durable authors is generally
practicable; but of excessively popular or favourite books, even of
the Elizabethan era, it is imperfect. We refer to such cases as the so
far unseen second impression of Shakespeare's _Passionate Pilgrim_ and
the ostensible disappearance of the original quarto of _Love's Labor's
Lost_.

Two questions connected with the present part of the subject before
us, now better understood and managed, were under the old system, so
far as we can ascertain or judge, permitted to remain in a very loose
and vague state. We allude to the law of copyright and the revision
for the press. Prior to the institution of the Stationers' Company and
the existence of a Register, the sole protection for authors and
publishers was by the grant of a privilege or a monopoly for a term of
years; yet even when registration had become compulsory, and was
supposed to be effectual, spurious editions constantly found their way
into the market, while books of which the writers might desire, on
various grounds, to keep the MSS. in their own hands, found their way
into print through some irregular channel. Such was the case with
Shakespeare's _Hamlet_, 1603, and (in a somewhat different way) with
the third edition of his _Passionate Pilgrim_, 1612; and we perceive
that of Bacon's _Essays_ during some years two parallel impressions
were current without ostensible interference or warrant. There are
frequent instances in which authors state that their motive in
hastening into type was the rumour that a surreptitious and inaccurate
text was threatened, as if there was no legal power to prevent such a
class of piracy.

The correction of proofs by early writers, if we except books of
reference, and those not without qualification, was evidently very lax
and precarious. The entire body of popular literature, the drama
included, offers the appearance, when we investigate examples, of
having been left to the mercy of the typographers, and the faulty
readings of old plays are more readily susceptible of explanation from
the fact that we owe their survival in a printed form as often as not
to the clandestine sale of the prompters' copies to the stationer. The
editors of our dramatists have consequently found it an extremely
laborious task to restore the sense of corrupt passages, and have
sometimes abandoned the attempt in despair. Not a few of the pieces in
the last edition of Dodsley come within this category; and we may
signalise t