TO TWO FRIENDS, J. O. HALLIWELL-PHILLIPPS, F.S.A., ETC., WHO, MORE THAN ALL OTHER WRITERS, HAS ILLUSTRATED THE LITERATURE OF "A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM," AND TO SIR NOËL PATON, R.S.A., ETC., WHO, ABOVE ALL OTHER ARTISTS, HAS SHOWN THE FAIRY-LAND 1 1536006410 INTRODUCTION TO THE PHOTO-LITHOGRAPH OF JAMES ROBERTS'S QUARTO EDITION, 1600: A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM. § 1. JAMES ROBERTS'S QUARTO UNREGISTERED. HE three most important versions of the Midsummer Night's Dream text are now placed within reach of the student of literature, by means of photo-lithography; which gives, with absolute exactitude, a reproduction of every peculiarity in the typography of the originals. It would not be too much to say that equal facilities for independent and combined examination of these materials were never hitherto attainable, at moderate cost, since the early part of the seventeenth century. Even in 1623, when for twenty shillings a purchaser could claim the newly-issued First Folio of "Mr. William Shakespeare's Comedies, Histories, and Tragedies: Published according to the True Original Copies: London: Printed by Isaac Iaggard and Ed. Blount," the sixpenny editions, each in Quarto, that had been circulated for nearly a quarter of a century, must have |