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

Collier's volumes, the obsolete and superseded labours of Dodsley and even Reed, seemed to be a waste of space which might be far more beneficially occupied by additional texts.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 on wrong data.
The Notes without any initial attached to them in the following pages, may be presumed to be from the pen of Isaac Reed, with the exception of a limited number, which were written by Dodsley himself,