BOUGHT WITH THE INCOME 
 FROM THE 
 
 SAGE ENDOWMENT FUND 
 
 THE GIFT OF 
 
 Henrg M, Sage 
 
 1891 
 
 .A..;^.3JL.)^.f^..%. ,..^l./^...o.T. 
 
 9963 
 
Cornell University Library 
 Z8811 .L48 
 
 Four quarto editions of plavs by Shaicesp 
 
 oiin 
 
 3 1924 029 645 441 
 
Cornell University 
 Library 
 
 The original of tliis book is in 
 tine Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924029645441 
 
THE MERCHANT OF VENICE, 1600. 
 
 A MIDSUMMER NIGHTS DREAM, 1600. 
 
 KING LEAR, 1608. 
 
 THE MERRY WIVES OF WINDSdRl'^idig. 
 
K^ana^'ll 
 
FACE. 
 
 Prefatory Note ... ... ... 5 
 
 I. The Merchant of Venice (1600) ... 15 
 
 II. A Midsummer Night's Dream (1600) 29 
 
 III. King Lear (1608) ... ... 41 
 
 IV. The Merry Wives of Windsor (1619) 55 
 
 ILLUSTRATIONS IN FAC-SIMILE. 
 
 Title-page of The Merchant of Venice 
 
 (1600) 17 
 
 Title-page of A Midsummer Night's Dream 
 
 (1600) 31 
 
 The 'Jester' Bookplate of Frederick 
 
 Locker- Lampson 33 
 
 Title-page of King Lear (1608) ... 43 
 
 Title-page of The Merry Wives of Windsor 
 
 (1619) 57 
 
PREFATORY NOTE. 
 
 jNLY sixteen of the thirty - seven 
 plays which can be safely assigned 
 to Shakespeare's pen, were printed 
 and published before his death at 
 Stratford-upon-Avon on 23 April, 1616. A 
 seventeenth play, Othello, appeared separately 
 in 1622. In 1623, seven years after his death, 
 Shakespeare's dramas were for the first time 
 collected together in a single volume which is 
 known as the First Folio. A perfect copy of 
 that volume of nine -hundred -and -eight folio 
 pages has been since 1897 in the Birthplace 
 Library. The First Folio included sixteen 
 plays, which had already been issued in separ- 
 ate quarto editions, along with as many as 
 twenty plays by Shakespeare — more than half 
 the whole of his dramatic work — which had 
 never been in print before. The play of 
 Pericles was the only Shakespearean piece 
 which had been published in quarto in Shake- 
 speare's lifetime that was omitted from the 
 
6 SHAKESPEARE QUARTOS. 
 
 First Folio ; Pericles was first associated with 
 Shakespeare's collected works in an appendix 
 to the Third Folio (of 1664). 
 
 The separate quarto editions of the seventeen 
 plays by Shakespeare, which were printed in his 
 lifetime or before the issue of the First Folio, 
 form, in the absence of his manuscripts, the 
 most interesting and the most valuable personal 
 memorials of his work which are now accessible. 
 The conditions, in which plays were at the time 
 supplied by dramatists to the theatre, render it 
 improbable that Shakespeare was himself 
 responsible for the publication of these quartos. 
 There can be small doubt that they were 
 publisher's ventures which were undertaken 
 independently of his control or wish. They 
 differ very greatly in textual accuracy and 
 authority. Some follow the author's manu- 
 script or at any rate the theatrical managers' 
 unabridged 'copy' in much the form that the 
 author had forwarded it to the play-house ; 
 others present a version abbreviated by the 
 acting -manager for the purposes of the play- 
 house ; while a few are mere shorthand reporters' 
 notes, which were taken by a speculative auditor 
 
PREFATORY NOTE. 
 
 during the progress of the performance. Yet 
 despite their varying origins and textual values, 
 the contemporary quarto editions of Shake- 
 speare's dramas were cherished in his lifetime 
 by his friends and admirers. Several of them 
 were re-issued many times, and won in literary 
 circles the regard which Shakespeare's genius 
 rendered due to them. Notwithstanding typo- 
 graphical defects and suspicions attaching to 
 the manuscripts on which the printers worked, 
 the quartos are of the first importance to the 
 student alike of Shakespeare's text and of the 
 literary history of the country. They deserve 
 pious preservation as mementoes of his literary 
 achievement, and bring modern readers into 
 the closest association which is now possible 
 with the dramatist's professional career. 
 
 Copies of the early quarto editions of Shake- 
 speare are very rare. They are much sought 
 after by collectors in both the United Kingdom 
 and America, and the competition makes them 
 more costly every year. In Shakespeare's day 
 these separate issues of his plays, stitched 
 together in paper covers, cost sixpence apiece. 
 Money went much farther then than now, and 
 
8 SHAKESPEARE QUARTOS. 
 
 the prices of commodities in all directions were 
 much lower. Probably sixpence in the sixteenth 
 or early seventeenth century possessed the pur- 
 chasing power which now attaches to three- 
 shillings-and-sixpence or four-shillings. 
 
 The present value of the early quarto editions 
 of Shakespeare's plays varies greatly. It is 
 determined, in the first place, by the number of 
 copies of each issue which is known to be 
 extant, and, in the second place, by material 
 conditions, not merely of completeness, but 
 also of cleanliness and freedom from marks 
 of age or rough usage. In some cases thirty 
 copies of an early quarto are known to be now 
 in existence ; in other cases not more than 
 three or two copies, or even one copy. A 
 stained or imperfect exemplar of the commoner 
 issues may fetch no more than ;^ioo, but a 
 spotless and perfect exemplar will usually cost 
 between ;^400 and ;^5oo. Clean and perfect 
 copies of the rarer issues have not fallen of 
 late far below ;^2,ooo. 
 
 It is worth the bibliographer's notice that the 
 four Shakespearean quartos which are described 
 in this pamphlet are sometimes met bound 
 
PREFATORY NOTE. 9 
 
 together, with early quarto editions of five other 
 plays, in a plain brown calf cover dating from 
 early in the seventeenth century. The other 
 contents of this old bound volume are invariably 
 Henry V. (1608), Pericles (16 19), and The 
 Whole Contention between the two famous 
 Houses Lancaster and Yorke (1619) — an early 
 draft of the second and third parts of Henry 
 VI. — as well as two quarto plays from other 
 pens which were wrongly assigned to Shake- 
 speare in his lifetime, viz., Sir John Oldcastle 
 (1600) and A Yorkshire Tragedie (1619). 
 Of these five pieces the Trustees have possessed 
 for many years a copy of the pseudo-Shake- 
 spearean Sir John Oldcastle (1600). This and 
 the four plays, additional to the Trustees' four 
 recent acquisitions, were prepared for publication 
 from time to time between 1600 and 16 19 by 
 a trader in books, who was none too scrupulous, 
 Thomas Pavier. 
 
