advantageously be taken from the words of Mr. Pope, than from any recommendation of my own.
The folio edition (says he) in which all the plays we receive as his were first collected, was published by two players, Heminges and Condell, in 1623, seven years after his decease. They declare that all the other editions were stolen and surreptitious[1], 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 respects else it is far worse than the quartos.
First, because the additions of trifling and bombast passages are in this edition far more numerous. For whatever had been added since those quartos 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 usage in Hamlet, where he wishes those who play the clowns would speak no more than is set 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 the mean conceits and ribaldries now to be found there. In others the scenes of the 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 by lines, and the actors names in the margin) where several of those very passages were added in a written hand, which since are to be found in the folio.
In the next place, a number of beautiful passages were omitted, which were extant in the first single editions; as it seems without any other reason than their willingness shorten some scenes.
To this I must add, that I cannot help looking on the folio as having suffered other injuries from the licentious alteration of the players; as we frequently find in it an unusual word changed into one more popular; sometimes to the weakening of the sense, which rather seems to have been their work, who knew that plainness was necessary for the
- ↑ It may be proper on this occasion to observe, that the actors printed several of the plays in their folio edition from the very quarto copies which they are here striving to depreciate; and additional depravation is the utmost that these copies gained by passing through their hands.
