A Select Collection of Old English Plays, vol 1 | Page 3

favourable auspices could reflect on any one else. It
was a long advance on anything which had been attempted so far in the
same direction; and to reproduce, in the face of Mr Collier's volumes,
the obsolete and superseded labours of Dodsley and even Reed, seemed
to be a waste of space which might be far more beneficially occupied
by additional texts.
As regards the orthography, it has to be pointed out that, in consonance
with the system adopted by Dyce and others, it has been reduced to our
modern standard; but at the same time it should be understood that the
language of the writers has in every case been held sacred. Than the
spelling which occurs in early plays and tracts, more especially perhaps
those of a popular character, nothing can well be more capricious and
uncouth; but the phraseology and terms are on all accounts of value.
Not a word, therefore, nor even part of a word, has suffered alteration;

and wherever there was a doubt, as there might be in preparing for the
press once more such an extensive collection of pieces, it was thought
better to err on the side of caution. Weever, the author of "Funeral
Monuments," retained with scrupulous exactitude the ancient spelling
ipsissimis verbis; and such a plan might be advisable and convenient
with sepulchral inscriptions or records; but in the matter before us what
an editor had principally, if not almost exclusively, to consider, was the
preservation in their fullest integrity of the language of the time and the
sense of the playwright.
The first and second editions of Dodsley's collection appear,
notwithstanding what is asserted to the contrary in Reed's preface, to
have been superintended with no very high degree of care, and the late
Mr Dyce, indeed, used to observe that the same criticism was
applicable to the edition of 1825. But the latter, with the fullest
admission of its defects, is certainly marked by great improvements on
its predecessors in more than one way. The labours of Hawkins[3] and
Dilke[4] reflect considerable honour upon those gentlemen.
It is almost superfluous to observe that the preceding editions, the last
and best not excepted, present a very large number of statements,
opinions, and readings, which more recent and more exact information
has shown to be erroneous. All these mistakes have been carefully
rectified, wherever the knowledge and experience of the editor enabled
him to detect them.[5]
A certain number of corruptions and obscurities remain, which it
passed the editor's ingenuity to eradicate or clear away. The printed
remains of our early drama have come down to us, for the most part, in
a sadly mutilated state, and the attempt to amend and restore the text to
its original purity will, it may be safely affirmed, never succeed more
than to a very imperfect extent. Even the late Mr Dyce's revised edition
of Shakespeare, 1868, abounds with misprints and other distortions of
the writer's sense; and we must abandon in some cases the hope of ever
arriving at the true readings. So it is with the miscellaneous assemblage
of dramatic productions here brought together. A great deal has been
done by a succession of editors to reduce the errors of the printer or

copyist to a minimum; but, after all, there are places where it would
require the assistance of the Sphinx to supply a chasm, or rectify a
palpable mistake.
The work, in its present state, should assuredly have some degree of
interest and worth; for it offers in one collected body the best
specimens of dramatic literature which the English language affords,
castigated and enriched by some of our best commentators and critics.
In these volumes, as now rearranged, it is trusted that very few
uncollected plays of real importance will be found wanting; but as an
enterprise of this kind can never amount to more than a selection, as it
purports to be, it appeared judicious, in making the choice, to give the
preference to such pieces as either illustrated the manners of the period,
or marked the gradual development of the dramatic art.
The only basis on which the present editor can rest, so far as he is
aware, the slightest claim to credit is the attention which he has
bestowed on the rearrangement of the collection as it now stands; the
conscientious and vigilant supervision of the whole matter here brought
together--prefaces, texts, and notes--and the correction of errors on the
part of his predecessors, occasioned by a variety of causes. In carrying
out even this unambitious programme, there was a fair share of labour
and difficulty, and, of course, it has involved the addition of a new crop
of notes scattered up and down the series, as well as the occasional
displacement of certain illustrative remarks founded