 The ingenious theory has been broached 
 that all these editions of the nine plays sold 
 slowly, and that about 1622 Pavier bound up 
 in single volumes the unsold copies of these 
 Shakespearean quartos which hung heavy on 
 
lO SHAKESPEARE QUARTOS. 
 
 his hands. The great design of the First FoHo 
 of 1623 was then nearing fulfilment, and Pavier 
 may have feared that that imposing venture 
 might hinder effectually his further sale of 
 separate quartos. The Trustees' newly acquired 
 copies of The Merchant of Venice (1600) and 
 King Lear [160?)) undoubtedly long formed part 
 of a bound volume, bringing together the nine 
 quartos in question, which was broken up in 
 1906 for purposes of sale. It may well be that 
 the Trustees' newly acquired copies of A Mid- 
 summer Night's Dream, (1600) and of The 
 Merry Wives (16 19) at one time belonged to 
 the same or a like collection.^ 
 
 In accordance with the purposes of the Trust, 
 the Trustees are endeavouring to secure exem- 
 plars of all quarto editions of Shakespeare's 
 plays which were published before the date of 
 the great First Folio collection in 1623. The 
 difficulties of the quest are many. Volumes 
 of the kind come fitfully into the market. 
 American zeal will not easily suffer itself to be 
 outmatched. But the notable fact that four of 
 
 I See an interesting article by Mr. A. W. Pollard, called 'Shakespeare 
 in the Remainder Market,' in The Academy, 2 June, 1906. 
 
PREFATORY NOTE. II 
 
 these highly prized volumes have been acquired 
 by the Trustees in the course of the past two 
 years, gives ground for hope that their aim 
 may in due time be fully realized. That 
 sanguine anticipation gains weight from the 
 circumstance that the latest pair of quartos, 
 which the Trustees have secured, has passed 
 to them from American ownership. These two 
 volumes were, on the dispersal three years ago 
 of the choice library of a notable English col- 
 lector, the late Frederick Locker - Lampson, 
 purchased by an American connoisseur. The 
 Trustees acquired them for the use in perpetuity 
 of the British public, after they had made a 
 return voyage across the Atlantic ocean to run 
 anew the gauntlet of a London sale-room. 
 
 Before the acquisition of the four quartos here 
 described, the original Shakespearean quartos 
 were only represented in the Birthplace Library 
 by an inferior and imperfect copy of The Mer- 
 chant of Venice (1600), which the Trustees 
 purchased in 1867 for ;!^ioo. The edition was 
 the same as that of their newly acquired perfect 
 copy, but the old copy lacked two leaves (signa- 
 tures Ci and C4). The Birthplace Library also 
 
12 SHAKESPEARE QUARTOS. 
 
 contained a perfect exemplar of the far less 
 interesting 1637 quarto of The Merchant of 
 Venice, as well as a single leaf from the second 
 quarto edition of Venus and Adonis {1594), 
 and two leaves from the first quarto edition of 
 The Merry Wives of Windsor (1602). Of the 
 plays wrongly assigned to Shakespeare's author- 
 ship in his lifetime, the Trustees have long 
 owned a perfect copy in quarto of Sir John 
 Oldcastle (1600), and an imperfect copy in quarto 
 (the second leaf is missing) of The Puritaine 
 (1607). To this slender catalogue of Shake- 
 speareana of the poet's lifetime, the new 
 acquisitions make an auspicious addition. 
 
 All the fac-similes which appear in the follow- 
 ing pages are of the precise size of the originals. 
 They have been prepared from photographs by 
 Mr. L. C. Keighly-Peach, of Alderminster. 
 
 Thanks are due to Mr. Godfrey Locker- 
 Lampson for permission to reproduce the inter- 
 esting 'Jester' bookplate of his father, the late 
 Frederick Locker- Lampson, which adorns the 
 Trustees' copy of ^ Midsummer Night' s Dream 
 ( 1 600). 
 
PREFATORY NOTE. 1 3 
 
 For the technical descriptions of the volumes 
 the Trustees are indebted to their Secretary 
 and Librarian, Mr. Richard Savage, who has 
 rendered much other assistance in the pre- 
 paration of this pamphlet. 
 
 Sidney Lee, 
 Chairman of the Executive Committee. 
 
 February 2gth, igo8. 
 
I. 
 
 THE MERCHANT OF VENICE (1600). 
 
 Description of the Copy. This copy, 
 which is one of the freshest known, has 
 undergone neither repair nor restoration, and 
 shows few signs of age. It measures 7^ 
 inches by 5^ inches. The leaves number forty, 
 and the printer's signatures run from A to K 
 in sheets of four leaves each. 
 
 The copy was bought by the Trustees, with- 
 out binding, in October, 1906, when it was 
 bound for them in red morocco by Messrs. 
 Riviere and Son, of London. 
 
 History of the Copy. This copy, like that 
 of King Lear, which is described below, formed 
 part of a bound volume, containing those nine 
 plays, which are enumerated in the prefatory 
 note to this pamphlet. The bound volume had 
 been, apparently for some two centuries, in the 
 possession of the family of Mr. Edward Windsor 
 Hussey, of Scotney Castle, Lamberhurst, Kent. 
 Mr. Hussey divided the volume into its com- 
 ponent parts and sold the nine plays in separate 
 lots at Sotheby's sale-rooms in London on 
 
 15 
 
1 6 SHAKESPEARE QUARTOS. 
 
 26 May, 1906. The discarded binding of the 
 collective volume could hardly be dated earlier 
 than the middle of the eighteenth century. 
 But it would seem to have then taken the place 
 of a cover some hundred and thirty years 
 older. Mr. Hussey's copies of The Merchant 
 of Venice and King Lear, both of which now 
 belong to the Trustees, were purchased at his 
 sale by Mr. Bernard Quaritch, and the latter 
 disposed of them to the Trustees in the follow- 
 ing autumn. 
 
 General Bibliographical Note. James 
 Roberts, the printer of this volume, was, at the 
 date of its publication, one of the most prominent 
 and oldest of London printers. He had taken 
 up the freedom of the Stationers' Company as 
 early as 27 June, 1564, two months after Shake- 
 speare's birth. Admitted to the livery of the 
 company in 1596, he did not retire from the 
 active exercise of his craft till 161 5 (within a 
 year of Shakespeare's death), when he was well 
 past seventy years of age. His period of 
 greatest prosperity began in 1594, when he 
 succeeded (after the death of the proprietor, 
 John Charlewood) to an important printing and 
 
EXCE^LLENT 
 
 Hiftory of the Mcr- 
 
 chant 0/ Feme, 
 With the extreme cmdtyofShjloc^ 
 
 thelew towards the faide Merchant,in cus- 
 
 tiiigAm!ffo»tidefhisjUJb. Aifdtbee&smhfg 
 
 oi Portia, by the cfaoyfe of 
 
 three C'f'l^s* 
 
 WritcenbyW.SHARs SPEARS. 
 
 Printed by f « '^berts flSoO* 
 
 TITLE-PAGE OF THE 'ROBERTS' QUARTO EDITION OF 'THE MERCHANT 
 
MERCHANT OF VENICE. 1 9 
 
 publishing business of old standing, at the sign 
 of the Half Eagle and Key, in the Barbican, in 
 the City of London. Among Charlewood's 
 most interesting business assets had been the 
 right of printing the ' billes for plaies, ' z'.^., 
 the theatrical programmes, for visitors to the 
 London play-houses. This privilege Roberts 
 acquired, and he exercised it for 21 years — 
 from 1594 until 16 15. Thus from his press 
 came the programmes of nearly all the first 
 representations of Shakespeare's plays. 
 
