PREFACE

INASMUCH as each volume of this edition is independent of the others, it is proper, for the convenience of the reader, that the general plan of the work should be briefly set forth.

In Textual Notes will be found the various readings of the Folios and of modern critical editions, together with such conjectural emendations as have come under the Editor's notice. A feature of this edition, wherein it stands alone,-is that, after each reading recorded in the Textual Notes the names follow of those editors who have adopted that reading; the student can thus estimate, at a glance, the weight of authority.

In the Commentary are set forth explanations and criticisms; some of them antiquated; but useful, at least, the Editor has so deemed them, as marking the history of Shakespearian criticism.

-

In the Appendix are given various discussions, such as The Source of the Plot, The Date of the Play, etc., together with Criticisms too long or too general to be inserted in the Commentary.

The Text here given is again that of the Editio Princeps, the Folio of 1623. At this late hour, when the language of even CHAUCER is becoming familiar, it is hardly reasonable to insist that the language of SHAKESPEARE, in an edition for students like the present, shall be divested of the few trifling differences, chiefly in spelling, which distinguish it from the language of to-day; where words are obsolete, it is not due to the spelling in the First Folio; they will need explanation howsoever they be spelled; and where the meaning of a phrase is obscure, notes are required whatsoever the text.

The Winter's Tale was published first in the Folio. There is no Quarto edition of it; a Quarto edition whereof the mere title appeared a hundred and fifty years ago, in a list of plays, has never been seen, and its existence has been justly discredited.

In this play, more than in any other, the construction of the sentence is involved, and the meaning condensed. Possibly by accident, and a happy one, the Play was committed by the publishers of the Folio to

In

unusually intelligent compositors,-compositors superior in their craft to those from whose hands we have, for instance, King Lear. one regard it stands unparalleled, by any other play, in typography. For some years past it has been growing more and more obvious to the students of the language of SHAKESPEARE that what has been called the absorption' (not the omission) of certain sounds, in pronunciation, by similar sounds terminating preceding words, takes place to a far greater extent than has been hitherto supposed. Indeed, phrases which have been condemned as faulty in construction, and even hopelessly obscure, are, by the application of this principle of Absorption, become clear. Thus, Romeo says: There lies more 'peril in thine eye than [i. e. than in] twenty of their swords;' Antonio in The Tempest says: 'Let's all sink with' [i. e. with th'] king;' Lear says: This [i. e. this is] a good block,' and so on. In three plays (there may be, possibly, others, I speak only from my own knowledge) the compositors have marked this absorption by an apostrophe, as in the speech of Antonio just quoted. This careful and suggestive apostrophe occurs twice in The Tempest, once in Measure for Measure, and no less than eight times in The Winter's Tale. (A list is given in a note on II, i, 18.) It is in the number of these apostrophes that this play thus stands unparalleled. Evidence of the care wherewith this text is printed, more conclusive than this, it would be difficult to supply. Still more remarkable does this care become when we reflect that in all likelihood the compositors had no guide in any MS before their eyes, but composed their types, guided solely by the ear, from sentences which were read aloud to them,-a practice in early printing offices which, had it been known to STEEVENS and MALONE, would have removed the necessity of supposing that the plays were occasionally taken down by shorthand at a public performance; what these editors held to be the voice of the actor was most probably the voice of the reader to the compositor.

Another characteristic of the typography of the present play is the hyphen, which, more frequently than elsewhere, joins a verb and a particle, for instance: come-on, go-by, shews-off, talked-of, look-on, pluck-back; and also a hyphen joining compound words, such as: court-odour, court-contempt, finder-out, etc. These are minute items, to be sure, but what else is to be expected from a microscopic examination?

Twelfth Night, which immediately precedes The Winter's Tale, ends, in the Folio, on p. 275. Page 276 is left blank, and The Winter's Tale begins on p. 277. For this anomaly several reasons have been