d in _Richard the Second_, the reading of the Quarto
is almost always preferable to that of the Folio, and in _Hamlet_ we
have computed that the Folio, when it differs from the Quartos, differs
for the worse in forty-seven places, while it differs for the better in
twenty at most.

As the 'setters forth' are thus convicted of a 'suggestio falsi' in
one point, it is not improbable that they may have been guilty of
the like in another. Some of the plays may have been printed not from
Shakespeare's own manuscript, but from transcripts made from them for
the use of the theatre. And this hypothesis will account for strange
errors found in some of the plays--errors too gross to be accounted for
by the negligence of a printer, especially if the original MS. was as
unblotted as Heminge and Condell describe it to have been. Thus too we
may explain the great difference in the state of the text as found in
different plays. It is probable that this deception arose not from
deliberate design on the part of Heminge and Condell,--whom as having
been Shakespeare's friends and fellows we like to think of as honourable
men,--but partly at least from want of practice in composition, and from
the wish rather to write a smart preface in praise of the book than to
state the facts clearly and simply. Or the preface may have been written
by some literary man in the employment of the publishers, and merely
signed by the two players.

Be this as it may, their duties as editors were probably limited to
correcting and arranging the manuscripts and sending them to the press.
The 'overseeing' of which they speak, probably meant a revision of the
MSS., not a correction of the press, for it does not appear that there
were any proof sheets in those days sent either to author or editor.
Indeed we consider it as certain that, after a MS. had been sent to
press, it was seen only by the printers and one or more correctors of
the press, regularly employed by the publishers for that purpose[3].

The opinions of critics have varied very much as to the merits of the
first Folio, some praising it as among the most correct, and others
blaming it as one of the most incorrect editions of its time. The truth
seems to be that it is of very varied excellence, differing from time to
time according to the state of the MS. from which it was printed, the
skill of the compositor, and the diligence of the corrector. There is
the widest difference, for instance, between t