 Roberts is not only an important actor 
 personally in the history of the publication of 
 Shakespeare's work. He is memorable also 
 as the founder of a line of Shakespearean 
 publishers. 
 
 In 1608 Roberts seems to have sought the 
 services of a working partner in his printing 
 office. His choice fell on William Jaggard, a 
 publisher, who had hitherto been destitute of a 
 press of his own. Jaggard was destined to play 
 a more important part than Roberts himself in 
 the production of Shakespeare's writings. On 
 29 October, 161 5, when Roberts was finally 
 
20 SHAKESPEARE QUARTOS. 
 
 retiring from business, he made over to Jaggard 
 his right in the theatrical programmes, and, 
 after Roberts passed altogether from the scene, 
 Jaggard was chief promoter of the great joint- 
 stock enterprise of the First Folio. He would 
 appear to have printed that noble volume for 
 a syndicate of booksellers at Roberts's well- 
 seasoned press in the Barbican. Moreover, 
 Jaggard's immediate successor in business, 
 Thomas Cotes, a descendant (professionally) 
 of Roberts in the second generation, was the 
 responsible projector of the Second Folio of 
 1632. 
 
 It was The Merchant of Venice which first 
 brought Roberts into relation with Shake- 
 speare's work. The play seems to have been 
 first produced on the stage in the autumn of 
 1594, the year in which Roberts began to print 
 the play-bills, but the piece clearly underwent 
 revision on its frequent revivals between that 
 date and the end of the century. On 22 July, 
 1598, long before the comedy had exhausted 
 its popularity on the stage, Roberts obtained a 
 license from the Stationers' Company to print 
 and publish 'A booke of the Merchaunt of 
 
MERCHANT OF VENICE. 21 
 
 Venyse, otherwise called the J ewe of Venyse,' 
 provided that leave for the publication was 
 obtained from the Lord Chamberlain. 
 
 The Lord Chamberlain, it should be observed, 
 was not yet the official censor of plays. At 
 this period the holder of the office of Lord 
 Chamberlain was George Carey, second Lord 
 Hunsdon, but his official place at Court did not 
 in itself entitle him either to authorize or to 
 prohibit the publication of plays. He happened, 
 however, to be not only Lord Chamberlain, 
 but also patron, like his father before him and 
 King James L after him, of the company of 
 actors to which Shakespeare belonged. In 
 this capacity, Lord Chamberlain Hunsdon's 
 chief function was that of granting to players, 
 who accepted his patronage, licenses which gave 
 them a legal status of respectability and relieved 
 them of all imputation of vagabondage. The 
 patron exercised, too, a general supervision over 
 his players' interests. ' The Lord Chamber- 
 lain his Servants,' was, for the time being, the 
 formal designation of the company of actors 
 which had produced The Merchant of Venice, 
 and acquired rights in the piece. The 
 
2 2 SHAKESPEARE QUARTOS. 
 
 Stationers' Company, when they issued a 
 conditional license for the printing of the 
 play, showed a creditable reluctance, which was 
 by no means habitual with them, to sanction 
 the publication before those who owned the 
 acting rights had notified through their patron 
 their approval of the step. 
 
 It would appear that negotiations with the 
 Lord Chamberlain and his ' servants ' caused 
 some twenty months' delay in turning the 
 license to practical account. In any case 
 Roberts first printed and published an edition 
 of The Merchant of Venice in 1600. A copy 
 of that edition is here under our notice. The 
 manuscript which Roberts followed doubtless 
 came in this instance from the library of the 
 theatrical company of which Shakespeare was 
 a member, and was a fair, if not an altogether 
 perfect, transcript of the author's work. 
 
 In order to complete the bibliographical 
 history of the first publication of The Merchant 
 of Venice, it is needful to note that on 28 Octo- 
 ber, 1600, very soon after Roberts' edition was 
 ready for sale, he transferred his right as 
 
MERCHANT OF VENICE. 23 
 
 publisher of the play to another bookseller, 
 Thomas Hayes, or Heyes. Hayes was just 
 beginning a bookselling and publishing (not a 
 printing) business at the sign of the Green 
 Dragon in St. Paul's Churchyard, and his 
 career was cut short by death three years 
 later. In circumstances that are difficult to 
 explain, Roberts printed for Hayes, also in 
 1600, a new or second edition of The Merchant 
 of Venice with fresh type, from a transcript 
 differing in minute particulars from his own 
 published ' copy.' The title-page of Hayes's 
 quarto shows slight variation from that of the 
 first edition for which Roberts was exclusively 
 responsible. It runs as follows : — 
 
 'The most excellent/ Historie of the Mer- 
 chant! of Venice. / With the extreame crueltie of 
 Shylocke the lewe/ towards the sayd Merchant, 
 in cutting a iust pound / of his flesh : and the 
 obtayning of Portia / by the choyse of three / 
 chests. / As it hath beene diuers times acted by 
 the Lord j Chamberlaine his Seruants.j Written 
 by William Shakespeare. / At London, / 
 Printed by I.R. [z.^., James Roberts] for Thomas 
 Heyes, / and are to be sold in Paules Church- 
 yard, at the/ signe of the Greene Dragon./ 1600.' 
 
24 SHAKESPEARE QUARTOS. 
 
 The Hayes (or Heyes) 'second' quarto was 
 reproduced in the First Folio. 
 
 The printer's device, which figures on the 
 title-page of Roberts's 'first' edition of The 
 Merchant of Venice, is mainly floral. The 
 central feature is a large carnation, from the 
 lower stem of which spring on one side a 
 small rose, and on the other a small primrose. 
 The flowers are enclosed in a scrolled border, 
 ornamented at two of the corners with small 
 roses, and at the other two corners with small 
 sprigs of rose leaves. The band encircling the 
 floral device has the motto heb. ddim. heb. 
 DDiEV. These words are Welsh, and the last 
 is commonly written dduw. Armorial bearings 
 (of a different pattern), which are still used by 
 at least two Welsh families, carry the same 
 motto. The literal meaning of the phrase is 
 'Without anything, without God.' The legend 
 is an affirmation that 'To lack God, is to lack 
 all,' or 'Without God one has nothing.' 
 
 This printer's mark was not of Roberts's 
 invention. It was first used by a well estab- 
 lished London printer of Welsh origin, Richard 
 Jones, who began business at the same date as 
 
MERCHANT OF VENICE. 25 
 
 Roberts, in 1564, and was on the point of 
 retiring when Roberts undertook the publication 
 of The Merchant of Venice in 1600. The floral 
 device with the Welsh motto appears on the 
 title-pages of many of Jones's publications of a 
 date far earlier than that of Shakespeare's 
 play. Roberts's adoption of it suggests that 
 he, like Jones, was of Welsh nationality. 
 
