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



HE want of adherence to the old copies which has been complained of, in the text of every modern republication of Shakepeare, is fairly deducible from Mr. Rowe’s inattention to one of the firt duties of an editor. Mr. Rowe did not print from the earliet and mot correct, but from the mot remote and inaccurate of the four folios. Between the years 1623 and 1685 (the dates of the firt and lat) the errors in every play, at leat, were trebled. Several pages in each of thee ancient editions have been examined, that the aertion might come more fully upported. It may be added, that as every freh editor continued to make the text of