The printing of Shakespeare's poems is an easy tale, _Venus and Adonis_ in 1593, and _The Rape of Lucrece_ in 1594, were first printed in quarto by Richard Field, a native of Stratford, who had come to London. In each case a dedication accompanying the text was signed by Shakespeare, so that we may guess that the poet not only consented to the printing, but took care that the printing should be accurate. Twelve editions of one, eight of the other, were issued before 1660. The other volume of poetry, the Sonnets, was printed in 1609 by Thomas Thorpe, without Shakespeare's consent. Two of them, numbers 138 and 144, had appeared in the collection known as _The Passionate Pilgrim_, a pirated volume printed by W. Jaggard in 1599. No reëdition of the Sonnets appeared till 1640. With regard to the plays it is different. It is first {114} to be said that in no volume containing a play or plays of Shakespeare in existence to-day is there any evidence that Shakespeare saw it through the press. All we can do is to satisfy ourselves as to how the copy of Shakespeare's plays may have got into the hands of the publishers, and as to how far that copy represents what Shakespeare must have written. The editions of Shakespearean plays may be divided into two groups,--the separate plays which were printed in quarto[1] volumes before 1623, and the First Folio of Shakespeare, which was printed in 1623, a collected edition of all his plays save _Pericles_. Our text of Shakespeare, whatever one we read, is made up, either from the First Folio text, or in certain cases from the quarto volumes of certain plays which preceded the Folio; together with the attempts to restore to faulty places what Shakespeare must have written--a task which has engaged a long line of diligent scholars from early in the eighteenth century up to our own day.