COLLATION OF THE DIFFERENT EDITIONS

OF THE

WORKS OF SHAKESPEARE, ETC.

"The great prophet of human destinies in the awakening new world was William Shakspeare: he was so, much more, and in a higher sense, than Bacon. His Histories are the only modern epos." BUNSEN: Hippolytus, vol. ii. p. 8.

THE ORTHOGRAPHY OF THE POET'S NAME.

NOT pausing to examine all of the “ 4000 Ways of Spelling the Name according to English orthography," which Mr. George Wise (in The Autograph of William Shakespeare, Philadelphia, 1869, 4°) exhibits; nor the "thirtyseven different authentic ways of spelling it," which, he tells us, "have been counted in tracing the name back through the records of the family"; nor the twenty-six modes offered (in New Illustrations of the Life, etc., of Shakespeare, London, 1845, 2 vols. 8°) by the Rev. Joseph Hunter, we shall confine our attention to the four forms (omitting a few now obsolete) which appear in connection with the author's works, or with comments upon them by others.

I. SHAKESPEAR.

AUTHORITIES: Banks, 1682; Bell, W. 1651; Berkenhead, 1647; Burnet, Bishop, before 1715; Burns, Robert, before 1796; Cavendish, 1664; Crown, 1681; Dryden, 1669, 72, 75, 79 (see also SHAKESPEARE); Edwards, T. 1765; Flecknoe, 1660; Folio, 3d edition, 1664; Folio, 4th edition, 1685; Gildon, C. 1709; Grove, 1758; Hazlitt, W. 1817; Heath, 1765; Holland, 1656; Huckell, 1768; Jonson, 1618 (see also SHAKESPEARE); Langbaine, 1691; Latham, Dr. R. G. 1872; Lennox, 1753-54; Luders, 1813; Martyn, 1679; Mayne, 1651; Milton, 1645 (see also SHAKESPEARE); Otway, 1680; Phillips, J. 1675; Pope, 1723-25; Pye, 1807; Raynsford, 1682; Reynolds, Sir J. 1765; Richardson or Taylor, 1774; Rowe, 1709; Rymer, 1678, 93; Scudery, 1681; Shadwell, 1678; Sheffield, 1682; Shirley, 1642; Tate, 1689; Temple, Sir W. 1680-90; Theobald, 1726 (see also SHAKESPEARE). In all 42. This form may be dismissed as obsolete, and not likely to be revived. There are but two instances cited above in the last sixty years.