, are omitted in this: as it seems without any other reason, than their willingness to shorten fome scenes: These men (as it was faid of Procruftes) either lopping, or stretching an Author, to make him just fit for their stage.

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 from time to time been cut, or added to,

arbitrarily. It appears that this edition, as well as the quarto's, was printed (at least partly) from no better copies than the prompter's book, or piecemeal parts written out for the use of the actors: For in fome places their very names are through carelessnefs fet down inftead of the perfonæ dramatis: And in others the notes of direction to the

a

property-men for their moveables, and to the players for their entries, are inferted into the text, thro' 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 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 transposed and shuffled backward and forward; a thing which could no otherwife happen, but by their being taken from feparate and piece-meal written parts.

Many verses are omitted entirely, and others tranfpofed; from whence invincible obscurities have arifen, paft the guefs of any commentator to clear up, but juft where the accidental glimpse of an old edition enlightens us.

Some characters were confounded and mix'd,

Much ado about nothing, Act ii. Enter Prince Leonato, Claudio, and Jack Wilfon, instead of Balthafar. And in Act iv. Cowley, and Kemp, conftantly thro' a whole scene.

Edit. Fol. of 1623, and 1632.

or two put into one, for want of a competent number of actors. Thus in the quarto edition of Midfummer Night's Dream, A&t v. Shakespear introduces a kind of Mafter of the revels called Philoftrate; all whofe part is given to another character (that of Egeus) in the fubfequent 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 fpeeches alfo were put into the mouths of wrong persons, where the Author now feems chargeable with making them fpeak out of character: Or fometimes perhaps for no better reafon, than that a governing player, to have the mouthing of fome favourite fpeech himself, would snatch 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 playhouses were inns and taverns (the Globe, the Hope, the Red Bull, the Fortune, etc.) fo the top of the profeffion were then meer players, not gentlemen of the stage: They were led into the buttery by the fteward, 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 faid, there can be no queftion but had Shakespear 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 leffened by fome thousands. If I may judge from all the diftinguishing 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, 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, fingle fcenes, or perhaps a few particular paffages, were of his hand. It is very probable what occafioned fome plays to be supposed Shakespear'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 ftrays to the Lord of the manor: a mistake which (one may alfo obferve) it was not for the interest of the house to remove. Yet the players themselves, Heminges and Condell, af

terwards did Shakespear the juftice to reject those eight plays in their edition; tho' they were then printed in his name, in every body's hands, and acted with some applause; (as we learn from what Ben Johnson fays 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 fame Author openly exprefs his contempt of it in the Induction to Bartholomew-Fair, in the year 1614, when Shakespear 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, cor fufion of characters and perfons, wrong application of speeches, corruptions of innumerable paffages by the ignorance, and wrong corrections of them again by the impertinence of his first editors? From one or other of thefe confiderations, I am verily perfuaded, that the greatest and the grossest 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.