Page:The Plays and Poems of William Shakspeare (1790) - Vol. 1a.djvu/32

xviii folio edition of his plays, unconscious of the numerous misrepresentations and interpolations by which every page of that copy is disfigured; and in a volume of the quarto plays of Beaument and Fletcher, which formerly belonged to that king, and is new in my collection, I did not find a single first impression. In like manner Sir William D’Avenant, when he made his alteration of the play of Macbeth, appears to: have used the third folio printed in 1664.

The various readings found in the different impressions of the quarto copies are frequently mentioned by the late editors: it is obvious from what has been already stated, that the first edition of each play is alone of any authority, and accordingly to no other have I paid any attention. All the variations in the subsequent quartos were made by accident or caprice. Where, however, there are two editions printed in the same year, or an undated copy, it is necessary to examine each of them, because which of them was first, can not be ascertained; and being each printed from a manuscript, they carry with them a degree of authority to which a re-impression cannot be entitled. Of the tragedy of King Lear there are no less than three copies, varying from each other, printed for the same bookseller, and in the same year.