 Roberts used more devices and mottoes than 
 one ; he introduced an heraldic shield of quite 
 another type in the Trustees' copy of A Mid- 
 summer Night's Dream, which he printed in 
 the same year as The Merchant of Venice; while 
 a plain linear ornament figures on the title- 
 page of that ' second ' edition of The Merchant 
 of Venice, which he printed for Thomas Hayes, 
 also in 1600. But he seems to have acknow- 
 ledged some special interest in his device with 
 the Welsh legend. The descent of the device 
 can be traced through a generation of printers, 
 who stood professionally in filial relation to 
 Roberts. It passed with his press to his 
 successors, and is frequently found in later 
 volumes, which were printed at his workshop 
 in the Barbican during the early years of the 
 
26 SHAKESPEARE QUARTOS. 
 
 seventeenth century. The printer's floral mark 
 with the Welsh words reappears on the title- 
 pages of the Trustees' copies of the pseudo- 
 Shakespearean play of Sir John Oldcastle 
 (1600), o{ King Lear {\6o2>), and of The Merry 
 Wives of Windsor (1619). 
 
 The two last of these three pieces are 
 described below. They lack the printer's 
 names, but were probably printed by Roberts's 
 partner and successor Jaggard, for the book- 
 sellers Nathaniel Butter and Arthur Johnson, 
 who owned the copyrights respectively, and 
 undertook the publication. Sir John Oldcastle 
 (1600), also lacks a printer's name, but it was 
 obviously printed by Roberts himself for 'T.P.' 
 (i.e., Thomas Pavier, the bookseller). Further- 
 more, the device with the Welsh legend is 
 found in two late editions of Pericles — of 1619 
 and 1635. The former of these was published 
 by 'T.P.' {i.e., Thomas Pavier) and fails to 
 indicate the printer, but it was probably once 
 again printed by Jaggard, while the Pericles 
 of 1635 was avowedly both printed and pub- 
 lished by Jaggard's successor, Thomas Cotes, 
 the influential printer of the Shakespeare 
 
MERCHANT OF VENICE. 27 
 
 Second Folio of 1632. Thus the floral device 
 with its Welsh motto is closely identified with 
 Shakespearean quartos throughout the most 
 important period of their history. 
 
 At the end of Roberts's edition of The 
 Merchant of Venice, he has introduced a 
 conventional vignette tailpiece — a helmeted 
 woman's face flanked by two horns of abun- 
 dance, or cornucopias. This ornament figures 
 again at the end of the Trustees' copy of A 
 Midsummer Night's Dream (1600). 
 
II. 
 
 A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM 
 (1600). 
 
 Description of the Copy. This copy, 
 which measures 7^ inches by 5^^ inches, has 
 thirty-two leaves. The printer's signatures run 
 from A to H in sheets of four leaves each. The 
 plain top and the bottom corner of the title-page 
 and of the next two leaves are very slightly 
 mended. The fore-margin of the fourth leaf has 
 been restored, and a tear of two-and-a-half inches 
 at the top corner of the seventh leaf has been 
 joined. The plain top corner of the twenty- 
 first leaf has been very slightly mended. 
 
 The volume is bound in red morocco by 
 Francis Bedford, a London bookbinder of high 
 repute (1799- 1883). 
 
 History of the Copy. This copy, like The 
 Merry Wives of Windsor described below, was 
 long in the choice library of Frederick Locker, 
 afterwards Locker- Lampson, the poet of the 
 ' London Lyrics,' who was born on 29 May, 
 182 1, and died on 30 May, 1895. He was a 
 
 29 
 
30 SHAKESPEARE QUARTOS. 
 
 critical collector of books throughout his adult 
 life. From 1874 till his death he resided at 
 Rowfant, near Crawley, Sussex. In 1886 he 
 privately printed a catalogue of his Rowfant 
 Library, in which entry is duly made of the 
 Trustees' copies of both A Midsummer Night's 
 Dream (1600) and The Merry Wives of 
 Windsor (16 19). Mr. Locker- Lampson opens 
 his preface to his catalogue of the Rowfant 
 Library with a reflection, with which all men of 
 cultivation will sympathise : ' It is a good thing 
 to read books, and it need not be a bad thing 
 to write them. But it is a pious thing to 
 preserve those that have been sometime 
 written.' 
 
 'The Rowfant Library,' writes Mr. Augustine 
 Birrell, Mr. Locker - Lampson's son - in - law, 
 ' began with rare little volumes of poetry and 
 the drama, published from about 1590 till 1610.' 
 The Trustees' volumes may therefore be 
 reckoned among Mr. Locker Lampson's 
 earliest bibliographical treasures. Mr. Locker- 
 Lampson's friend, Mr. Andrew Lang, addressed 
 to him a poem on the Rowfant Library, which 
 contains these pertinent lines : — 
 
A 
 
 Midfommer nights 
 dreame. 
 
 As it hath beene fundry times pub- 
 
 lihly aBedy by the %ight Honour a^ 
 
 ble, the Lord Chamberlaine his 
 
 VVriittn hy VVillim ShaJ^e/peare. 
 
 Trinted by lames "Roberts, l600. 
 
 riTiip.P.r.it riF THK 'ROBERTS' OUARTO EDITION OF 'A MIDSUMMER 
 
 ' )■ 
 
A MIDSUMMER NIGHT S DREAM. 
 
 33 
 
 But when the skies of shorter days 
 Are dark, and all the ways are mire, 
 
 How bright upon your books the blaze 
 Gleams from the cheerful study fire, 
 
 On quartos where our fathers read, 
 
 Enthralled, the Book of Shakespeare^ s plays. 
 
 This quarto of A Midsummer Night's Dream 
 contains Mr. Locker- Lampson's favourite book- 
 plate of the 'Jester,' which is reproduced below, 
 
 THE 'jester' bookplate OF THE LATE FREDERICK 
 LOCKER-LAMPSON. 
 
34 SHAKESPEARE QUARTOS. 
 
 and forms an interesting memento of the book's 
 association with its accomplished owner and 
 with its earlier home at Rowfant. The designer 
 of the plate was Henry Stacy Marks (1829 - 
 1 898), the distinguished artist and academician. 
 His initials ' H.S.M.' appear in the lower left- 
 hand corner. 
 
 The Trustees' copies of A Midsummer 
 Night's Dream, and of The Merry Wives of 
 Windsor, were sold, with the rest of the Rowfant 
 Library, early in 1905, nearly ten years after 
 Mr. Locker-Lampson's death, to Messrs. Dodd, 
 Mead and Co., booksellers, of New York. A 
 number of the books, including the Trustees' 
 two quartos, soon afterwards passed to a 
 private American collector, Mr. William C. 
 Van Antwerp, of New York. Subsequently 
 on March 22 and 23, 1907, Mr. Van Antwerp 
 dispersed his fine library of English books at 
 Sotheby's sale-rooms in London. The two 
 quartos were purchased at the Van Antwerp 
 sale by Mr. Bernard Quaritch, of whom the 
 Trustees acquired them in January, 1908. 
 
 General Bibliographical Note. James 
 Roberts, the printer of this quarto, was also the 
 
A MIDSUMMER NIGHT's DREAM. 35 
 
 printer of the quarto of The Merchant of Venice 
 (1600), which has been described above. A 
 sufficient account of him is given under that 
 heading. The device with the Welsh motto 
 which Roberts employed in his edition of The 
 Merchant of Venice was rejected in his edition 
 of A Midsummer Night's Dream. The 
 title-page of this volume is decorated with a 
 heraldic shield in a circular band. The shield 
 is divided into two compartments, of which one 
 is occupied by half an eagle {the imperial bird 
 being in heraldic language ' dimidiated '), and 
 the other compartment by a key. The encir- 
 cling band bears as legend a well-worn Latin 
 proverb, 'Post tenebras lux' ('After darkness 
 light '). 
 
