Licentious and conjectural emendation has not been confined merely to our author's text. His name has, without any sufficient warrant, and against the use and evidence of his own age, and a century and a half afterwards, been barbarously corrupted. As he published it, it was uniformly Shakespeare; and in his Sonnets, printed seven or eight years before his death, it is given with a hyphen, Shake-speare, not only in the title, but in the running line at the head of every leaf throughout the book. It is so also published in the address of one of the copies of commendatory verses, prefixed to the folios. As he published it, all his contemporaries printed it and such printing, with a pronunciation correspondent with the spelling, descended to the middle of the last century. It is only then upon his subscriptions to his will and a mortgage deed, fac-similes of which are given in Reed's edition, that the modern alteration of his name to Shakspeare is founded. But as in one out of these four signatures the last syllable of his

name is abbreviated, and in two others spelt by abbreviation differently from what is on all hands admitted to be the proper spelling of his name, it is not easy to conceive why his having, solely in these instances, spelt the first syllable also differently, should be taken as a decisive proof that his name was not there also abbreviated, and was other than he had himself in print given it, and the whole world besides had for many generations supposed it to be, and had so printed and pronounced it. For these reasons, and others to be another day set forth more in detail, we have continued the old reading of his time, and call our author Shakespeare.

*The letters O. C. or old copies, in the margin, always signify the quartos and folios of 1623; and generally, but not necessarily, that of 1632.

The additions from the quartos are put within brackets.

"For" &c. the

P. 23. folios. Note b. after "exercised" add," See, greenly."

"From this time." So the quartos.

66

P. 25, b. The passage beginning" This heavy headed," and ending to his own scandal," should be included in brackets, as taken from the quartos.

P. 30, 1. 1. Opposite "porcupine" insert in the margin “ porpentine" O. C.

Ib. "With traiterous gifts." So the quartos. The folios read "hath traiterous gifts," and omit the parenthesis that follows.

P. 34.

"Whirling," quartos, is " hurling" in the folios. P. 40. "God be wi' you" is in O. C. "buy" throughout. "So he does indeed" the quartos read; "has" the

P. 49.

folios.

P. 6. n. 10.

NOTES ON HAMLET.

After

boured the point."

commentators," add, "who have la

P. 13. n. 30. For "in the sense," read "not in the sense;" and after "author's works," omit " where."

P. 35. n. 98. Add, "We however find this to have been the language of the day. J. Heywood says of Mars and Venus : "The tel-tale sunne straight to the smith discovers "Th' adulterate practise of this amorous payre."

P. 123. n. 30. works."

Britaines Troy. fo. 1609, p. 109."

For the Promptuar. parvulor." read "two

P. 128. n. 44. For " See II H. IV. Falst. &c." read, "But Mr. Ritson says, the Cornish chough is pronounced by the natives chow; and though the word is not spelt here, as it is in I H. IV. Falst. II. 2. chuff, it may yet, from its association with wealth, be much doubted whether it has, in either instance, any relation to that bird."

AS YOU LIKE IT. TEXT.

P. 60. For "South-sea-off discovery," read, "South-sea of."