In the note to the line in the _Dunciad_ in which he laments his “ten years to comment and translate,” Pope gives us to understand that he prepared his edition of Shakespeare after he had completed the translation of the _Iliad_ and before he set to work on the _Odyssey_. His own correspondence, however, shows that he was engaged on Shakespeare and the _Odyssey_ at the same time. There is some uncertainty as to when his edition was begun. The inference to be drawn from a letter to Pope from Atterbury is that it had been undertaken by August, 1721. We have more definite information as to the date of its completion. In a letter to Broome of 31st October, 1724, Pope writes: “Shakespear is finished. I have just written the Preface, and in less than three weeks it will be public” (Ed. Elwin and Courthope, viii. 88). But it did not appear till March. Pope himself was partly to blame for the delay. In December we find Tonson “impatient” for the return of the Preface (_id._ ix. 547). In the revision of the text Pope was assisted by Fenton and Gay (see Reed’s Variorum edition, 1803, ii. p. 149). A seventh volume containing the poems was added in 1725, but Pope had no share in it. It is a reprint of the supplementary volume of Rowe’s edition, “the whole revised and corrected, with a Preface, by Dr. Sewell.” The most prominent share in this volume of “Pope’s Shakespeare” thus fell to Charles Gildon, who had attacked Pope in his _Art of Poetry_ and elsewhere, and was to appear later in the _Dunciad_. Sewell’s preface is dated Nov. 24, 1724. Pope made few changes in his Preface in the second edition (1728, 8 vols., 12mo). The chief difference is the inclusion of the _Double Falshood_, which Theobald had produced in 1727 as Shakespeare’s, in the list of the spurious plays. The references in the Preface to the old actors were criticised by John Roberts in 1729 in a pamphlet entitled _An Answer to Mr. Pope’s Preface to Shakespear. In a Letter to a Friend. Being a Vindication of the Old Actors who were the Publishers and Performers of that Author’s Plays.... By a Stroling Player._ Lewis Theobald. Theobald’s edition of Shakespeare (7 vols. 8vo) appeared in 1733. The Preface was condensed in the second edition in 1740. It is here given in its later form. Theobald had long been interested in Shakespeare. In 1715 he had written the _Cave of Poverty_, a poem “in imitation of Shakespeare,” and in 1720 he had brought out an adaptation of _Richard II_. But it was not till 1726—though the Dedication bears the date of March 18, 1725—that he produced his first direct contribution to Shakespearian scholarship,—_Shakespeare restored: or, a Specimen of the Many Errors, as well Committed, as Unamended, by Mr. Pope in his Late Edition of this Poet. Designed Not only to correct the said Edition, but to restore the True Reading of Shakespeare in all the Editions ever yet publish’d._