 The heraldic device of the half-eagle and key 
 forms, with the motto, the arms of the canton 
 and city of Geneva. They were first adopted 
 in this country as a printer's mark by Rowland 
 Hall, an early predecessor of Roberts in the 
 trade. Hall, a zealous Protestant, was driven 
 by religious persecution to transfer his press 
 from London to Geneva during Queen Mary's 
 reign. On re-settling in London, after the 
 
36 SHAKESPEARE QUARTOS. 
 
 accession of Queen Elizabeth in 1558, he put 
 up the arms of his Swiss city of refuge over 
 the shop which he occupied in Gutter Lane, 
 Cheapside, and engraved the heraldic device 
 and motto on his title-pages. The Genevan 
 motto, ' Post tenebras lux,' appropriately cele- 
 brated his own and his country's preservation 
 from what he deemed the darkness of Catho- 
 licism, and a safe entry into the spiritual light 
 of Protestantism. 
 
 Shortly after Hall's death in 1563, a younger 
 printer, John Charlewood, adopted Hall's sign 
 of the half-eagle and key, putting it up over 
 those premises in the Barbican, which thirty 
 years later passed into Roberts's tenancy. It 
 is thus as Charlewood's successor that Roberts, 
 on the opening page of his edition of A Mid- 
 summer Night's Dream, engraved the arms and 
 motto of the city of Geneva, and linked the 
 book somewhat irrelevantly with the history 
 of Switzerland and English Protestantism. 
 
 The vignette tailpiece at the end of this 
 volume is identical with that which its printer 
 Roberts used in his ' first ' edition of The 
 Merchant of Venice. 
 
A MIDSUMMER NIGHT's DREAM. 37 
 
 The play of A Midsummer Night's Dream is 
 said on the title - page to have been ' sundry 
 times publicly acted,' by ' the Lord Chamber- 
 lain his servants.' The latter words, as we have 
 already seen, designated at the time the com- 
 pany of actors, of which Shakespeare was a 
 prominent member and of which the Lord 
 Chamberlain of the day, George Carey, second 
 Lord Hunsdon, was patron. On the death of 
 Queen Elizabeth this company was taken into 
 the patronage of her successor King James I., 
 and became 'his Majesty's servants.' Under 
 that title the company figures in 1608 on the 
 title-page of the quarto of King Lear (noticed 
 below). 
 
 A Midsummer Night's Dream was probably 
 first produced by Shakespeare's company in the 
 winter season of 1595, perhaps to celebrate a 
 marriage in a nobleman's family. As in the 
 case of The Merchant of Venice, several years 
 elapsed before the piece was sent to press. It 
 was not published until 1600, when a very 
 accurate playhouse transcript — perhaps in the 
 author's own handwriting — reached the press. 
 Once again, as in the case of The Merchant, 
 
38 SHAKESPEARE QUARTOS. 
 
 there appeared two editions, differing from one 
 another in textual details. 
 
 The copyright of A Midsummer NigMs 
 Dream., with the consequent license for its 
 publication, was granted by the Stationers' 
 Company, not to Roberts the printer, but to 
 Thomas Fisher, a bookseller solely, who re- 
 ceived the formal permission to publish it on 
 8 October, 1600. Fisher had only been made 
 free of the Stationers' Company in the previous 
 June, and he remained in the bookselling 
 business for less than two years, during which 
 time he occupied a shop at the sign of the 
 White Hart in Fleet Street. The quarto 
 edition of A Midsummer Night's Dream, with 
 which his name is associated, bears the date 
 1600. The title-page runs : 
 
 'A / Midsommer nights / dreame. / As it hath 
 beene fundry times pub- / lickely acted, by the 
 Right Honour a- 1 ble, the Lord Chamberlaine 
 his / servants. / Written by William Shake- 
 speare. / Imprinted at London, for Thomas 
 Fisher, and are to / be soulde at his shoppe, at 
 the Signe of the White Hart,/ in Fleetestreete, 
 1600.' 
 
A MIDSUMMER NIGHT's DREAM. 39 
 
 Fisher's impression was the ' first ' quarto 
 edition of A Midsummer Night's Dream. It 
 possibly came from Roberts's press, although no 
 printer's name is mentioned. But hardly had 
 this volume been placed on the market than 
 Roberts reprinted it with many typographical 
 emendations. The reissue bears on the title- 
 page Roberts's sole name. All mention of 
 Fisher has disappeared. Roberts's ' second ' 
 impression was clearly a reprint of that bearing 
 Fisher's imprint. No recourse was had to a 
 manuscript. It is a copy of Roberts's 'second' 
 edition which the Trustees have now acquired. 
 Its text was adopted by the editors of the 
 First Folio. 
 
 Fisher's standing in the trade was slight and 
 insignificant compared with that of the veteran 
 Roberts, and it is very likely that Roberts was, 
 in some manner that is unexplained, the prime 
 mover of both the 1 600 quartos of A Midsummer 
 Nights Dream. At any rate the struggling 
 bookseller surrendered to the well-established 
 printer all his rights in the venture, when it had 
 barely passed its infancy. 
 
40 SHAKESPEARE QUARTOS. 
 
 The description of the play on the title-pages 
 of the two editions is identical ; only the orna- 
 mental head lines, the devices with their 
 mottoes, and die imprints differ. Fisher's title- 
 page is adorned by a device of rectangular 
 shape with a wide scroll - work border, which 
 is elaborately pictorial, and possibly embodies 
 a pun on his name. On an expanse of sea, 
 with land and houses in the background, and 
 sun, moon and stars in the sky overhead, broods 
 a large kingfisher; beneath the bird appears the 
 word 'Alcione,' by which is intended the Greek 
 word for kingfisher, commonly anglicized in 
 the corrupt form of 'halcyon.' The bird carries 
 a fish in its beak, from which proceeds a scroll 
 inscribed ' motos soleo componere fluctus. ' 
 ('I am wont to allay the raging waves'). The 
 design illustrates the kingfisher's fabled power 
 of allaying storms at sea. 
 
III. 
 
 KING LEAR (1608). 
 
 Description of the Copy. This copy is 
 quite perfect, and has undergone neither repair 
 nor restoration. Early in its career a reader 
 carelessly blotted the upper edge of the title- 
 page, and also scribbled in the space above 
 the printer's device the words ' Globe on the 
 Banck side,' and on the back of the title-page 
 the words ' Dramatis Personae / King Lear / 
 Albany/ France./ ' In the margin of the front 
 of the seventh leaf, the same foolish hand has 
 penned the word, ' Auricular.' Happily the 
 mischievous pen has done no more serious 
 damage. 
 
 The leaves number forty-four. The measure- 
 ments are 7^ inches by 5-J inches. The 
 printer's signatures run from A to L in sheets 
 of four leaves each. 
 
 The copy was purchased by the Trustees 
 without binding in October, 1906, and was 
 bound for them in red morocco by Messrs. 
 Riviere and Son. 
 
