possibly a different word, but there ought to be no mingling of
differences. If I prefer the reading of the Quarto to that of the Folio,
as may sometimes well happen where blunders so abound, I say I
_prefer_--I do not dare to substitute. My student shall owe nothing of
his text to any but the editors of the Folio, John Heminge and Henrie
Condell.

I desire to take him with me. I intend a continuous, but ever-varying,
while one-ended lesson. We shall follow the play step by step, avoiding
almost nothing that suggests difficulty, and noting everything that
seems to throw light on the character of a person of the drama. The
pointing I consider a matter to be dealt with as any one pleases--for
the sake of sense, of more sense, of better sense, as much as if the
text were a Greek manuscript without any division of words. This
position I need not argue with anyone who has given but a cursory glance
to the original page, or knows anything of printers' pointing. I hold
hard by the word, for that is, or may be, grain: the pointing as we have
it is merest chaff, and more likely to be wrong than right. Here also,
however, I change nothing in the text, only suggest in the notes. Nor do
I remark on any of the pointing where all that is required is the
attention of the student.

Doubtless many will consider not a few of the notes unnecessary. But
what may be unnecessary to one, may be welcome to another, and it is
impossible to tell what a student may or may not know. At the same time
those form a large class who imagine they know a thing when they do not
understand it enough to see there is a difficulty in it: to such, an
attempt at explanation must of course seem foolish.

A _number_ in the margin refers to a passage of the play or in the