ERRATA RECEPTA. 67 



In the Athenaeum Library at Boston, is shewn as a curiosity, a 

 volume by an early worthy of New England, named Timothy Dexter. 

 Its title is a " Pickel for the Knowing Ones." So troubled was this 

 writer in regard to the matter of punctuation, that he at length 

 decided to omit the points altogether, giving, however, at the end of 

 his book several pages of all the varieties of stop, with an invitation 

 to the reader " to pepper his dish as he chose." This is the peculi- 

 arity on account of which the book is exhibited. 



Yery much of the literary criticism on Shakspeare has been 

 expended, not on his own genuine words, but on what are in reality 

 typographical misrepresentations of them. The folio of 1623, the 

 first printed collection of the dramatic works of the great poet, is 

 full of errors, either of the press or, antecedently, of the pen. The- 

 actors Heminge and Condell were indifferent editors. Seven years 

 after Shakspeare's death they gathered together and gave to the 

 world the plays as they found them in the property-rooms of the 

 theatres — some already badly printed; some still in manuscript, 

 blotted, obscure and worn, taken down in many places from oral 

 tradition and interlarded here and there with portions of the ad libi- 

 tum trifling indulged in by buffo players. Intelligent possessors of a 

 folio appearing in such a condition would naturally, from time to 

 time, check its contents by earlier printed copies of separate plays, 

 and by their own individual knowledge of the text as heard on the 

 contemporary stage. There can be no doubt that very many of the 

 manuscript corrections to be read in Mr. Collier's copy of the date 

 1632, were made on good authority. It can well be conceived what 

 a field has been here found for the exercise of literary sagacity. 

 After a lapse of two hundred and fifty years the work of emendation 

 may be supposed to be approaching completion. A few more happy 

 guesses, commending themselves to the general understanding and 

 good taste of qualified men, — and, to the already innumerable recen- 

 sions of Shakspeare, one more will be added, with letterpress every- 

 where clear of marks of doubtfulness, its subject-matter to be grasped 

 and thoroughly enjoyed, page after page, without interruption from 

 commentator or critic. 



A near approximation to such a Shakspeare is to be found in the 

 now widely-known Globe edition, printed in 1864 at the University 

 press of Cambridge, and of which in October last, 50,000 copies had 

 been sold by the Messrs. Macmillan & Co. Into its text many 



