Unique copies.

The Sheldon copy.

was working, so that the copies struck off later differ occasionally from the earlier copies. One mark of carelessness on the part of the compositor or corrector of the press, which is common to all copies, is that 'Troilus and Cressida,' though in the body of the book it opens the section of tragedies, is not mentioned at all in the table of contents, and the play is unpaged except on its second and third pages, which bear the numbers 79 and 80.

Three copies are known which are distinguished by more interesting irregularities, in each case unique. The copy in the Lenox Library in New York includes a cancel duplicate of a leaf of 'As You Like It' (sheet R of the comedies), and the title-page bears the date 1622 instead of 1623; but there is little doubt that the last figure has been tampered with by a modern owner. Samuel Butler, successively headmaster of Shrewsbury and Bishop of Lichfield and Coventry, possessed a copy of the First Folio in which a proof leaf of 'Hamlet' was bound up with the corrected leaf.

The most interesting irregularity yet noticed appears in one of the two copies of the book belonging to the Baroness Burdett-Coutts. This copy is known as the Sheldon Folio, having formed in the seventeenth century part of the library of Ralph Sheldon of Weston Manor in the parish of Long Compton, Warwickshire. In the Sheldon Folio, the opening page of 'Troilus and Cressida,' of which the recto or front is occupied by the prologue and the verso or back by the opening lines of the text of the play, is followed by a superfluous leaf. On the recto or front of the unnecessary leaf are printed the concluding lines of 'Romeo and Juliet' in place of the prologue to 'Troilus and Cressida.' At the back or verso are the opening lines of 'Troilus and Cressida' repeated from the preceding page. The presence of a different ornamental headpiece on each page proves that the two are not taken from the same setting of the type. At a later page in the Sheldon copy the concluding lines of 'Romeo and Juliet' are duly reprinted at the close of the play, and on the verso or back of the leaf, which supplies them in their right place, is the opening passage, as in other copies, of 'Timon of Athens.' These curious confusions attest that while the work was in course of composition the printers or editors of the volume at one time intended to place 'Troilus and Cressida,' with the prologue omitted, after 'Romeo and Juliet.' The

last page of 'Romeo and Juliet' is in all copies numbered 79, an obvious misprint for 77; the first leaf of 'Troilus' is paged 78; the second and third pages of 'Troilus' are numbered 79 and 80. It was doubtless suddenly determined while the volume was in the press to transfer 'Troilus and Cressida' to the head of the tragedies from a place near the end, but the numbers on the opening pages which indicated its first position were clumsily retained, and to avoid the extensive typographical corrections that were required by the play's change of position, its remaining pages were allowed to go forth unnumbered.

tion copy

Folio.

A fourth copy of the First Folio presents unique features Jaggard's of a different kind of interest. Mr. Coningsby Sibthorp presentaof Sudbrooke Holme, Lincoln, possesses a copy which has of the First been in the library of his family for more than a century, and is beyond doubt one of the very earliest that came from the press of the printer William Jaggard. The title-page, which bears Shakespeare's portrait, is in a condition of unparalleled freshness, and the engraving is printed with unusual firmness and clearness. Although the copy is not at all points perfect and several leaves have been supplied in facsimile, it is a taller copy than any other, being thirteen and a half inches high, and at least a quarter of an inch superior in stature to that of any other known copy. The binding, rough calf, is partly original; and on the title-page is a manuscript inscription, in contemporary handwriting of indisputable authenticity, attesting that the copy was a gift to an intimate friend by the printer Jaggard. The inscription reads thus:

Ez dino Willi faggard Typographs, ao 1623

The fragment of the original binding is stamped with an heraldic device, in which a muzzled bear holds a banner in its left paw and in its right a squire's helmet. There is a crest of a bear's head above, and beneath is a scroll with the motto 'Augusta Vincenti' (i.e. proud things to the conqueror). This motto proves to be a pun on the name of the owner of the heraldic badge— Augustine Vincent, a highly respected official of the College of Arms, who is known from independent sources to have been, at the date

of the publication, in intimate relations with the printer of the First Folio. It is therefore clear that it was to Augustine Vincent that Jaggard presented as a free gift what was almost certainly the first copy of this great volume which came from his press. The inscription on the title-page I have ascertained, by comparison of it with Vincent's handwriting, to be in his autograph. Jaggard at the time appears to have lost the power of writing owing to failing sight. Mr. Sibthorp's copy of the First Folio is the most interesting memorial that has hitherto come to light of Jaggard's connection with the great publication.

