Page:The Plays of William Shakspeare (1778).djvu/80

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TO THE

READER.

THE want of adherence to the old copies which has been complained of, in the text of every modern republication of Shakeſpeare, is fairly deducible from Mr. Rowe’s inattention to one of the firſt duties of an editor^[1]. Mr. Rowe did not print from the earlieſt and moſt correct, but from the moſt remote and inaccurate of the four folios. Between the years 1623 and 1685 (the dates of the firſt and laſt) the errors in every play, at leaſt, were trebled. Several pages in each of theſe ancient editions have been examined, that the aſſertion might come more fully ſupported. It may be added, that as every freſh editor continued to make the text

↑ “I muſt not (ſays Mr. Rowe in his dedication to the duke of Somerſet) pretend to have reſtor’d this work to the exactneſs of the author’s original manuſcripts: thoſe are loſt, or, at leaſt, are gone beyond any inquiry I could make; ſo that there was nothing left, but to compare the ſeveral editions, and give the true reading as well as I could from thence. This I have endeavour’d to do pretty carefully, and render’d very many places intelligible, that were not ſo before. In ſome of the editions, eſpecially the laſt, there were many lines (and in Hamlet one whole ſcene) left out together; theſe are now all ſupply’d. I fear your grace will find ſome faults, but I hope they are moſtly litteral, and the errors of the preſs.” Would not any one, from this declaration, ſuppoſe that Mr. Rowe (who does not appear to have conſulted a ſingle quarto) had at leaſt compared the folios with each other?

of

[1] “I muſt not (ſays Mr. Rowe in his dedication to the duke of Somerſet) pretend to have reſtor’d this work to the exactneſs of the author’s original manuſcripts: thoſe are loſt, or, at leaſt, are gone beyond any inquiry I could make; ſo that there was nothing left, but to compare the ſeveral editions, and give the true reading as well as I could from thence. This I have endeavour’d to do pretty carefully, and render’d very many places intelligible, that were not ſo before. In ſome of the editions, eſpecially the laſt, there were many lines (and in Hamlet one whole ſcene) left out together; theſe are now all ſupply’d. I fear your grace will find ſome faults, but I hope they are moſtly litteral, and the errors of the preſs.” Would not any one, from this declaration, ſuppoſe that Mr. Rowe (who does not appear to have conſulted a ſingle quarto) had at leaſt compared the folios with each other?

[1]