ct any other evidence of editorial care.

The first octavo edition was that of Nicholas Rowe, published in 1709,
dedicated to the Duke of Somerset, in words which we take pleasure in
recording: ''Tis the best security a poet can ask for to be sheltered
under that great name which presides over one of the most famous
Universities of Europe.' It contained all the plays in the fourth Folio
in the same order, except that the seven spurious plays were transferred
from the beginning to the end. The poems were added also.

It is evident that Rowe took the fourth Folio as the text from which his
edition was printed, and it is almost certain that he did not take the
trouble to refer to, much less to collate, any of the previous Folios or
Quartos. It seems, however, while the volume containing _Romeo and
Juliet_ was in the press he learned the existence of a Quarto edition,
for he has printed the prologue given in the Quartos and omitted in the
Folios, at the end of the play. He did not take the trouble to compare
the text of the Quarto with that of F4. When any emendation introduced
by him in the text coincides with the reading of F1, as sometimes
happens, we are convinced that it is an accidental coincidence. Being,
however, a man of natural ability and taste he improved the text by some
happy guesses, while, from overhaste and negligence, he left it still
deformed by many palpable errors. The best part of the work is that with
which his experience of the stage as a dramatic poet had made him
familiar. In many cases he first prefixed to the play a list of dramatis
personae, he supplied the defects of the Folios in the division and
numbering of Acts and Scenes, and in the entrances and exits of
characters. He also corrected and further modernized the spelling, the
punctuation, and the grammar.

A characteristic specimen of blunders and corrections occurs in the
_Comedy of Errors_, V. 1. 138.

_important_] F1 _impoteant_ F2. _impotent_ F3 F4. _all-potent_ Rowe.

A second Edition, 9 Volumes 12mo, was published in 1714.

Pope's edition in six volumes, 4to, was completed in 1715. On the
title-page we read, 'The Works of Shakespeare, in six volumes.' The six
volumes, however, included only the plays contained in the first and
second Folios. The poems, with an _Essay on the Rise and Progress of the
Stage_, and a Glossary, were contained in a seventh volume edited by Dr
Sewell.

Pope, unlike his predecessor, had at least seen th