Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

THE TEXT OF

SHAKESPEARE VINDICATED

FROM THE INTERPOLATIONS AND CORRUPTIONS

ADVOCATED BY

JOHN PAYNE COLLIER Esq.

IN HIS NOTES AND EMENDATIONS.

BY

SAMUEL WELLER SINGER

66

TO BLOT OLD BOOKS AND ALTER THEIR contentS"—

Rape of Lucrece.

"Shakespeare probably little thought, when he wrote this line, that his
own compositions would afford a more striking example of this species
of devastation than any that has appeared since the first use of type."
Malone.

[ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small]
[blocks in formation]
[merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][ocr errors][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][ocr errors][merged small][ocr errors][ocr errors][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][ocr errors][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][ocr errors][merged small]
[merged small][ocr errors][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small]

PREFACE.

ENTLEY, in his "Dissertation on the Epistles of

B Phalaris," relates that: "The great Scaliger

published a few Iambics, as a choice fragment of an old tragedian, given him by Muretus; who soon after confessed the jest, that they were made by himself." I should have thought that Mr. Collier, in the same manner, meant to mystify the Shakespearian Scaligers of this age by the publication of his volume of "NOTES and EMENDATIONS;" but as he had formerly evinced such praiseworthy respect for the remains of our great poet, and had been such a staunch defender of the integrity of the old text, I could not bring myself to believe that he would indulge in a hoax which might lead to mischievous results. I am constrained, therefore, to imagine it possible that he has himself been made the victim of such a delusion by some "Puck* of a commentator," who finding a tattered copy of the second folio edition of Shakespeare's plays, which had belonged to some old player or person connected with the stage, containing erasures of those parts considered superfluous in representation, and numerous stage directions, grafted upon it all that he could glean from some edition or editions with notes, and added conjectures and

* The Poet Tieck, in his "Mittsommer Nacht," or Shakespeare's b

« AnteriorContinuar »