It is difficult to estimate how many copies survive of the First Folio, which is intrinsically the most valuable volume in the whole range of English literature, and extrinsically is only exceeded in value by some half-dozen volumes of far earlier date and of exceptional typographical interest. It seems that about two hundred copies have been traced within the past century. Of these fewer than twenty are in a perfect state, that is, with the portrait printed (not inlaid) on the title-page, and the flyleaf facing it, with all the pages succeeding it, intact and uninjured. (The flyleaf contains Ben Jonson's verses attesting the truthfulness of the portrait.) Excellent copies in this enviable state are in the Grenville Library at the British Museum, and in the libraries of the Duke of Devonshire, the Earl of Crawford, the Baroness Burdett-Coutts, Mr. A. H. Huth, and of several American collectors. Of these the finest is the perfect 'Daniel' copy belonging to the Baroness BurdettCoutts. It measures 13 inches by 81, and was purchased by the Baroness for 7167. 25. at the sale of George Daniel's library in 1864. This sum was long the highest price paid for the book, but the amount has on three recent occasions been exceeded. A perfect copy, measuring 121 inches by 715, fetched 840%. (4,200 dollars) at the sale of Mr. Brayton Ives's library in New York in March 1891. A second perfect copy in fine preservation, measuring 138 inches by 83, formerly the property of Sir Robert Sidney, first Earl of Leicester (Sir Philip Sidney's brother), whose arms are stamped on the original calf binding, was privately purchased for more than 1,000l. by Mr. J. Pierpont Morgan of New York in June 1899 of Mr. C. J. Toovey, bookseller, of Piccadilly, London. A third copy, measuring 123 inches by 8%, which had been for a century

and more in Belgium, and is quite perfect save for slight injuries to the margins of the title-page and a few other leaves, was purchased by Mr. Bernard Buchanan Macgeorge of Glasgow for 1,700l. at a sale by Messrs. Christie, Manson & Woods on July 11, 1899; this is the largest figure yet reached. The Sibthorp copy is far taller than any of these, and in many other respects is equally admirable, but a few of its leaves are missing. Some twenty more copies lack, like the Sibthorp copy, a few pages, although they are in other regards unimpaired. There remain about 160 copies which have sustained serious damage at various points.

A reprint of the First Folio unwarrantably purporting to be exact was published in 1807-8. The best reprint was issued in three parts by Lionel Booth in 1861, 1863, and 1864. The valuable photo-zincographic reproduction undertaken by Sir Henry James, under the direction of Howard Staunton, was issued in sixteen folio parts between February 1864 and October 1865. A reduced photographic facsimile, too small to be legible, appeared in 1876, with a preface by Halliwell-Phillipps.

Folio.

The Second Folio edition was printed in 1632 by The Thomas Cotes for Robert Allot and William Aspley, each Second of whose names figures as publisher on different copies. To Allot Blount had transferred, on November 16, 1630, his rights in the sixteen plays which were first licensed for publication in 1623. The Second Folio was reprinted from the First; a few corrections were made in the text, but most of the changes were arbitrary and needless. Charles I's copy is at Windsor, and Charles II's at the British Museum. The 'Perkins Folio,' now in the Duke of Devonshire's possession, in which John Payne Collier introduced forged emendations, was a copy of that of 1632. By far the highest price paid for a copy is 540%, for which sum Mr. B. B. Macgeorge of Glasgow acquired at the Earl of Orford's sale in 1895 the fine copy formerly in the The library of George Daniel. The Third Folio- for the most part a faithful reprint of the Second- was first published in 1663 by Peter Chetwynde, who reissued it next year with the addition of seven plays, six of which have no claim to admission among Shakespeare's works. 'Unto this impression,' runs the title-page of 1664, 'is added seven Playes never before printed in folio, viz.: Pericles, Prince

Third

Folio.

The
Fourth
Folio.

Eighteenthcentury editors.

Nicholas Rowe, 1674-1718.

of Tyre. The London Prodigall. The History of Thomas Ld. Cromwell. Sir John Oldcastle, Lord Cobham. The Puritan Widow. A Yorkshire Tragedy. The Tragedy of Locrine.' The six spurious pieces which open the volume were attributed by unprincipled publishers to Shakespeare in his lifetime. Fewer copies of the Third Folio are reputed to be extant than of the Second or Fourth, owing to the alleged destruction of many unsold impressions in the Fire of London in 1666. The Fourth Folio, printed in 1685 for H. Herringman, E. Brewster, R. Chiswell, and R. Bentley,' reprints the folio of 1664 without change except in the way of modernising the spelling; it repeats the spurious pieces.

Since 1685 some two hundred independent editions of the collected works have been published in Great Britain and Ireland, and many thousand editions of separate plays. The eighteenth-century editors of the collected works endeavoured with varying degrees of success to purge the text of the numerous incoherences of the folios, and to restore, where good taste or good sense required it, the lost text of the contemporary quartos. It is largely owing to a due co-ordination of the results of the efforts of the eighteenth-century editors by their successors in the present century that Shakespeare's work has become intelligible to general readers unversed in textual criticism, and has won from them the veneration that it merits.

Nicholas Rowe, a popular dramatist of Queen Anne's reign, and poet laureate to George I, was the first critical editor of Shakespeare. He produced an edition of his plays in six octavo volumes in 1709. A new edition in eight volumes followed in 1714, and another hand added a ninth volume which included the poems. Rowe prefixed a valuable life of the poet embodying traditions which were in danger of perishing without a record. His text followed that of the Fourth Folio. The plays were printed in the same order, except that he transferred the spurious pieces from the beginning to the end. Rowe did not compare his text with that of the First Folio or of the quartos, but in the case of 'Romeo and Juliet' he met with an early quarto while his edition was passing through the press, and inserted at the end of the play the prologue which is met with only in the quartos. He made a few happy emendations, some of which coincide accidentally with the readings of the First Folio; but his text is defaced by many palpable errors.