In 1609, the third and fourth editions of Romeo and Juliet (undated, but probably belonging to this year); the first and second of Troilus and Cressida and Pericles; and the first of the Sonnets (including A Lover's Complaint). In 1611, the fourth edition of Hamlet, and the third of Titus Andronicus and Pericles. In 1612, the fifth edition of Richard III. and the third of The Passionate Pilgrim. In 1613, the fifth edition of 1 Henry IV. After the death of Shakespeare the following quartos were published before the folio appeared: In 1617, the eighth edition of Venus and Adonis. In 1619, the fourth edition of Pericles and the second of The Merry Wives of Windsor. In 1620, the ninth edition of Venus and Adonis. In 1622, the sixth edition of Richard III. and 1 Henry IV. and the first of Othello. THE FOUR FOLIOS. The folio of 1623 was nominally edited by John Heming and Henry Condell, two of Shakespeare's friends and fellow-actors, and was brought out by a syndicate of five publishers and printers, William and Isaac Jaggard, William Aspley, John Smethwick, and Edward Blount. The Jaggards were printers, the others publishers or booksellers. William Jaggard had printed The Passionate Pilgrim in 1599. The folio is a volume of 906 pages, including the page facing the title and occupied by Ben Jonson's verses in praise of the portrait of Shakespeare on the title-page. It contains thirty-six of the thirtyseven plays commonly ascribed to Shakespeare (Pericles being omitted), arranged, as in the majority of modern editions, under the heads of "Comedies," "Histories," and "Tragedies." These three divisions are paged separately, but have no special headings, except in the table of contents, in which Troilus and Cressida is omitted. Of the thirty-six plays in the volume it will be seen that only sixteen had been already published in quarto. The other twenty, including many of the best works of Shakespeare, were these: The Tempest, The Two Gentlemen of Verona, Measure for Measure, The Comedy of Errors, As You Like It, All's Well That Ends Well, Twelfth Night, The Taming of the Shrew, The Winter's Tale, King John, the three Parts of Henry VI., Henry VIII., Coriolanus, Timon of Athens, Julius Caesar, Macbeth, Antony and Cleopatra, and Cymbeline. The typographical execution of the volume demands particular attention, on account of the confused and contradictory descriptions of it given by some of the editors and commentators and the use that the Baconians have made of it. According to Donnelly and the Baconians generally, the folio was edited by Bacon, being a collection of his plays carefully revised, corrected, and |