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 Shakespeare, 1868, abounds with misprints and other distortions of the writer's sense; and we must abandon in some cases the hope of ever arriving at the true readings. So it is with the miscellaneous assemblage of dramatic productions here brought together. A great deal has been done by a succession of editors to reduce the errors of the printer or copyist to a minimum; but, after all, there are places where it would require the assistance of the Sphinx to supply a chasm, or rectify a palpable mistake. The work, in its present state, should assuredly have some degree of interest and worth; for it offers in one collected body the best specimens of dramatic literature which the English language affords, castigated and enriched by some of our best commentators and critics. In these volumes, as now rearranged, it is trusted that very few uncollected plays of real importance will be found wanting; but as an enterprise of this kind can never amount to more than a _selection_, as it purports to be, it appeared judicious, in making the choice, to give the preference to such pieces as either illustrated the manners of the period, or marked the gradual development of the dramatic art. The only basis on which the present editor can rest, so far as he is aware, the slightest claim to credit is the attention which he has bestowed on the rearrangement of the collection as it now stands; the conscientious and vigilant supervision of the whole matter here brought together--prefaces, texts, and notes--and the correction of errors on the part of his predecessors, occasioned by a variety of causes. In carrying out even this unambitious programme, there was a fair share of labour and difficulty, and, of course, it has involved the addition of a new crop of notes scattered up and down the series, as well as the occasional displacement of certain illustrative remarks founded on wrong _data_. The Notes without any initial attached to them in the following pages, may be presumed to be from the pen of Isaac Reed, with the exception of a limited number, which were written by Dodsley himself, and which are not easily mistakable. The matter signed _S_. appears to have been communicated to Reed by George Steevens. The _C_. notes are Mr Collier's, and _O.G_. stands for Octavius Gilchrist. For the notes which remain, and which have been enclosed between brackets, the present editor alone is answerable.