and Steevens, who, carrying on their editorial
labors simultaneously, seem to have vied with each other which should
most enrich his edition with textual emendations. Both of them had been
very good editors, but for the unwarrantable liberty which they not only
took, but gloried in taking, with the text of their author; and, even as
it was, they undoubtedly rendered much valuable service. And the same
work, though not always in so great a degree, has been carried on by
many others: sometimes the alleged corrections of several editors have
been brought together, that the various advantages of them all might be
combined and presented in one. Thus corruptions of the text have
accumulated, each successive editor adding his own to those of his
predecessors. Many of these so-called improvements were thrown out by
the editor of the Chiswick edition; but no decisive steps in the way of
a return to the original text were taken till within a very limited
period. Knight, Collier, Verplanck, and Halliwell, to all of whom this
edition is under great obligations, have pretty effectually put a stop
to the old mode of Shaksperian editing; nor is there much reason to
apprehend that any one will at present venture upon a revival of it.

"Of the editions hitherto published in America, Mr. Verplanck's is the
only one, so far as we know, that is at all free from the accumulated
emendations of preceding editors. Adopting, in the main, the text of Mr.
Collier, he brought to the work, however, his own excellent taste and
judgment, wherein he as far surpasses the English editor as he
necessarily falls short of him in such external advantages as the
libraries, public and private, of England alone can supply. And Mr.
Collier's text is indeed remarkably pure: nor, perhaps, can any other
man of modern times be named, to whom Shaksperian literature is, on the
whole, so largely indebted. How much he has done, need not be dwelt upon
here, as the results thereof will be found scattered all through this
edition. Yet it seems not a little questionable whether both he and
Knight have not fallen into a serious error; though it must be confessed
that such error, if it be one, is on the right side, inasmuch as their
fidelity to the original text extends to the adopting, sometimes of
probable, sometimes of palpable, or nearly palpable misprints. In these
Mr. Verplanck has judiciously deviated from his English model, and his
fine judgment appears to equal adva