so late as seven or eight years before he died: and that the latter was
not printed till after his death. The whole number of genuine plays which
we have been able to find printed in his life-time, amounts but to eleven.
And of some of these, we meet with two or more editions by different
printers, each of which has whole heaps of trash different from the other:
which I should fancy was occasion'd by their being taken from different
copies, belonging to different Playhouses.

The folio edition (in which all the plays we now receive as his were first
collected) was published by two Players, _Heming_ and _Condell_, in 1623,
seven years after his decease. They declare that all the other editions
were stolen and surreptitious, and affirm theirs to be purged from the
errors of the former. This is true as to the literal errors, and no other;
for in all respects else it is far worse than the Quarto's:

First, because the additions of trifling and bombast passages are in this
edition far more numerous. For whatever had been added, since those
Quarto's, by the actors, or had stolen from their mouths into the written
parts, were from thence conveyed into the printed text, and all stand
charged upon the Author. He himself complained of this usage in _Hamlet_,
where he wishes that _those who play the Clowns wou'd speak no more than
is set down for them_ (Act 3. Sc. 4.). But as a proof that he could not
escape it, in the old editions of _Romeo_ and _Juliet_ there is no hint of
a great number of the mean conceits and ribaldries now to be found there.
In others, the low scenes of Mobs, Plebeians, and Clowns, are vastly
shorter than at present: And I have seen one in particular (which seems to
have belonged to the Playhouse, by having the parts divided with lines,
and the Actors names in the margin) where several of those very passages
were added in a written hand, which are since to be found in the folio.

In the next place, a number of beautiful passages which are extant in the
first single editions, are omitted in this: as it seems, without any other
reason than their willingness to shorten some scenes: These men (as it was
said of _Procrustes_) either lopping or stretching an Author, to make him
just fit for their Stage.

This edition is said to be printed from the _Original Copies_; I believe
they meant those which had lain ever since the Author's days in the
playhouse, and had from time to time been cut, or added to, arbitrari