"Will," documents relating to the theatres, commendatory verses from the First Folio, and also a statement of the quarto editions. Then follows the plays, beginning with the Tempest. Each play is preceded by a brief note touching the date and plot, and is followed by the explanatory notes.

Volume III. has specimens of four signatures of William Shake

speare:

I. From the Indenture of Conveyance, March 10, 1612-13.

2. From the Mortgage, March 11, 1612-13.

3. From the Will in the Prerogative Office.

4. From the Fly-Leaf of Florio's Translation of Montaigne's Essays, Ed. 1603, in the British Museum.

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The title-pages of volumes I. to VII. state the edition is in eight volumes. On the title-page of Volume VIII. it is altered to "In Nine Volumes," and on the preliminary page is this Notice: " In consequence of the length to which the Glossary has run, it has been judged expedient to issue it as a separate volume; so that the edition will now consist of 9 volumes instead of 8, as originally proposed." The Preface to Volume IX. states it is a Glossary of uncommon words, of less uncommon words in their different significations, of passages which convey an obscure or doubtful sense, of proverbial expressions, of cant phrases, of manners and customs, of games and sports, of dresses and weapons, and of numerous allusions with which only archæologists and antiquaries are supposed to be familiar." The third edition was brought out by Iohn Foster after Mr. Dyce's death. Mr. Foster confines himself to seeing it through the press, but does not of course charge himself further. As to the text of this edition, Mr. Dyce's labors manifest care, accuracy, scholarship. No matter how correct the emendations may be, they are subject to the insuperable objectionin my opinion an almost fatal defect-viz., that we have, not Shakespeare's text, but Mr. Dyce's opinion of Shakespeare's text. These efforts to amend the old text remind one of the attempts of some modern painter to restore a faded picture of one of the great masters; or of the work of some vandal architect, who will pull down an old building rich in association with the history, poetry, literature, art of a nation, in order to erect a more modern structure. Such efforts are blighting and destructive. The original texts of Shakespeare's plays, both quarto and folio, have many and grievous imperfections, but we have in them the plays as they were printed in Shakespeare's day, or a very few years after his death, by his fellow actors and editors. On some of these quartos doubtless the eyes of the great dramatist had looked. On the folio edition the loving and reverent work of Heminge and Condel was expended. These texts are sacred, and they alone are the ones needed by all critical scholars as the basis of their studies. This fact has been recognized by the General Editor of the Bankside, who, by

that edition, has placed all Shakespeareans under lasting obligation to himself. Mr. Dyce, in his first edition, made few alterations in the text, as that had been printed in Malone and earlier editions. In the second edition his revisions were more numerous and more radical. Doubtless, had he lived a few years longer, he would have preferred a reprint of the original folio. His preface to the second edition, previously quoted, seems to point that way. Mr. Dyce's Notes manifest the same ripe scholarship. Of course he was not infallible. Mr. Richard Grant White criticises as follows the note on the phrase "flame-colored stock" (Twelfth Night, I., 3): " Mr. Dyce's remark that Sir Andrew, a gallant of the first water, should ever dream of casing his leg in a 'dun-colored sock' is not to be supposed for a moment. I do not mean to say that dun'd should be changed to dun; but if Mr. Dyce will but look through old illuminations, tapestries, and the like, he will find that dun-colored hose were much affected by gallants of the first water three or four hundred years ago." Mr. White excelled in these minute points, but of course any amount of these would not throw discredit on Dr. Dyce's brief and learned notes. It is the accumulation of notes on the plays which constitutes the value of the marred editions.

For the Glossary I have only words of praise. It is very useful to the ordinary reader or casual student. There are later works on the subjects commented on which are more profound and more voluminous, but for the average student Mr. Dyce's Glossary is sufficient.

I have not attempted to write a biography of Mr. Dyce, nor to give a detailed account of his literary labors. I have referred to those subjects only in so far as they related to his Shakespearean work. His edition of Shakespeare is his great work, and will be to his memory a lasting and worthy monument. WM. H. FLEMING.

SHAKESPEARE SOCIETIES IN NEW YORK CITY.

THE first Shakespeare Society ever established within the territory of what is now the United States was organized by Major John André, and certain of his fellow-officers, then in barrack in the city of New York during the winter of 1779. Although called "The Shakespeare Society," it was more of a private theatrical society, and its proceedings were altogether to furnish to the British officers and the pretty New York girls entertainment for the long winter evenings. Doubtless Shakespearian as well as other plays may have been rendered by the Society, but the tastes of the time would probably have inclined it to more recent comedy, and of course no records of the first New York Shakespeare Society are in existence. It probably was forgotten in the opening of the spring campaign, and in the tragic but inevitable death of the brilliant young officer on Traitor's Hill, at Tappan-on-Hudson.

The next Shakespeare Society in New York City was equally short-lived, though established under more agreeable auspices. Its records are not, so far as we know, extant. It is known to have been organized in the city of New York in the winter of 1787, and its President or General Manager was Robert Benson, who lived near what is now the corner of Thomas Street and Broadway. Its pur

poses seem to have been a reading of the plays coupled with social relaxation.

