Which crown'd him Poet first, then Poets' King.
If Tragedies might any Prologue have,
All those he made, would scarce make one to this :
Where Fame, now that he gone is to the grave,
(Death's publique tyring-house) the Nuncius is.

For, though his line of life went soone about,
The life yet of his lines shall never out.

HUGH HOLLAND.

The Workes of William Shakespeare, containing all his Comedies, Histories, and Tragedies : Truely set forth, according to their first ORIGINALL.

Paccuvius, Accius, him of Cordova dead,
To life againe, to heare thy Buskin tread
And shake a Stage: Or, when thy Sockes were on,
Leave thee alone for the comparison
Of all that insolent Greece or haughtie Rome
Sent forth, or since did from their ashes come.
Triumph, my Britaine ! thou hast one to showe,
To whom all Scenes of Europe homage owe.
He was not of an age, but for all time!
And all the Muses still were in their prime,
When, like Apollo, he came forth to warme
Our eares, or like a Mercury to charme !
Nature her-selfe was proud of his designes,
And joy'd to weare the dressing of his lines !
Which were so richly spun, and woven so fit,
As, since, she will vouchsafe no other Wit.
The merry Greeke, tart Aristophanes,
Neat Terence, witty Plautus, now not please ;
But antiquated and deserted lye,
As they were not of Natures family.
Yet must I not give Nature all ; thy Art,
My gentle Shakespeare, must enjoy a part:
For though the Poets matter, Nature be,
His Art doth give the fashion. And, that he,
Who casts to write a living line, must sweat
(Such as thine are) and strike the second heat
Upon the Muses anvile : turne the same,
(And himselfe with it) that he thinkes to frame ;
Or, for the lawrell, he may gain a scorne,-
For a good Poet's made, as well as borné.
And such wert thou. Looke how the father's face
Lives in his issue, even so the race
Of Shakespeares minde and manners brightly

shines
In his well-torned and true-filed lines :
In each of which, he seemes to shake a Lance,
As brandish't at the eyes of Ignorance.
Sweet Swan of Avon! what a sight it were
To see thee in our waters yet appeare,
And make those flights upon the bankes of

Thames, That so did take Eliza and our James ! But stay, I see thee in the Hemisphere Advanc'd, and made a Constellation there! Shine forth, thou Starre of Poets, and with rage Or influence, chide or cheere the drooping Stage ; Which, since thy flight fro hence, hath mourn'd

like night, And despaires day, but for thy Volumes light.

BEN: JONSON.

The Names of the Principall Actors in all these Playes.
William Shakespeare. Samuel Gilburne.
Richard Burbadge. Robert Armin.
John Hemmings.

William Ostler.
Augustine Phillips. Nathan Field.
William Kempt. John Underwood.
Thomas
Poope.

Nicholas Tooley.
George Bryan,

William Ecclestone. Henry Condell.

Joseph Taylor. William Slye.

Robert Benfield. Richard Cowly.

Robert Goughe. John Lowine.

Richard Robinson. Samuell Crosse.

John Shancke. Alexander Cooke. John Rice.

A Catalogue of the severall Comedies, Histories, and
Tragedies contained in this Volume.

COMEDIES.
The Tempest.
The Two Gentlemen of Verona.
The Merry Wives of Windsor.
Measure for Measure.
The Comedy of Errours.
Much adoo about Nothing.
Loves Labour lost.
Midsommer Nights Dreame.
The Merchant of Venice.
As You Like It.
The Taming of the Shrew.
All is Well, that Ends Well.
Twelfe-Night, or What You Will.
The Winters Tale.

HISTORIES.

Upon the Lines and Life of the Famous

Scenicke Poet, Master WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE. THOSE hands which you so clapt, go now and

wring, You Britaines brave; for done are Shakespeare's

dayes : His dayes are done, that made the dainty Playes Which make the Globe of heav'n and earth to

ring. Dry'de is that veine, dry'd is the Thespian Spring, Turn'd all to teares, and Phæbus clouds his rayes : That corps, that coffin, now besticke those bayes,

The Life and Death of King John.
The Life and Death of Richard the Second.
The First Part of King Henry the Fourth.
The Second Part of K. Henry the Fourth.
The Life of King Henry the Fift.
The First Part of King Henry the Sixt.
The Second Part of King Hen. the Sixt.
The Third Part of King Henry the Sixt.
The Life and Death of Richard the Third.
The Life of King Henry the Eight.

