Now, it happens that, by their own careless proof reading, Heminges and Condell have actually supplied this piece of missing circumstantial evidence, as follows: Naturally, in these true original copies of a particular actors part, the name of the actor assuming that part would be written in the margin, opposite to or instead of the name of the character he was to personate; precisely as is done to-day by the theater copyist in copying parts for distribution among the company. It happened that, in setting up the types for this first edition from these fragmentary actors' copies, the printers would often accidentaly, from following "copy" too closely, set up these real names of the actors instead of the names of the characters. And--as any one taking up a copy or fac-simile of this famous "first folio" can see for himself--the editors carelessly overlooked these errors in the proof, and there they remain to this day: "Jacke Wilson," for "Balthazar," "Andrew" and "Cowley," for "Dogberry;" "Kempe," for "Verges," and the like--the names of Shakespeare's actors--instead of the parts they took in the piece. It seems superfluous to again suggest that these unblotted "copies" could not have been the author's first draft of a play, or that an author does not write his compositions in manifold, or that there had been many actors to learn their parts in the course of from sixteen to twenty years. Besides--even if Heminges and Condell had not told us--it would have still been perfectly evident, from an inspection of the "first folio," that the "copy" it was set up from was never completely in their hands, but {315}was collected piecemeal during the manufacture. For instance, we see where the printers left a space of twenty-nine pages, between "Romeo and Juliet" and "Julius Cæsar," in which to print the "Timon of Athens." But all the copy they could find of the "Timon" only made _eighteen_ pages, and so--by huge "head pieces" and "tail pieces," and a "Table of the Actor's Names" (given in no other instance) in coarse capitals--they eked out the "signature;" and, by omitting the whole of the next "signature," carried the pagination over from "98" to "109." The copy for "Troilus and Cres-sida" seems not to have been received until the volume was in the binder's hands (which is remarkable, too, for that play had been in print for fourteen years). The play is not mentioned in the table of contents, but is tucked in without paging (except that the first five pages are numbered 78, 79, 80, 81, 82, whereas the paging of the volume had already reached 232). "Troilus and Cressida," thus printed, fills two "signatures" lacking one page, and so somebody at hand wrote a "Prologue" in rhyme--setting out the argument--to save the blank page, and the like. Whatever "papers" Heminges and Condell "received from William Shakespeare then, were fair, unblotted copies of the actor parts, made by him for their use.