which adopts the reading that seems most plausible in
itself, without giving due weight to the general authority of the text
chosen as a basis. If carried far, such eclecticism results in a
patchwork quite distinct from any version that Shakespeare can have
known.

The first editor of Shakespeare, in the modern sense, was Nicholas Rowe,
poet laureate under Queen Anne. He published in 1709 an edition of the
plays in six octavo volumes, preceded by the first formal memoir of the
dramatist, and furnished with notes. The poems were issued in the
following year in similar form, with essays by Gildon. Rowe based his
text upon that of the fourth Folio, with hardly any collation of
previous editions. He corrected a large number of the more obvious
corruptions, the most notable of his emendations being perhaps the
phrase in _Twelfth Night_, "Some are become great," which he changed to
"Some are born great." On the external aspect of the plays Rowe has left
a deeper mark than any subsequent editor. In the Folios only eight of
the plays had lists of _dramatis personae_; Rowe supplied them for the
rest. In the Folios the division into acts and scenes is carried out
completely in only seventeen cases, it is partially done in thirteen,
and in six it is not attempted at all. Rowe again completed the work,
and though some of his divisions have been modified and others should
be, he performed this task with care and intelligence. He modernized the
spelling and the punctuation, completed the exits and entrances,
corrected many corrupt speech-tags, and arranged many passages where the
verse was disordered. In virtue of these services, he must, in spite of
his leaving much undone, be regarded as one of the most important agents
in the formation of our modern text.

[Page Heading: Rowe and Pope]

A second edition of Rowe's Shakespeare was published in 1714, and in
1725 appeared a splendid quarto edition in six volumes, edited by
Alexander Pope. In his preface Pope made strong professions of his good
faith in dealing with the text. "I have discharged," he said, "the dull
duty of an editor to my best judgment, with more labor than I expect
thanks, with a religious abhorrence of all innovation, and without any
indulgence to my private sense or conjecture.... The various readings
are fairly put in the margin, so that anyone may compare 'em; and those
I have preferred into the text are constantly _ex fide codicum_, upon
authority.... The mor