ly.
It appears that this edition, as well as the Quarto's, was printed (at
least partly) from no better copies than the _Prompter's Book_ or
_Piece-meal Parts_ written out for the use of the actors: For in some
places their very(38) names are thro' carelessness set down instead of the
_Personae Dramatis_: And in others the notes of direction to the
_Property-men_ for their _Moveables_, and to the _Players_ for their
_Entries_,(39) are inserted into the Text, thro' the ignorance of the
Transcribers.

The Plays not having been before so much as distinguish'd by _Acts_ and
_Scenes_, they are in this edition divided according as they play'd them;
often when there is no pause in the action, or where they thought fit to
make a breach in it, for the sake of Musick, Masques, or Monsters.

Sometimes the scenes are transposed and shuffled backward and forward; a
thing which could no otherwise happen, but by their being taken from
separate and piece-meal-written parts.

Many verses are omitted intirely, and others transposed; from whence
invincible obscurities have arisen, past the guess of any Commentator to
clear up, but just where the accidental glympse of an old edition
enlightens us.

Some Characters were confounded and mix'd, or two put into one, for want
of a competent number of actors. Thus in the Quarto edition of
_Midsummer-Night's Dream_, Act 5, _Shakespear_ introduces a kind of Master
of the Revels called _Philostratus_: all whose part is given to another
character (that of _AEgeus_) in the subsequent editions: So also in
_Hamlet_ and _King Lear_. This too makes it probable that the Prompter's
Books were what they call'd the Original Copies.

From liberties of this kind, many speeches also were put into the mouths
of wrong persons, where the Author now seems chargeable with making them
speak out of character: Or sometimes perhaps for no better reason than
that a governing Player, to have the mouthing of some favourite speech
himself, would snatch it from the unworthy lips of an Underling.

Prose from verse they did not know, and they accordingly printed one for
the other throughout the volume.

Having been forced to say so much of the Players, I think I ought in
justice to remark, that the Judgment, as well as Condition, of that class
of people was then far inferior to what it is in our days. As then the
best Playhouses were Inns and Taverns (the _Globe_, the _Hope_, the _Red
Bull_, the _Fortune_, &c.), so the