Coxeter_, Esq; did with several of the old 4to single Plays, which
I then had not in my own Collection. Some few Observations I
likewise owe to _F. Plumptree_, Esq; Others to the Favour of
anonymous Persons: for all which I most gladly render my
Acknowledgments.

[Sidenote: The Editor’s particular Pains taken.]

As to what regards my self singly, if the Edition do not speak
for the Pains I have taken about it, it will be very vain to plead
my own Labour and Diligence. Besides a faithful Collation of all
the printed Copies, which I have exhibited in my _Catalogue_ of
_Editions_ at the End of this Work; let it suffice to say, that, to
clear up several Errors in the Historical Plays, I purposely read
over _Hall_ and _Holingshead_’s Chronicles in the Reigns concern’d;
all the Novels in _Italian_, from which our Author had borrow’d any
of his Plots; such Parts of _Plutarch_, from which he had deriv’d
any Parts of his _Greek_ or _Roman_ Story: _Chaucer_ and _Spenser_’s
Works; all the Plays of _B. Jonson_, _Beaumont_ and _Fletcher_,
and above 800 old _English_ Plays, to ascertain the obsolete and
uncommon Phrases in him: Not to mention some Labour and Pains
unpleasantly spent in the dry Task of consulting Etymological
_Glossaries_.

But as no Labour of Mine can be equivalent to the dear and ardent
Love I bear for _Shakespeare_, so, if the Publick shall be pleas’d
to allow that He owes any Thing to my Willingness and Endeavours of
restoring Him; I shall reckon the Part of my Life so engag’d, to
have been very happily employ’d: and put Myself, with great
Submission, to be try’d by my Country in the Affair.