Page:Mr. William Shakespeare's Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies (1623).djvu/11

 To the great Variety of Readers.

FRom the mot able,to him that can but pell: There you are number’d, We had rather you were weighd. Epecially, when the fate of all Bookes depends vp- on your capacities : and not of your heads alone, but of your pures. Well! It is now publique, & you wil tand for your priuiledges wee know: to read, and cenure. Do o, but buy it firt. That doth bet commend a Booke, the Stationer aies. Then, how odde oeuer your braines be, or your wiedomes, make your licence the ame,and pare not. Iudge your ixe-pen’orth, your hillings worth, your fiue hil- lings worth at a time, or higher, o you rie to the iut rates, and wel- come. But, what euer you do, Buy. Cenure will not driue a Trade, or make the lacke go. And though you be a Magitrate of wit, and it on the Stage at Black-Friers, or the Cock-Pit, to arraigne Playes dailie, know, thee Playes haue had their triall alreadie, and flood out all Ap- peales, and do now come forth quitted rather by a Decree of Court, then any purchas'd Letters of commendation.

It had bene a thing, we confee, worthie to haue bene wihed,that the Author hirrelfe had liu'd to haue et forth, and ouereen his owne writings. But ince it hath bin ordain'd otherwie,and he by death de- parted from that right, we pray you do not envie his Friends,the office of their care, and paine, to haue collected & publih’d them; and o to haue publih'd them, as where (before) you were abus'd with diuere tolne, and urreptitious copies, maimed,and deformed by the frauds and tealthes of iniurious impotors, that expos'd them: euen thoe, are now offer'd to your view cur'd, and perfect of their limbes; and all the ret, abolute in their numbers, as he concerned the. Who, as he was a happie imitator of Nature, was a mot gentle expreer of it. His mind and hand went together: And what he thought, he vttered with that eainee, that wee haue care receiued from him a blot in his papers. But it is not our prouince,who onely gather his works, and giue them you, to praie him. It is yours that reade him. And there we hope, to your diuers capacities, you will finde enough, both to draw, and hold you: for his wit can no more lie hid, then it could be lot. Reade him, therefore; and againe, and againe: And if then you doe not like him, urely you are in ome manifet danger, not to vndertand him. And o we leauey ou to other of his Friends, whom if you need, can bee your guides: if you neede them not, you can leade your elues,and others. And uch Readers we with him.

Iohn Heninge. Henrie Condell