they were published the volume ask'd to be yours. We have but collected them, and done an office to the dead, to procure his Orphans Guardians, without ambition either of self-profit or fame; only to keep the memory of so worthy a Friend and Fellow alive, as was our SHAKESPEARE, by humble offer of his plays to your most noble patronage. Wherein, as we have justly observed no man to come near your Lordships, but with a kind of religious address, it hath been the height of our care, who are the Presenters, to make the present worthy of your Highnesses by the perfection. But there we must also crave our abilities to be consider'd, my Lords. We cannot go beyond our own powers. Country hands reach forth milk, cream, fruits, or what they have; and many Nations, we have heard, that had not gums and incense, obtained their requests with a leavened Cake. It was no fault to approach their Gods by what means they could: And the most, though meanest, of things are made more precious, when they are dedicated to Temples. In that name, therefore, we most humbly consecrate to your Highnesses these remains of your servant SHAKESPEARE; that what delight is in them may be ever your Lordships', the reputation his, and the faults ours, if any be committed by a pair so careful to show their gratitude both to the living, and the dead, as is Your Lordships' most bounden, JOHN HEMINGE. HENRY CONdell. 2 Page 134. "The hollow passage of my prison'd voice." Prison'd is misprinted poison'd in the old copies. Strange the correction should have waited for Collier's folio! SECOND PART OF KING HENRY VI. Page 186. "She's tickled now; her fury needs no spurs, She'll gallop fast enough to her destruction." The original has fume instead of fury, and far instead of fast. The former change is Dyce's, and is exceedingly happy; the latter is from Collier's folio. So in both Collier's and Singer's copies of the second folio. The old reading is rabble instead of rebel. The reference is clearly to Cade, who leads the insurrection. THIRD PART OF KING HENRY VI. Page 334. "Will coast my crown, and like an empty eagle Singer shows by numerous instances that to coast was used for to pursue or hover about any thing. Thus, in the Poet's "Venus and Adonis:" "All in haste she coasteth to the cry." The word was after spelt coste or cost; and such is the spelling here, both in ancient and in modern editions; but the sense of coast as thur explained is clearly required by the context. 1 Page 361. "And this soft carriage makes your followers faint." Instead of carriage, the old copies have courage, out of which it is not easy to get any legitimate meaning. The change is from Collier's folio. The same misprint occurs in "Coriolanus," Act iii., Scene iii. Page 438. "Thou and thy brother both shall 'by this treason The common reading has buy instead of 'by, an error small in VOLUME VII. TROILUS AND CRESSIDA. Page 430. "And, for thy vigour, let Bull-bearing Milo his addition yield." The word let is wanting in all the old copies. It was lately pro posed by Mr. Sidney Walker, and both the sense and the verse approve it. By way of preface to the edition of 1623 was the . following Address. TO THE GREAT VARIETY OF READERS, There From the most able to him that can but spell: you are number'd. We had rather you were weigh'd: especially, when the fate of all books depends upon your capacities; and not of your heads alone, but of your purses. Well! it is now public, and will stand for your privileges, we know; to read, and censure. Do so, but buy it first: that doth best commend a book, the Stationer says. Then, how odd soever your brains be, or your wisdoms, make your license the same, and spare not. Judge your sixpen'orth, your shilling's worth, your five shillings' worth at a time, or higher, so you rise to the just rates, and welBut, whatever you do, buy. Censure will not And though you come. drive a Trade, nor make the Jack go. be a Magistrate of wit, and sit on the stage at Blackfriars, or the Cock-pit, to arraign plays daily, know, these plays have had their trial already, and stood out all appeals; and do now come forth quitted rather by a decree of court, than any purchas'd letters of commendation. It had been a thing, we confess, worthy to have been wished, that the Author himself had liv'd to have set forth, and overseen his own writings: But since it hath been ordain'd otherwise, and he by death departed from that right, we pray you do not envy his Friends the office of their care and pain, to have collected and publish'd them; and so to have publish'd them, as where, before, you were abus'd with divers stolen and surreptitious copies, naimed and deformed by the frauds and stealths of in |