Of the third New York Shakespeare Society, the records are still extant and in the possession (as we understand) of a member of the present "Shakespeare Society of New York," which was incorporated in April, 1885. This Society was organized April 23, 1852, at the College Hotel, better known as Sanderson's Hotel, which stood at what is now Nos. 28 and 30 Murray Street. The organizers were William E. Burton, George W. Curtis, Richard Grant White, James F. Otis, Robert Balmanno, John Allan, and John Keese, Esqs., who placed Mr. Keese, in the chair and made Mr. Balmanno Secretary pro tem. A letter from Washington Irving declining the Presidency of the Society, Mr. William E. Burton was elected President, and Mr. Balmanno continued as Secretary. At a subsequent meeting Louis Gaylord Clark, Charles A. Dana, Hiram Fuller, James M. Sanderson, and James H. Sanford, Esqs., were admitted to membership, and ultimately the membership was farther augmented by the admission of Cornelius Grinnell, Charles L. Elliot, Charles P. Daly, John C. Lock, Parke Godwin, Gulian C. Verplanck, William Rufus Blake, James W. Wallack, Jr., Charles Gayler, James F. Ruggles, Frederick S. Cozzens,

Robert M. C. Graham, all well-known New York names. The list of Honorary Members was, so far as the records proceed, as follows: Washington Irving, Lord Ellesmere, Mary Cowden Clarke, John Gray. The Society very sensibly decided that their celebrations should become pleasures and not pains, and as much in the vein of Shakespeare himself as possible, who loved a good dinner and didn't get thinner on tankards of ale and sack and sugar, at the Tabard, the Mermaid, and the Triple Tun, and at once elected a steward-Mr. John Sanderson, the landlord of the College Hotel (so called from its proximity to Columbia College a nomination which the officers and students of that Society did not fail to compliment by many a resort to its "old boxes, larded with the steam of forty thousand dinners ").

The programme of the Society consisted of monthly dinners at the College Hotel or elsewhere in the city during the season, and at some country resort during the summer months, at which each member should defray the cost of his own dinner, and might also at his own cost-introduce a friend who would be congenial to the other members; under which rule we find John Brougham dining with the Club held at Fort Hamilton, June 18, 1853. A Summer Festival and a Mulberry Feast (this latter was proposed by Mr. Richard Grant White and heartily adopted), to be held during the season of mulberries, and to which the wives of members were to be admitted. The first (and last) of these feasts was accordingly held at the Rosary, Glen Cove, Long Island, July 23d, 1853. This programme appears to have been carried out with extraordinary pertinacity; the dinners were all eaten and the festival held for a single year-or until Saturday, August 20, 1853, when the Society met at Snedeker's Tavern, near Jamaica, Long Island. Unfortunately, this dinner at Snedeker's at which Mr. Burton presided, and to which Mr. Grant White, Gaylor, Fuller, Otis, Balmanno and Sanderson sat down-appears to have ended the Society's proceedings, for beyond it no record of this third New York Shakespeare Society is anywhere discoverable. Whether, like the Society upon the Stanislaus, it perished by reason of unreportable matter under a suspension of the rules, or otherwise, no record anywhere appears.

The fourth organization, "The Shakespeare Society of the City of New York," was organized February 12, 1873, and incorporated under the laws of the State of New York, April 23, 1873.

Officers, 1873-4: President, George Edgar; Vice-President, Mrs. Henry A. Topham; Secretary, Miss E. Cavannah; Treasurer, Mr. E. Y. Ten Eyck; Librarian, Rev. C. T. Woodruff; Council, Rev. I. W. Shakelford, D.D., Hon. E. I. Pattison, Hon. Rufus B. Cowing, Mrs. R. B. Hilliard, Miss E. A. Blackwell, Mrs. E. Y. Ten Eyck.

The business and objects of the Society were the promotion of the study of the works of Shakespeare and of contemporary authors, and of books illustrative of Shakespeare and the literature of his time;

the collection of a Shakespeare Library and the cultivation generally of a literary taste among members. The number of trustees of the Society was eleven, consisting of the officers and six members, constituting the council who held office for the first year of the Society. The annual meetings were held on the evening of April 23d, unless it fell on Sunday; the regular meeting on Monday evening of each week, and the business meetings on the first of each month. There were appointed by the President the following committees, consisting of three persons each, viz., on Finance, Reading, Receptions, Lectures and Entertainments, Membership.

The fifth organization to be formed in the City of New York was the present "Fortnightly Shakespeare Club," which was founded by Mrs. Anna Randall-Diehl in 1875, who is to-day still, after sixteen years of efficient service, its President, Mrs. Marguerite Ravenhill being VicePresident, and Miss N. C. West its Secretary. As all the prior societies had in the course of things perished or fallen into desuetude, it can at present claim to be the veteran club of New York City. Its purposes are the reading and study of the plays and social relaxation.

In point of time, therefore, the "Shakespeare Society of New York” is the sixth to be organized in the city; its scheme, however, being entirely different from all of its predecessors, admitting members from throughout the United States and Canada, and honorary memberships from all other countries. It is not social, or, in the sense of the foregoing, for special study; but-as its charter states, and as has been sơ often explained in these columns-for the publication of original papers, and the preservation of such Shakespearian material as may be decided to be worthy, and of which the unique and costly "Bankside" is and always will remain its enduring monument. Its sessions are held in Hamilton Hall, Columbia College, in the city of New York.

The "Shakespeare Club of New York City" was founded in 1889 by Mrs. M. F. Hoagland, and received incorporation from the State of New York in the year following. Its present officers are Frederick G. Smedley, Esq., President; W. B. Davenport, Secretary. It is thus the seventh in point of time. Its purposes are studious and social, holding weekly study meetings during the fall and winter at the Berkeley Lyceum in the city of New York, and monthly receptions, when the exercises are musical and literary, as well as special to its purposes.

Directly similiar in scope-the eighth in course-is "The Avon Club," founded in 1890 by Mrs. M. F. Hoagland, of which Mrs. C. de M. Lozier is President, Mrs. M. F. Hoagland Director of Studies. Thus there are at present four flourishing Shakespeare Societies in New York City working side by side in perfect accord and sympathy, all doing good work in zealous and untiring activity.