I have adopted the Roman sentiment, that it is more honourable to
save a citizen, than to kill an enemy, and have been more careful
to protect than to attack.

I have preserved the common distribution of the plays into acts,
though I believe it to be in almost all the plays void of authority.
Some of those which are divided in the later editions have no division
in the first folio, and some that are divided in the folio have no
division in the preceding copies. The settled mode of the theatre
requires four intervals in the play, but few, if any, of our
authour's compositions can be properly distributed in that manner.
An act is so much of the drama as passes without intervention of
time or change of place. A pause makes a new act. In every real,
and therefore in every imitative action, the intervals may be
more or fewer, the restriction of five acts being accidental and
arbitrary. This Shakespeare knew, and this he practised; his plays
were written, and at first printed in one unbroken continuity, and
ought now to be exhibited with short pauses, interposed as often
as the scene is changed, or any considerable time is required to
pass. This method would at once quell a thousand absurdities.

In restoring the authour's works to their integrity, I have considered
the punctuation as wholly in my power; for what could be their care
of colons and commas, who corrupted words and sentences. Whatever
could be done by adjusting points is therefore silently performed,
in some plays with much diligence, in others with less; it is
hard to keep a busy eye steadily fixed upon evanescent atoms, or
a discursive mind upon evanescent truth.

The same liberty has been taken with a few particles, or other words