COMEDY OF

TWELFTH NIGHT;

OR,

WHAT YOU WILL.

EDITED, WITH NOTES,

BY

WILLIAM J. ROLFE, A.M.,

FORMERLY HEAD MASTER OF THE HIGH SCHOOL, CAMBRIDGE, MASS.

WITH ENGRAVINGS.

EXONTER

NEW YORK:

HARPER & BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS,

FRANKLIN SQUARE.

1882.

HARVARD
UNIVERSITY
LIBRARY

ENGLISH CLASSICS.

EDITED BY WM. J. ROLFE, A.M.

Illustrated. 16mo, Cloth, 56 cents per volume; Paper, 40 cents per volume.

Any of the above works will be sent by mail, postage prepaid, to any part
of the United States, on receipt of the price.

Copyright, 1879, by HARPER & BROTHERS.

PREFACE.

THIS book has been prepared on the same plan as its thirteen predecessors in the series. The plan was based on an experience of nearly twenty years in teaching English Literature in high schools, during which time I had opportunities of seeing not only the immediate results of the method in leading pupils to enjoy and appreciate our best poetry, but also, in many instances, its lasting influence upon their tastes and habits of thought.

In the preface to The Merchant of Venice, the first play of the series, I stated that my aim was "to edit this English classic for school and home reading in essentially the same way as Greek and Latin classics are edited for educational purposes ;" and that the chief requisites in such a book seemed to me to be "a pure text (expurgated, if necessary), and the notes needed for its thorough elucidation and illustration." In the notes, as I have said in more than one preface, I have preferred to err, if at all, on the side of fulness. I have aimed to give all the comments of former editors that seemed of any real value or interest; and I have added many notes of my own, especially in the way of making Shakespeare his own commentator by the citation of illustrative passages from his other works. In short, as I remarked in the preface to Henry V., I have tried "to prepare what may be called a popular Variorum' edition for the general reader and student, as distinguished from an exhaustive work for the critic and the advanced scholar such as my friend Furness is preparing;" keeping in mind the fact that "few persons, not excepting teachers in our high schools and academies, have ready access to a complete Shakespearian library, and that few except teachers would often avail themselves of such a library if it were open to them."

Let me add, as in the preface I have just quoted, that in stating what