field and Coventry, possessed a copy of the
First Folio in which a proof leaf of 'Hamlet' was bound up with the
corrected leaf. {309a}

The Sheldon copy.

The most interesting irregularity yet noticed appears in one of the two
copies of the book belonging to the Baroness Burdett-Coutts. This copy
is known as the Sheldon Folio, having formed in the seventeenth century
part of the library of Ralph Sheldon of Weston Manor in the parish of
Long Compton, Warwickshire. {309b} In the Sheldon Folio the opening page
of 'Troilus and Cressida,' of which the recto or front is occupied by the
prologue and the verso or back by the opening lines of the text of the
play, is followed by a superfluous leaf. On the recto or front of the
unnecessary leaf {309c} are printed the concluding lines of 'Romeo and
Juliet' in place of the prologue to 'Troilus and Cressida.' At the back
or verso are the opening lines of 'Troilus and Cressida' repeated from
the preceding page. The presence of a different ornamental headpiece on
each page proves that the two are not taken from the same setting of the
type. At a later page in the Sheldon copy the concluding lines of 'Romeo
and Juliet' are duly reprinted at the close of the play, and on the verso
or back of the leaf, which supplies them in their right place, is the
opening passage, as in other copies, of 'Timon of Athens.' These curious
confusions attest that while the work was in course of composition the
printers or editors of the volume at one time intended to place 'Troilus
and Cressida,' with the prologue omitted, after 'Romeo and Juliet.' The
last page of 'Romeo and Juliet' is in all copies numbered 79, an obvious
misprint for 77; the first leaf of 'Troilus' is paged 78; the second and
third pages of 'Troilus' are numbered 79 and 80. It was doubtless
suddenly determined while the volume was in the press to transfer
'Troilus and Cressida' to the head of the tragedies from a place near the
end, but the numbers on the opening pages which indicated its first
position were clumsily retained, and to avoid the extensive typographical
corrections that were required by the play's change of position, its
remaining pages were allowed to go forth unnumbered. {310}

Estimated number of extant copies.

It is difficult to estimate how many copies survive of the First Folio,
which is intrinsically the most valuable volume in the whole range of
English literature, and extrinsically is only