 41 
 
42 SHAKESPEARE QUARTOS. 
 
 History of the Copy. This copy belonged 
 to Mr. E. W. Hussey, of Scotney Castle, 
 Lamberhurst, Kent, and all that is known of 
 its recent history is identical with that of Mr. 
 Hussey 's copy of The Merchant of Venice, 
 which was acquired by the Trustees at the 
 same time in 1906. The historical details 
 have been already given here under the 
 heading of the other play. 
 
 General Bibliographical Note. Shake- 
 speare's great tragedy of King Lear was 
 probably completed by him in the course of the 
 year 1606, when he was in his forty-third year. 
 It reached the printer's hands in the following 
 year, and was first published in 1608. 
 
 On 26 November, 1607, the Stationers' Com- 
 pany granted a license for its publication to 
 two London booksellers conjointly, Nathaniel 
 Butter and John Busby. John Busby, whose 
 connection with the transaction does not extend 
 beyond the mention of his name in the entry in 
 the Stationers' Register, was five years before 
 as elusively and as mysteriously associated 
 with the first edition of The Merry Wives of 
 
M. William Shake-fpeareJ 
 
 HIS 
 
 True Chronicle Hiftpry of the life 
 and death of King Lff^tr, and Ki^ - - 
 three Dmghters, 
 
 Jfith the vnfortmateli/e o/ZEdg ar, 
 
 fonne and heire £o the Earle of Glocejler, and 
 
 hisfttUen and ajfamed hit/mar ^T O M 
 
 of Bedlam. 
 
 » 
 
 . 4s if TV i^ plaid before the Kingj Miueffy at White-Hdll, vf' 
 f9n S, Stepbem night Ja CmBmas HolUd^f^ 
 
 By his Maladies SeroiA^, pl«fuig vfually at the ' 
 
 Printed for !^(athaniel Gutter* 
 1608. 
 
 TITLE-PAGE OF BUTTER'S 'SECOND' QUARTO EDITION OF 'KING LEAK' 
 
KING LEAR. 45 
 
 Windsor (1602). Butter alone was the effec- 
 tive promoter of the publication of King Lear. 
 
 Nathaniel Butter, the responsible publisher 
 of Shakespeare's King Lear, became a freeman 
 of the Stationers' Company early in 1604, and 
 he lived on to 1664, acquiring some fame in 
 Charles I's reign as a purveyor of news-sheets 
 or rudimentary journals. His experience of 
 the trade was very limited before he obtained 
 the license to publish Shakespeare's King Lear 
 in 1607. The play, like all Shakespeare's 
 greatest dramas, belonged to the company of 
 actors known formerly as ' The Lord Chamber- 
 lain's servants ' and now as ' His Majesty's 
 servants,' who were owners and occupiers of 
 the Globe Theatre. Butter would seem to 
 have obtained access to a very rough and hasty 
 transcript of the author's draft in use at the 
 theatre. 
 
 The entry in the Stationers' Register of 
 26 November, 1607, gives the tragedy this 
 title : — ' A booke called Master William Shake- 
 speare his historye of Kinge Lear as yt was 
 played before the kinges maiestie at Whitehall 
 
46 SHAKESPEARE QUARTOS. 
 
 vppon Sainct Stephens night at Christmas last 
 by his maiesties servantes playinge vsually at 
 the Globe on the Banksyde.' The printed 
 title-page begins with the words ' M. William 
 Shake-speare, His True Chronicle History of 
 the life and death of King Lear, and his three 
 Daughters.' 
 
 This somewhat exceptional formula, which 
 opens with the author's name and describes the 
 tragic drama as a ' true chronicle history of the 
 life and death ' of its eponymous hero and his 
 three daughters, may be accounted for thus. A 
 crude dramatic presentation of the episode in 
 British History, with which Shakespeare's play 
 of King Lear deals, had been popular on the 
 Elizabethan stage for some dozen years before 
 Shakespeare took the topic in hand. This 
 earlier piece, the author of which is nowhere 
 named, was printed and published for the first 
 time late in 1 605 with this title : — ' The True 
 Chronicle History of King Leir, and his three 
 daughters, Gonerill, Ragan, and Cordelia. As 
 it hath been diuers and sundry times lately 
 acted.' Shakespeare's play gives few signs of 
 indebtedness to its predecessor. But it was 
 
KING LEAR. 47 
 
 necessary for the publishers of Shakespeare's 
 new work to do what lay in their power to 
 supplant in the book-market the anonymous 
 drama of King Lear which was already in the 
 field. They judged it expedient to give their 
 newer venture such advantage as might come 
 of substantial imitation of the old title, with 
 a few inevitable modifications. The main 
 changes were to the following effect : The 
 publisher Butter put above the title of the older 
 piece Shakespeare's full name with M. (i.e., Mas- 
 ter, a prefix of gentility) before it ; he inserted, 
 too, a mention of 'the unfortunate life of Edgar, 
 Sonne and heire to the Earle of Glocester, and 
 his sullen and assumed humour of Tom of 
 Bedlam,' which was an original interpolation 
 into the old story of Lear, of Shakespeare's 
 invention ; and finally he recast the statement 
 concerning the play's production on the 
 stage. 
 
 The bibliographical history of the original 
 issue of Shakespeare's King Lear is seriously 
 complicated by the existence of two editions, 
 both published by Butter in the same year 
 (1608). The relations between the two are far 
 
48 SHAKESPEARE QUARTOS. 
 
 more difficult to unravel than in the somewhat 
 similar cases of The Merchant of Venice and 
 A Midsummer Night's Dream. Ostensibly 
 none but Butter himself was concerned as pub- 
 lisher in the issue of the two impressions of 
 King Lear in 1608. Yet these differ from one 
 another in the printer's marks and ornaments, 
 in the wording of the imprints on the title- 
 pages, and in unsystematic and erratic 
 variations of the text of the play. Neither 
 edition can be safely described as the typo- 
 graphical superior of the other. Both abound 
 in misprints, but the blemishes are not 
 identical. A passage which is correctly printed 
 in one edition is less correctly presented by 
 the other, and vice versa. Although it is 
 impossible to reach absolute certainty in the 
 matter, a careful examination of the difficult 
 problem leads to the conclusion that the 
 Trustees' newly acquired copy belongs to the 
 ' second ' edition which Butter published in 
 1608. 
 
