to err on the side of caution. Weever, the author of "Funeral Monuments,"
retained with scrupulous exactitude the ancient spelling _ipsissimis
verbis_; and such a plan might be advisable and convenient with
sepulchral inscriptions or records; but in the matter before us what an
editor had principally, if not almost exclusively, to consider, was the
preservation in their fullest integrity of the language of the time and
the sense of the playwright.

The first and second editions of Dodsley's collection appear,
notwithstanding what is asserted to the contrary in Reed's preface, to
have been superintended with no very high degree of care, and the late Mr
Dyce, indeed, used to observe that the same criticism was applicable to
the edition of 1825. But the latter, with the fullest admission of its
defects, is certainly marked by great improvements on its predecessors in
more than one way. The labours of Hawkins[3] and Dilke[4] reflect
considerable honour upon those gentlemen.

It is almost superfluous to observe that the preceding editions, the last
and best not excepted, present a very large number of statements,
opinions, and readings, which more recent and more exact information has
shown to be erroneous. All these mistakes have been carefully rectified,
wherever the knowledge and experience of the editor enabled him to detect
them.[5]

A certain number of corruptions and obscurities remain, which it passed
the editor's ingenuity to eradicate or clear away. The printed remains of
our early drama have come down to us, for the most part, in a sadly
mutilated state, and the attempt to amend and restore the text to its
original purity will, it may be safely affirmed, never succeed more than
to a very imperfect extent. Even the late Mr Dyce's revised edition of