ever,
the printing might have no bad effect upon the attendance at its
performances.

During the years before 1623, seventeen of Shakespeare's plays were
published in quarto. Two of these, _Romeo and Juliet_ and _Hamlet_,
were printed in two very different versions, so that we have nineteen
texts of Shakespeare's plays altogether published before the First
Folio. A complete table of these {117} plays with the dates in which
the quartos appeared follows:--

1594. Titus Andronicus. Later quartos in 1600 and 1611.
1597. Richard II. Later quartos in 1598, 1608, and 1615.
1597. Richard III. Later quartos in 1598, 1602, 1605, 1612,
and 1622.
1597. Romeo and Juliet. Later quartos in 1599 (corrected
edition) and 1609.
1598. I Henry IV. Later quartos in 1599, 1604, 1608, 1613,
and 1622.
1598. Love's Labour's Lost.
1600. Merchant of Venice. Later quarto in 1619. (Copying
on the title-page the original date of 1600, however.)
1600. Henry V. Later quartos in 1602 and 1619. (Dated on
the title-page, 1608.)
1600. Henry IV, Part II.
1600. Midsummer Night's Dream. Later quarto in 1619.
(Dated, however, 1600.)
1602. Merry Wives of Windsor. Later quarto in 1619.
1603. Hamlet.
1604. Second edition of Hamlet. Later quartos in 1605 and 1611.
1608. King Lear. Later quarto in 1619. (Title-page date, 1608.)
1608. Pericles. Later quartos in 1609, 1611, and 1619.
1609. Troilus and Cressida. A second quarto in 1609.
1622. Othello.

These are all the known quartos of Shakespeare's plays printed before
the Folio. They represent two distinct classes. The first class
(comprising fourteen texts) of the quartos contains good texts of the
plays and is of great assistance to editors. The second (comprising
five texts), the first _Romeo and Juliet, Henry V, Merry Wives_, the
first _Hamlet_, and _Pericles_, {118} is composed of thoroughly bad
copies. Two of this class were not entered on the Stationers' Register
at all, but were pure piracies. Two others were entered by one firm,
but were printed by another. The fifth was entered and transferred on
the same day. Of the fourteen good texts, twelve were regularly
entered on the Stationers' Register, and the other two were evidently
intended to take the place of a bad text. It is evident, therefore,
that registry upon the books of the Stationers' Company was a safeguar