 On the title-pages of both editions Butter, 
 who never owned a press and was a publisher 
 or bookseller exclusively, gives his own name 
 
KING LEAR. 49 
 
 without mention of the printer. Shakespeare's 
 name appears in the earlier impression as ' Shak- 
 speare ; ' the middle e is supplied in the later 
 edition. The descriptive title of the piece is 
 practically the same in both issues, although the 
 type is different. But elsewhere the title-pages 
 present wide divergences. In the volume which 
 may be conjecturally called the ' first ' edition, 
 Butter's imprint runs thus:-' London,/ Printed 
 for Nathaniel Butter, and are to be sold at 
 his shop in Pauls / Church-yard at the signe 
 of the Pide Bull neere St. Austins Gate, 1608.' 
 In Butter's 'second' edition, which is here more 
 particularly under examination, he omits all 
 notice of place or shop, and merely employs the 
 words ' Printed for Nathaniel Butter, j 1608.' 
 The printer's marks on the two title-pages 
 have, moreover, nothing in common with one 
 another. That on the ' first ' edition consists 
 of a winged horse or Pegasus, poised above two 
 cornucopias or horns of abundance, of which the 
 lower ends are bound to a winged staff or 
 caduceus ; the staff is held upright by two 
 clasped hands emerging from clouds {at the 
 bottom of the device) and two snakes are 
 
50 SHAKESPEARE QUARTOS. 
 
 sinuously intertwined about the midmost 
 portion of the staff. This elaborate ornament 
 is of German origin and was employed by 
 Andreas Wechel, a learned printer of Frankfort- 
 on-the- Maine, during the second half of the 
 sixteenth century. It was in common use in 
 England early in the seventeenth century. 
 It figures on the first edition of Shakespeare's 
 CM^//i9, which one Nicholas Okes printed in 1622, 
 and it is often found in later English books. It 
 is quite possible that Okes printed for Butter 
 his 'first' edition of King Lear. Okes is to be 
 remembered, among other titles to fame, as a 
 young friend of Richard Field, of Stratford- 
 upon-Avon, who was one of Shakespeare's 
 early associates, and gained a foremost position 
 among London printers. Field stood surety 
 for Okes in 1603, when he was made free of 
 the Stationers' Company. 
 
 There is no uncertainty as to the printing 
 office whence came Butter's ' second ' edition. 
 The printer's mark on that edition is the floral 
 device with the Welsh legend, which figures on 
 the title-pages of the Trustees' copies of Sir 
 John Oldcastle (1600), of The Merchant of 
 
KING LEAR. 5 1 
 
 Venice (1600), and of The Merry Wives of 
 Windsor (1619). A description of it has 
 already been given in the section of this 
 pamphlet dealing with The Merchant of Venice. 
 It was one of the trade-marks of the printer, 
 James Roberts, of the Barbican, but in 1608, 
 the year in which King Lear was published, 
 Roberts made over the control of his printing 
 oflSce to a partner, William Jaggard. Jaggard, 
 rather than Roberts, was probably responsible 
 for the printing of Butter's ' second ' issue of 
 King Lear in 1608. 
 
 The ornamental head -lines on the opening 
 pages of the text are elaborate in both editions 
 but are quite dissimilar from one another. 
 The head-line of the ' first ' impression consists 
 of scrolled and flowered compartments with a 
 man's face in the intervening central space. 
 The head-line of the ' second ' impression is a 
 larger design. The English royal shield with the 
 motto ' Honi soit qui mal y pense,' is supported 
 to both right and left by figures of a woman 
 and a child embowered in flowers and insects. 
 
 The textual resemblances and differences 
 between Butter's two issues of King Lear of 
 
52 SHAKESPEARE QUARTOS. 
 
 1608, which are equally inaccurate, are hard to 
 explain satisfactorily. It would seem that the 
 ' copy ' of the ' first ' edition was ill written, and 
 was set up by unskilled compositors. The 
 sheets were printed off before any typo- 
 graphical revision or correction was attempted. 
 Then attention was inconveniently drawn to the 
 neglect ; the standing type was hastily and 
 unmethodically corrected, and a new set of 
 sheets prepared. The first set of sheets was 
 not cancelled, and the binders received bundles 
 which were indiscriminately made up of the 
 uncorrected and the partially revised sheets. 
 Of extant copies of Butter's 'first' issue few 
 are textually quite the same throughout ; they 
 present various combinations of revised and 
 unrevised typography. 
 
 The first printer, presumably Okes, retired 
 early from the compromising scene, but his 
 successor, apparently Jaggard, proved unable 
 to evolve order out of the chaos. The 
 typographical features of Butter's ' second ' 
 issue, which came from Roberts and Jaggard's 
 printing office in the Barbican show small 
 improvement on the 'first' issue. The 'second' 
 
KING LEAR. 53 
 
 issue would seem to have been printed afresh, 
 from some copy of the ' first,' carelessly 
 combining corrected and uncorrected sheets in 
 a manner to which no extant copy of the ' first ' 
 offers a precise parallel. A few new corrections 
 were introduced into the type in Roberts and 
 Jaggard's printing office, but misprints, from 
 which its predecessor was (as far as research 
 has yet shown) quite free, were newly scattered 
 with no sparing hand. The First Folio first 
 gave the text of King Lear a satisfactory 
 shape. There the printers followed a full and 
 careful recension of one of Butter's Quartos, 
 after collation with an independent play-house 
 manuscript. 
 
 The entry respecting the publication of the 
 play of King Lear in the Stationers' Register, 
 26 November, 1607, supplies interesting infor- 
 mation of the piece's recent performance at 
 Whitehall. The statement is repeated without 
 change and, owing to lapse of time, with 
 chronological ambiguity, on the title-pages of 
 Butter's two issues. The piece, according to 
 the Stationers Registers' entry, was performed 
 in the presence of King James I. at the Royal 
 Palace of Whitehall ' on St. Stephen's night at 
 
54 SHAKESPEARE QUARTOS. 
 
 Christmas last.' St. Stephen's day followed 
 Christmas day, and is generally known as 
 Boxing Day. The date of the royal perform- 
 ance was clearly the night of 26 December in 
 the year 1606. 
 
 Alike in the Stationers' Register and on 
 the title-pages, the company of actors, who 
 produced King Lear before the King, is 
 called by its official designation of 'His 
 Majesty's Servants.' That name had, at the 
 King's accession, superseded the earlier title of 
 'the Lord Chamberlain's Servants.' It was 
 the company of which Shakespeare was a 
 prominent member. The ' Globe Theatre on 
 the Bankside' is noticed, both in the Stationers' 
 Register and on the title-pages of King Lear, 
 as their usual place of performance. That 
 theatre had been erected in 1599 in Southwark, 
 on the south bank of the Thames, by the 
 Lord Chamberlain's players, and was occupied 
 by Shakespeare and his colleagues from the 
 date of its erection. All the great plays of his 
 later life were produced for the first time at 
 the Globe Theatre. The valuable share which 
 Shakespeare acquired in the profits of the play- 
 house was long his chief source of income. 
 
IV. 
 
 THE MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR 
 {1619). 
 
 Description of the Copy. This copy which 
 measures 7^ inches by 5^% inches consists of 
 twenty-eight leaves. The printer's signatures 
 run from A to G in sheets of four leaves each. 
 Portions of the plain inner margins of the last 
 three leaves have been restored. The plain 
 bottom corner of the fourteenth leaf has been 
 very slightly mended. 
 
 The binding in red morocco is, as in the case 
 of A Midsummer Night's Dream (1600), by 
 Francis Bedford. 
 
 History of the Copy. This copy like A 
 Midsummer Night's Dream, described above, 
 was formerly in the Rowfant Library of Mr. 
 Locker-Lampson, and its history is identical 
 with the account already given of that volume. 
 