And there did sing, or seeme to sing, the choyce
Birdes of a forraine note and various voyce.
Here hangs a mossey rocke; there playes a faire
But chiding fountaine, purled : Not the ayre,
Nor cloudes nor thunder, but were living drawne,
Not out of common Tiffany or Lawne,
But fine materialls, which the Muses know,
And onely know the countries where they grow.

Now, when they could no longer him enjoy,
In mortall garments pent, “ death may destroy,”
They say, "his body, but his verse shall live,
And more then nature takes, our hands shall give.

In a losse volume, but more strongly bound, Shakespeare shall breathe and speak, with Laurell

crown'd Which never fades. Fed with Ambrosian meate In a well-lyned vesture, rich and neate." So with this robe they cloath him, bid him

weare it, For time shall never staine, nor envy teare it. The friendly admirer of his Endowments,

I. M. S.*

Hunter suggests the probability that the writer was Richard James, author of a poem called Iter Lancastrense, and that the initials I.M. S. represented IaMes.

VOL. I. INTRODUCTION TO “THE Two GENTLEMEN OF VERONA."

P. 1. "- a work very popular in Spain towards the end of the seventeenth century." Read: "sixteenth century."

I would now read, hesls, with Mr. Sidney Walker, instead of behests.

Ibid. “ Arm'd in arguments ;-Read: “Armed in arguments ; &c.”

Ibid. note (e). It meant I now suspect, deeply in love, applied to a love-sick person. In this sense it occurs in the excellent old comedy of “Roister Doister,” Act I. Sc. 2.

P. 91. “ Above this world : adding thereto, morever." Read : moreover.

COMEDY OF ERRORS.

P. 120, note (a). See also note (b) Vol. III. p. 62.

P. 121, note (f). But to carry out this metaphor, serious hours, should be several hours. The integrity of the allusion is destroyed by serious. I suspect, however, the corruption lies in the word common.

P. 124, note (b). So also in Ben Jonson, "Sejanus," Act V. Sc. 4:

“ Cut down, Drusus, that upright elm ; wither'd his vine." P. 129. Sing, syren," —Read : “Sing, siren."

P. 136 “ With his mace." It ought to have been men. tioned that the sergeants carried a staff or small mace in their hands. See * The Example,” by Shirley, Act III. Sc. 1.

LOVE'S LABOUR'S LOST.
P. 52. “Why should I joy in any abortive birth ?

At Christmas I no more desire a rose,
Than wish a snow in May's new-fangled shows :

But like of each thing that in season grows." “Shows" here is a manifest misprint. I would read :

“ – a snow on May's new-fangled wreath.” P. 53, note (a). Add, after “very small game" :-But Steevens was evidently unconscious of its being a proverbial expression. It occurs in Whetstone's « Promos and Cassandra," Part I. Act III. Sc. 6:

" A holie hood makes not a Frier devoute

He will playe at small game, or he sitte out.” Ibid, note (b).

" Mr. Collier's old annotator proposes garrulity;'

Read : Mr. Collier's annotator proposes garrulity, which he borrowed no doubt from Theobald, who in 1729, suggested it to Warburton. See Nichols's Illustrations, Vol. II. p. 317.

P. 64, note (b). Add :-Belly-doublet is in fact nonsense. The doublets were made some without stuffing-thin bellied-and some bombasted out:-"Certain I am, there never was any kind of apparel ever invented, that could more disproportion the body of man, than these doublets with great bellies hanging down, and stuffed," &c. &c.— STUBBES.

Ibid. note (c). Add:-Mr. Collier's annotator reads, “By my pain of observation," a reading first suggested by Theobald in 1729. Nichols's Illustrations, Vol. II. p. 320. P. 67. “ This senior-junior (4) giant-dwarf.” Dele (4).

