The Works of Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher in Ten Volumes - Volume I | Page 2

these limits, and apart from mere variations in spelling and punctuation, every variation, whether deemed important or not, is recorded in the Appendixes to these volumes.
Of the 52 Plays in the Second Folio only 5 were published before the death of Beaumont and 9 before the death of Fletcher. The text has, therefore, given rise to a fruitful crop of conjectural emendations, but it has not been deemed a part of the editor's duty to garner them. Leaving these on one side, and desirous mainly of collecting every alternative reading in all the Quartos and in the two Folios, the text used in the preparation of the present edition, chosen after careful consideration, is that of the Second Folio, obvious printers' errors being corrected, recorded in the Appendix, and indicated in the text by the insertion of square brackets. This text is the latest with any pretence to authority, it includes all the plays, and it forms a convenient limit, beyond which no notice has been taken of alternative readings, and to which the variants, chronologically arranged from the earliest to the latest Quartos, can easily be referred. Some of the early Quartos no doubt offer better texts of some of the plays, especially in the matter of verse and prose arrangement, and had it been intended to print one text, and one text only, unaccompanied by a full apparatus of variorum readings, something might be said in favour of a choice among the Quartos and Folios, selecting here and there, in the case of each play, the particular text that seemed the best. But such choice could only be an extension of the eclectic method that has been rejected in dealing with alternative readings, it seemed to be equally unscientific, and, in view of the material in the Appendixes, needless.
In common with all the Quartos and the First Folio the Second Folio has failings, which will be noted in due course, but these have been exaggerated, and against them may be set the advantages detailed in the address of 'The Booksellers to the Reader,' reprinted on p. lx.
It has been thought that it would be useful to students to give lists of the different arrangements of prose and verse that obtain in the different quartos, and these will be found in the Appendix after the variants of each play.
The remaining volumes of this edition will follow as soon as can be arranged.

The Syndics of the University Press have asked me to complete the work begun by Arnold Glover. It was a work greatly to his mind: he spent much labour upon it, being always keenly interested in critical, textual and bibliographical work in English literature; he welcomed a return to his earlier studies among the Elizabethans after five years given to the works of one of their most discerning critics; but he did not live to see the publication of the first volume of his new work. When he died in the January of this year, the text of volumes one and two had been passed for press, the material accumulated for the Appendixes to those volumes and the draft of the above 'Note' partly written. With the assistance of Mrs Arnold Glover, who had helped him in the laborious work of collation, I have checked and arranged this editorial material for press. I hope I have not let any error escape me which he would have detected.
1. R. WALLER. CAMBRIDGE, 2 _August_, 1905.
CONTENTS
Epistle Dedicatorie to the First Folio
Ja. Shirley to the Reader (First Folio)
The Stationer to the Readers (First Folio)
Commendatory Verses (First Folio)
A Catalogue of all the Comedies and Tragedies (First Folio)
Title-page of the Second Folio
The Booksellers to the Reader (Second Folio)
A Catalogue of all the Comedies and Tragedies (Second Folio)
The Maids Tragedy
Philaster: or, Love lies a Bleeding
A King, and no King
The Scornful Lady, a Comedy
The Custom of the Country
Appendix
TO
THE RIGHT HONOURABLE
PHILIP
Earle of Pembroke and Mountgomery:
Baron Herbert of Cardiffe and Sherland,
Lord Parr and Ross of Kendall; Lord Fitz-Hugh,
Marmyon, and Saint Quintin; Knight of the most noble Order of the Garter; and one of His Majesties most Honourable Privie Councell: And our Singular Good Lord.
My Lord, _There is none among all the_ Names _of_ Honour, _that hath A more encouraged the_ Legitimate Muses _of this latter Age, then that which is owing to your_ Familie; _whose_ Coronet _shines bright with the native luster of its owne_ Jewels, _which with the accesse of some Beames of_ Sydney, _twisted with their_ Flame _presents a_ Constellation, _from whose_ Influence _all good may be still expected upon Witt and Learning_.
_At this_ Truth _we rejoyce, but yet aloofe, and in our owne valley, for we dare not approach with any capacity in our selves to apply your Smile, since wee have only preserved as_ Trustees _to the_ Ashes _of the Authors, what wee exhibit to