Neither in the theatre nor on the printed page can it be said that Shakespeare's dramas to-day reflect the form of his art or the thought of his age. The versions acted on the stage are unlike those read in the study, and all are dissimilar to the "authentic copies." In order to understand the cause of these discrepancies it is necessary to trace their origin and history. SOME MISTAKES OF THE EDITORS A number of Shakespeare's plays were published during his lifetime, the first, "The Comedy of Errors," appearing in 1595, and the last one, "Pericles," in 1609. Some of these plays went through several editions, and the text of four of them, in their first edition, was extremely faulty, but the second editions of "Romeo and Juliet" and of "Hamlet" were probably printed direct from the author's manuscripts. The special features of these early quartos are: 1. The title-pages, which indicate what in Shakespeare's time were the popular incidents and characters in each play. 2. The unbroken continuity of the story, the plays having no divisions to suggest where pauses were made, if any, during the representation. 3. Some descriptive stage-directions which do not reappear in subsequent editions, and which in all probability are authentic evidence of the action as it was then seen on the stage. These quartos are the only playbooks existing to-day which can show Shakespeare's constructive art as a dramatist, and it will be necessary to refer to them from time to time. Seven years after his death, Shakespeare's fellow-actors, Heminge and Condell, collected all his dramas, and, with the help of some booksellers, published them in one volume in what is known as the first folio (1623). These "trifles," as the editors called them, were dedicated to two noblemen in the confidence that this tribute would help to keep the author's memory alive, and the reader is invited to purchase the book because the plays had found favour on the stage where they were first tried and "stood out all appeales." There is, besides, some anxiety shown by the editors lest the publication of the volume should detract from the author's fame as a dramatist, for the reader is urged to read the plays "againe and againe," if he does not like them, or in other words, if he does not understand them. Now, in this first folio, Heminge and Condell began marking divisions for intervals in the plays. This was an innovation, probably suggested to them by the booksellers at the instigation of Ben Jonson. Fortunately, the editors left their task unfinished, finding, perhaps, that these divisions were unsuitable interpolations.