" But are we to believe them when they
assert that they present to us the plays which they reprinted from
stolen and surreptitious copies "cured and perfect of their limbs," and
those which are original in their edition "absolute in their numbers as
he [Shakspeare] conceived them"? Alas, we have read too many theatrical
announcements, have been taught too often that the value of the promise
was in an inverse ratio to the generosity of the exclamation-marks, too
easily to believe that! Nay, we have seen numberless processions of
healthy kine enter our native village unheralded save by the lusty
shouts of drovers, while a wretched calf, cursed by stepdame Nature with
two heads, was brought to us in a triumphal car, avant-couriered by
a band of music as abnormal as itself, and announced as the greatest
wonder of the age. If a double allowance of vituline brains deserve such
honor, there are few commentators on Shakspeare that would have gone
afoot, and the trumpets of Messieurs Heminge and Condell call up in our
minds too many monstrous and deformed associations.
What, then, is the value of the first folio as an authority? We are
inclined to think that Mr. Collier (for obvious reasons) underrates
it, and that Mr. White sometimes errs in the opposite direction. For
eighteen of the plays it is the only authority we have, and the only
one also for four others in their complete form. It is admitted that
in several instances Heminge and Condell reprinted the earlier quarto
impressions with a few changes, sometimes for the better and sometimes
for the worse; and it is most probable that copies of those editions
(whether surreptitious or not) had taken the place of the original
prompter's books, as being more convenient and legible.
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