P. 80. “- prisons up,"—Read: with the old editions : poisons up, and, in corroboration, see Act V. Sc. 2:

“If this, or more than this, I would deny,

To flatter up these powers of mine with rest,

The sudden hand of death close up mine eye :" And, stronger still, the following from King John, Act IV. Sc. 3:

“Put but a little water in a spoon,

And it shall be, as all the ocean,

Enough to stifle such a villain up."
Ibid. “Makes heaven drousy with the harmony."
A consonant idea occurs in Shirley's “Love Tricks,"
Act IV. Sc. 2:-
“ Those eyes that grace the day, now shine on him,

He her Endymion, she his silver moon,
The tongue that's able to rock Heaven asleep,

And make the music of the spheres stand still." P. 83, note (c). “ – and Mr. Dyce says nothing can be more evident than that Skakespeare so wrote,” &c. Read : and Mr. Dyce says, “ Nothing can be more evident than that Shakespeare wrote,” &c.

P. 84, note (e). In this note, strike out the clause, “ Hence the equivoque, which was sometimes in allusion to snaf for the nose, and sometimes to the snuff of a candle." P. 85. “And shape his service wholly to my behests;

And make him proud to make me proud that

THE TAMING OF THE SAREW. P. 227, note (d). Another instance may be added from Taylor, the Water Poet's, “Anagrams and Sonnets,” fol. 1630:

“ He that's a mizer all the yeere beside

Will revell now, and for no cost will spare,
A poxe hang sorrow, let the world go slide,

Let's eate and drinke, and cast away all care." P. 228, note (a). Add :-By “Brach Merriman,-the poor cur is emboss'd," &c. is meant, Couple Merriman with a female hound,—the poor cur is, &c. So in the next line, " and couple Clowder with the deep-mouth'd brach."

P. 229, note (a). “Sinclo to this line. Sinclo," &c. Read : “Sinklo to this line. Sinklo," &c.

P. 233. 1-vis, it is not half way to her heart. Dele the hyphen.

P. 239. "My mind presumes, for his own good, and yours.”. Mr. Collier's annotator, adopting a suggestion of Theobald's, (see Nichols's Illustrations, Vol. II. p. 334,) reads, - for his own good, and ours."

P. 246. “In cypress chests my arras, counterpoints," &c. --Read: arras counterpoints," &c.

P. 264. “What/ up and down, carv'd like an apple tart?” Read: “What up and down, carv'd like an apple tart!”

P. 266, note (c). I am now partly of opinion that “expect" here means, attend, pay attention, and that the passage should be pointed thus, -"I cannot tell. Expect ! they are busied,” &c. The word occurs with this sense apparently in Jonson's Masque of “Time Vindicated."

“Hark! it is Love begins to Time. Expect. [Music]."

P. 272, note (a). Perhaps, after all, the old text is right. but the two words have been inadvertently made into one “therefore, sir, as surance," i.e. as proof.

P. 273. “We three are married, but you two are sped."

Of sped, in this place, the commentators can make no sense. It perhaps means promised. See " A Proper Sonet, Intituled, Maid will you Marrie,” in “the Gorgeous Gallery of Gallant Inventions,” part ii. p. 48:

“Why then you will not wed me !

No sure, Sir, I have sped me." The lover then goes on in answer to say,

" It is a woman's honestie

To keep her promise faithfully."

KING JOHN.

P. 293, note (a). I now think the original text is possibly correct, and that the thought running through the passage and which sufficiently explains it, is, that there is peculiar hardship in Arthur suffering, not only for the sins of the grandmother, (which might be regarded as the common lot," the canon of the law,”) but by the instrumentality of the person whose sins were thus punished; the grand. mother being the agent inflicting retribution on her grandson for her own guilt.

“I have but this to say,
That he's not only plagued for her sin,
But God hath made her sin and her the plague
On this removed issue : plagued for her
And with (or by] her plague-her sin : his injury
Her injury—the beadle to her sin.
All [is] punished in the person of this child,

And all for her; a plague upon her." P. 302, note (a). I am not at present so satisfied of the propriety of Mr. Dyce's ingenious emendation uptrimmed as I was formerly: In old times it was a custom for the bride at her wedding to wear her hair unbraided, and hanging loose over her shoulders. May not Constance by “- a new untrimmed bride," refer to this custom ? Peacham in describing the marriage of the princess Elizabeth with the Palsgrave says that the bride came into the chapell with a coronet of pearle on her head, and her haire dischevelled and hanging down over her shoulders.” Com. pare, too, “ Tancred and Gismunda," Act V. Sc. 1.:

“So let thy tresses flaring in the wind

Untrimmed hang about thy bared neck." P. 303, note (b). “Against the thing thou swear'st," query, "swearest by"?

