In the next place, a number of beautiful passages which are extant in the first single editions, are omitted in this: as it seems, without any other reason than their willingness to shorten some scenes: These men (as it was said of _Procrustes_) either lopping or stretching an Author, to make him just fit for their Stage. This edition is said to be printed from the _Original Copies_; I believe they meant those which had lain ever since the Author’s days in the playhouse, and had from time to time been cut, or added to, arbitrarily. It appears that this edition, as well as the Quarto’s, was printed (at least partly) from no better copies than the _Prompter’s Book_ or _Piece-meal Parts_ written out for the use of the actors: For in some places their very(38) names are thro’ carelessness set down instead of the _Personæ Dramatis_: And in others the notes of direction to the _Property-men_ for their _Moveables_, and to the _Players_ for their _Entries_,(39) are inserted into the Text, thro’ the ignorance of the Transcribers. The Plays not having been before so much as distinguish’d by _Acts_ and _Scenes_, they are in this edition divided according as they play’d them; often when there is no pause in the action, or where they thought fit to make a breach in it, for the sake of Musick, Masques, or Monsters. Sometimes the scenes are transposed and shuffled backward and forward; a thing which could no otherwise happen, but by their being taken from separate and piece-meal-written parts. Many verses are omitted intirely, and others transposed; from whence invincible obscurities have arisen, past the guess of any Commentator to clear up, but just where the accidental glympse of an old edition enlightens us. Some Characters were confounded and mix’d, or two put into one, for want of a competent number of actors. Thus in the Quarto edition of _Midsummer-Night’s Dream_, Act 5, _Shakespear_ introduces a kind of Master of the Revels called _Philostratus_: all whose part is given to another character (that of _Ægeus_) in the subsequent editions: So also in _Hamlet_ and _King Lear_. This too makes it probable that the Prompter’s Books were what they call’d the Original Copies. From liberties of this kind, many speeches also were put into the mouths of wrong persons, where the Author now seems chargeable with making them speak out of character: Or sometimes perhaps for no better reason than that a governing Player, to have the mouthing of some favourite speech himself, would snatch it from the unworthy lips of an Underling. Prose from verse they did not know, and they accordingly printed one for the other throughout the volume.