Ch. 11: The First Folio - Page 2

manuscripts, and in the same breath denounce the Quartos as stolen and surreptitious." I cannot see, I repeat, that the Preface denounces ALL the Quartos. It could be truly said that DIVERS stolen and maimed copies had been foisted on "abused" purchasers, and really no more IS said. Dr. Furness writes, "When we now find them using as 'copy' one of these very Quartos" (Much Ado about Nothing, 1600), "we need not impute to them a wilful falsehood if we suppose that in using what they knew had been printed from the original text, howsoever obtained, they held it to be the same as the manuscript itself . . . " That WAS their meaning, I think, the Quarto of Much Ado had NOT been "maimed" and "deformed," as divers other quartos, stolen and surreptitious, had been.

Shakspere, unlike most of the other playwrights, was a member of his Company. I presume that his play was thus the common good of his Company and himself. If they sold a copy to the press, the price would go into their common stock; unless they, in good will, allowed the author to pocket the money.

It will be observed that I understand the words of the Preface otherwise than do the distinguished Editors of the Cambridge edition. They write, "The natural inference to be drawn from this statement" (in the Preface) "is that ALL the separate editions of Shakespeare's plays were 'stolen,' 'surreptitious' and imperfect, AND THAT ALL THOSE PUBLISHED IN THE FOLIO WERE PRINTED FROM THE AUTHOR'S OWN MANUSCRIPTS" (my italics). The Editors agree with Dr. Furness, not with Mr. Pollard, whose learned opinion coincides with my own.

Perhaps it should be said that I reached my own construction of the sense of this passage in the Preface by the light of nature, before Mr. Pollard's valuable book, based on the widest and most minute research, came into my hands. By the results of that research he backs his opinion (and mine), that some of the quartos are surreptitious and bad, while others are good "and were honestly obtained." {210a} The Preface never denies this; never says that all the quartos contain maimed and disfigured texts. The Preface draws a distinction to this effect, "even those" (even the stolen and deformed copies) "are now cured and perfect in their limbs,"--that is, have been carefully edited, while "ALL THE REST" are "absolute in their numbers as he conceived them." This does not allege that all the rest are printed from Shakespeare's own holograph copies.

Among the plays spoken of as "all the rest," namely, those not hitherto published and not deformed by the fraudulent, are, Tempest, Two Gentlemen, Measure for Measure, Comedy of Errors, As You Like It, All's Well, Twelfth Night, Winter's Tale, Henry VI, iii., Henry VIII, Coriolanus, Timon, Julius Caesar, Macbeth, Antony and Cleopatra, and Cymbeline. Also Henry VI, i.,