P. 318, note (a). “Whose confidential parley." Rather whose secret dispatch. There is an instance of private used substantively in Ben Jonson's “Every Man in his Humour," Act IŅ. Sc. 5. “I will tell you, sir, by the way of private, and under seal.”

P. 319. “ Thou'rt damn'd as black_” It should have been remarked that Shakespeare had here probably in his mind the old religious plays of Coventry, some of which in his boyhood he might have seen, wherein the damned souls had their faces blackened.

In Sharp's Dissertation on these performances, the writer speaking of “ White and Black Souls," observes :“Of these characters the number was uniformly three of cach, but sometimes they are denominated 'savyd' and dampnyd Sowles,' instead of white and black.” "And in the same work we meet with, “ It payd to iij whyte sollys “ Ită payd to iij blake sollys “Itñ for makyng and mendynge of the blakke soules

hoso “p'd for blakyng the sollys fassys.”

Ibid. note (c). Add the following example from Florio's “ Worlde of Wordes." “Ruffare, to rifle, to skamble."

P. 321, note (c). Johnson is right. Florio after explain. ing Foragio to mean fodder, &c.,

would wish you, I would request you, I would entreat you not to fear," &c. Read : “ Ladies, or fair ladies, I would, wish you, or I would request you, or, I would entreat you, not to fear," &c.

P. 359. For " Erit," after “thou art translated : Read : Exeunt Snout and Quince.

P. 363, note (a). “The critical remedy applied, afforded." Dele applied.

Subsequent consideration induces me to believe that the emendation of Mr. Collier's annotator, mentioned in the above note, is uncalled for.

P. 365, note (b). “O me! what means my loce?" I should now adhere to the old text,

“0, me! what news my love?” Mr. Collier's attempt to substantiate his annotator's reading means by reference to a passage in Nash and Marlowe's "Dido, Queen of Carthage, where he proposes the puerile change of " newly clad” for “meanly clad,” is a signal failure. The passage in the original stands thus :“ Achates, thou shalt be so meanly clad,

As sea-born nymphs shall swarm about thy ships,

And wanton mermaids court thee with sweet songs." And meanly is an obvious misprint for "mienly," i.e. shapely.

P. 377. “ For, by thy gracious, golden, glittering gleams." For gleams, I would now read with the second folio, “streams.

MERCHANT OF VENICE. P. 417, note (f). Add: which the said corrector bor. rowed from Theobald. (See Nickols's Illustrations, Vol. II. p. 308.)

P. 419, noto (a). “For intermission," after may mean, for fear of interruption. So in "King Lear," Act II. Sc. 4:

“Delivered letters spite of intermission." P. 421. “How true a gentleman you send relief." See note (d), p. 342, Vol. I.

P. 425. “ A woollen bagpipe.” Mr. Collier's annotator reads, "bollen bagpipe," and Mr. Dyce adopts the change: for “What writer," he says,

ever used such an expression as a woollen bagpipe ! Might he not, with almost equal propriety, talk of a woollen lute, or a woollen fiddle?" But see Massinger's play.of “The Maid of Honour," Act IV. Sc. 4:

“Walks she on woollen feet?"

vjd"

HENRY THE FOURTH. PART I. P. 508. For “Edward Mortimer," Read: “Edmund Mortimer "

P. 511. After, “spent with crying—bring in," insert (d).

P. 525. For “Or prisoner's ransom,” Read : “Of prisoner's ransom."

P. 531, note (b). Add: perhaps correctly; see “A Woman is a Weathercock," Act I, Sc. 2:“But did that little old dried neat's tongue, that eel-skin

get him ?" P. 534. “ The likeness of a fat old man." We should read as in the quarto, "the likeness of an old fat man."

P. 540, note (e). Add: It meant to mix or mingle : thus, in Greene's “Quip for an Upstart Courtier :"-"You card your beer (if you see your guests beginning to get drunk), half small half strong. Again, in Hackluyt's Voyages, Vol. II. p. 489 :-“They drinke milke, or warme blood, and for the most part card them both together."

P. 631, note (1). For “ Asunctus," read “ Asunetus."