 General Bibliographical Note. The 
 
 Merry Wives of Windsor was probably written 
 and produced in the late autumn of 1599, at 
 
 55 
 
56 SHAKESPEARE QUARTOS. 
 
 the suggestion of Queen Elizabeth and other of 
 Shakespeare's admirers, who were disappointed 
 by the dramatist's exclusion of their beloved 
 Falstaff from the recently produced play of 
 Henry V. The heroic knight's masterly activity 
 in the earlier plays of Henry IV. had whetted 
 public appetite, and the popular cry for satis- 
 faction was too loud to be ignored. 
 
 On i8 January, 1602, some two -and -a -half 
 years after The Merty Wives was first produced 
 on the stage, John Busby, a publisher at the 
 sign of the Crane, in St. Paul's Churchyard, 
 obtained from the Stationers' Company a license 
 for the publication of the piece. Busby had, in 
 partnership with another publisher, Thomas 
 Millington, of Cornhill, already published in 
 1600, two years before, an imperfect draft of 
 Henry V., the immediate predecessor of The 
 Merry Wives. But Busby abandoned Henry V. 
 soon after publication to a more active book- 
 seller, Thomas Pavier, of Cornhill. In the 
 case of The Merry Wives, he did not even 
 send the play to press, but almost on the 
 receipt of the license, he transferred all his 
 rights in it to Arthur Johnson, a very young 
 
A 
 
 Moft pleafantand ex- 
 
 cellent conceited Comedy, 
 
 of Sir hhn Faljiaffe^ and the 
 
 merry VViues of Windsor. 
 
 VVich the fwaggering vaine of An- 
 cient Pif}o//,and Corporall N>w, 
 
 VVriccen by W. Shakespeare. 
 
 Printed for zArtbur fohnfon^ l6l9« 
 
 TITLE-PAGE OF THE SECOND QUARTO EDITION OF ' THE MERRY WIVES 
 OF WINDSOR' (1619). 
 
MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR. 59 
 
 neighbour, who was just beginning business 
 as a bookseller at the adjacent sign of the 
 Flower-de-Luce and Crown, also in St. Paul's 
 Churchyard. Neither Busby nor Johnson was 
 a printer. The play was first printed in 1602 
 for Johnson by a well-known London typo- 
 grapher, Thomas Creede, then carrying on 
 business at the Eagle and Child in the Old 
 Change, near Old Fish Street. Creede had 
 already printed for Busby (in partnership with 
 Millington) the first edition of Henry V. The 
 printer's mark on the first edition of The 
 Merry Wives is a mere block of geometrical 
 scroll-work. 
 
 Seventeen years later Johnson issued, with 
 very slight change, a second edition of The 
 Merry Wives. This he entrusted to a different 
 printer, William Jaggard, of the Barbican, the 
 partner and successor of James Roberts. 
 Creede had died in the interval. The 1619 
 edition bears the same floral device with the 
 Welsh motto which figures on the title-page 
 of James Roberts's impression of The Merchant 
 of Venice (see pp. 24-6 above). No attempt 
 was made to revise the text of the reprint, 
 
6o SHAKESPEARE QUARTOS. 
 
 which slavishly reproduces that of the original 
 issue. Arthur Johnson, who remained in the 
 trade till 1630, was in no other way asso- 
 ciated with Shakespeare's work. It is a copy 
 of Johnson's second edition of the Merry Wives 
 which the Trustees have now acquired. 
 
 Each of Johnson's two editions of The Merry 
 Wives of Windsor presents a most incomplete 
 version of Shakespeare's play. Necessary 
 passages are omitted. Prose and verse are 
 confounded. The parts are often wrongly 
 distributed. The dialogue frequently lacks co- 
 herence. There is little doubt that the piece, 
 as Johnson offered it to the public, embodied 
 the shorthand notes of an enterprising auditor 
 who made them over to Busby, the original 
 holder of the license for publication, without 
 any endeavour to compare them with an 
 authentic manuscript. Such a practice was 
 not uncommon in Shakespeare's day. Thomas 
 Hey wood, a friend of Shakespeare and a 
 popular dramatist, wrote of his own adventures 
 among publishers in words which might well have 
 fitted Shakespeare's lips when Johnson's edition 
 of his Merry Wives came to his notice : 'Some 
 
MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR. 6 1 
 
 of my plays have (unknown to me, and without 
 any of my direction) accidentally come into the 
 printer's hands, and therefore so corrupt and 
 mangled, copied only by the ear, that I have 
 been as unable to know them as ashamed to 
 challenge them.' 
 
 The First Folio first gave the piece an 
 intelligible form. There the editors probably 
 followed a play-house copy which abbreviated 
 the author's manuscript. Such curtailment 
 seems to have been due to the manager, and to 
 have lacked the author's sanction, but the Folio 
 text is comprehensible and presents the comedy 
 in readable shape. 
 
 The flamboyant terminology of the swollen 
 title-pages of the two early editions of The 
 Merry Wives is characteristic of the advertising 
 practices of the unauthorized publisher of 
 Shakespeare's day. The title-page of the 
 second edition is somewhat less extravagant 
 than its predecessor, which runs, with all its 
 'crimes broad-blown' thus: — 'A/ Most pleasaunt 
 and / excellent conceited Co- / medie, of Syr 
 lohn Falstaffe, and the / merrie Wiues of 
 Windsor.! Entermixed with sundrie / variable 
 
62 SHAKESPEARE QUARTOS. 
 
 and pleasing humors, of Syr Hugh / the Welch 
 Knight, Justice Shallow, and his / wise Cousin 
 M. Slender. / With the swaggering vaine of 
 Auncient / Pistoll, and Corporall Nym. / By 
 William Shakespeare. / As it hath bene diuers 
 times Acted by the right Honorable / my Lord 
 Chamberlaines seruants. Both before her / 
 Maiestie, and elsewhere. / London / Printed by 
 T.C. \i.e., Thomas Creede] for Arthur lohnson, 
 and are to be sold at / his shop in Powles Church- 
 yard, at the signe of the / Flower de Leuse and 
 the Crowne. / 1602.' 
 
 The second and later title-page omits 'the 
 sundrie variable and pleasing humors of Syr 
 Hugh the Welch Knight, Justice Shallow and 
 his wise cousin M. Slender.' The second quarto 
 also substitutes the initial W. of Shakespeare's 
 christian name for William, which the first quarto 
 spells at length. The second quarto, too, sup- 
 presses, after the author's name, the words : — 
 ' As it hath bene diuers times acted by the 
 Right Honorable my Lord Chamberlaines 
 servants, both before her Maiestie and else- 
 where.' This intimation, though appropriate 
 to the year 1602, was out of date in 1619, 
 when ' Her Majesty ' Queen Elizabeth had 
 
MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR. 63 
 
 been dead sixteen years, and the company 
 of actors, which was known at the close of her 
 reign as ' My Lord Chamberlain's servants,' 
 had borne for the same space of time the new 
 and higher title of ' Servants of his Majesty, 
 King James I.' — the designation which the 
 title-page of King Lear, as we have seen, duly 
 displayed in 1608. Readers may be reminded, 
 moreover, that the author, who passed away on 
 23 April, 1 616, outlived by fourteen years the 
 issue of the first corrupt edition of his Merry 
 Wives, and that the second edition, which came 
 out three years after his death, was, with all its 
 defects, a posthumous tribute to his memory. 
 
 Edward Fox, Printer, Strat/ord-upon-Avon. 
 
.^nsf.