The omission is generally, as in these cases, of single words, from noun to interjection, all parts of speech included, and also of single letters or syllables. It is rather curious, too, that when a word has been repeated by the poet it is sometimes omitted by the printer. Thus "What wheels? what racks? what fires?" W. T. iii. 2, is printed, "What wheels? racks? fires?" There is another instance in the same play, and many in the other plays. In Chaucer the instances are numerous. Addresses, as _sir_, _my lord_, etc., are sometimes left out, as also are _pray_, _now_, _only_, and others which are not absolutely necessary for the sense--and even two or more words; in all which cases the omission is indicated by the defect of metre. This the reader will do well to keep constantly in mind. For an example see on Tam. of Shrew, i. 1. It is surprising how often the negative particle is wanting in these plays of Shakespeare's. I have discovered its absence in between twenty and thirty places, not one-half of which had been observed by preceding editors. But not merely single words have been left out by printers; want of rime or want of connexion shows that entire lines have been omitted. Mr. Collier observes that three lines are wanting in various places of the Variorum Shakespeare; and such being the case in the present century, we need not wonder at so many having been passed over by the original printers. The reader will find about two dozen such cases noticed in my Edition and in the following pages, not one-half of which had been observed by preceding editors. Shakespeare himself furnishes the following remarkable instance. In Com. of Err. ii. 2, the three last folios omit the two lines beginning with "Wear gold and no man," etc. Nares gives in his Glossary (_v._ Portingall) a curious instance of the omission of a line, which escaped the author's own notice in the proof-sheet. So also in Massinger's Unnatural Combat, lines are wanting in two places, though he himself must have read the proofs. In 2 Hen. VI. iv. 1, there is a line wanting in the folio, to recover which we are actually obliged to go to the original play of The Contention, etc. Parts of lines, generally the latter part, are also often wanting, but not so often as it may seem; for short lines, and also over-long lines, generally are caused by malarrangement of the text. The main cause, however, of these losses is the ill-usage to which the manuscripts seem to have been subjected in the part of the theatre in which they were kept, and the careless treatment of them by those who had occasion to use them. Hence in some places the writing may have been obliterated by ink-blots, in others effaced by friction, or by damp or dust; while sometimes a part of a leaf may have been torn away. We must remember that a large number of Shakespeare's plays were lying thus exposed to ill-usage, probably in the property-room of the Globe or Blackfriars, for a space of from twenty to thirty years.