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OF

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

EDITED BY

WILLIAM ALDIS WRIGHT

IN NINE VOLUMES

VOLUME VII.

London

MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED

NEW YORK THE MACMILLAN COMPANY

1904

The First Edition of the plays contained in this volume of The Cambridge Shakespeare was published in 1865, 1866. Second Edition 1892. Reprinted 1895, 1904

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PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION.

1. TIMON OF ATHENS was printed for the first time in the Folio of 1623. It is called The Life of Tymon of Athens; in the running titles, Timon of Athens; and occupies twenty-one pages, from 80 to 98 inclusive, 81 and 82 being numbered twice After 98 the next page is filled with The Actors Names, and the following page is blank. The next page, the first of Julius Caesar, is numbered 109, and instead of beginning as it should signature ii, the signature is kk. From this it may be inferred that for some reason the printing of Julius Cæsar was commenced before that of Timon was finished. It may be that the manuscript of Timon was imperfect, and that the printing was stayed till it could be completed by some playwright engaged for the purpose. This would account for the manifest imperfections at the close of the play. But it is difficult to conceive how the printer came to miscalculate so widely the space required to be left.

The well-known carelessness of the printers of the Folio in respect of metre will not suffice to account for the deficiencies of Timon. The original play, on which Shakespeare worked, must have been written, for the most part, either in prose or in very irregular verse.

2. JULIUS CÆSAR was published for the first time in the Folio of 1623. It is more correctly printed than any other play, and may perhaps have been (as the preface falsely implied that all were) printed from the original manuscript of the author.

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