[533:E] Ibid. vol. v. p. 372. Act iii. sc. 4.
[533:F] Supplemental Apology, pp. 444, 445.
[534:A] Reed's Shakspeare, vol. v. p. 306. Act ii. sc. 4.
[535:A] Of these, twenty were published in 4to., (including Pericles, and omitting Titus Andronicus,) and the rest in the first folio, 1623. On this, the earliest complete collection of our author's plays, Mr. Steevens has given us, with the wit and humour which so peculiarly distinguished him, the following interesting jeu d'esprit:—
"Of all volumes, those of popular entertainment are soonest injured. It would be difficult to name four folios that are oftener found in dirty and mutilated condition, than this first assemblage of Shakspeare's plays—God's Revenge against Murder—The Gentleman's Recreation—and Johnson's Lives of the Highwaymen.
"Though Shakspeare was not, like Fox the Martyrologist, deposited in churches, to be thumbed by the congregation, he generally took post on our hall tables; and that a multitude of his pages have 'their effect of gravy,' may be imputed to the various eatables set out every morning on the same boards. It should seem that most of his readers were so chary of their time, that (like Pistol, who gnaws his leek and swears all the while,) they fed and studied at the same instant. I have repeatedly met with thin flakes of pie-crust between the leaves of our author. These unctuous fragments, remaining long in close confinement, communicated their grease to several pages deep on each side of them.—It is easy enough to conceive how such accidents might happen;—how aunt Bridget's mastication might be disordered at the sudden entry of the Ghost into the Queen's closet, and how the half-chewed morsel dropped out of the gaping Squire's mouth, when the visionary Banquo seated himself in the chair of Macbeth. Still, it is no small eulogium on Shakspeare, that his claims were more forcible than those of hunger.—Most of the first folios now extant, are known to have belonged to ancient families resident in the country.
"Since our breakfasts have become less gross, our favourite authors have escaped with fewer injuries; not that (as a very nice friend of mine observes) those who read with a coffee-cup in their hands, are to be numbered among the contributors to bibliothecal purity.
"I claim the merit of being the first commentator on Shakspeare who strove, with becoming seriousness, to account for the frequent stains that disgrace the earliest folio edition of his plays, which is now become the most expensive single book in our language; for, what other English volume without plates, and printed since the year 1600, is known to have sold, more than once, for thirty-five pounds fourteen shillings?"—Reed's Shakspeare, vol. ii. pp. 146, 147.
Since this note was written, a copy of the first folio has produced the enormous price of ONE HUNDRED POUNDS. See Roxburghe Catalogue, p. 112. No. 3786.
[536:A] Vide Reed's Shakspeare, vol. xxi. pp. 4, 5, 6.