The five plays contained in this volume occur in the first Folio in the same order, and, with one exception, were there printed for the first time. In the case of _The Merry Wives of Windsor_, two Quartos (Q1 and Q2), imperfect copies of an earlier play, appeared in 1602 and 1619, the second a reprint of the first. They are described in a special Introduction to that play, and a reprint of Q1, collated with Q2, follows it. A third Quarto (Q3) was printed from F1 in 1630. _The Tempest_ was altered by Dryden and D'Avenant, and published as _The Tempest; or the Enchanted Island_, in 1669. We mark the emendations derived from it: 'Dryden's version.' D'Avenant, in his _Law against Lovers_ fused _Measure for Measure_ and _Much ado about Nothing_ into one play. We refer to his new readings as being from 'D'Avenant's version.' [Footnote 1: A third editor was afterwards added. Mr Luard's election to the office of Registrary compelled him to relinquish his part, at least for the present; and the first volume, consequently, is issued under the responsibility of two editors only.] [Footnote 2: See page xxi.] [Footnote 3: A passage in the _Return from Parnassus_ compared with one in Bale's preface to his _Image of Both Churches_ puts this almost beyond a doubt.] [Footnote 4: Mr Wright in his preface to _Bacon's Essays_ mentions that he has collated ten copies of the edition of 1625, 'which though bearing the same date, are all different from each other in points of no great importance.'] [Footnote 5: Mr Bohn is mistaken in saying that the Capell copy has both titles. It has that of 1664 only, with the portrait, and B. J.'s verses underneath on the opposite page.] [Footnote 6: Capell's copy now before us contains the following note in Capell's hand-writing: 'This copy of Mr Theobald's edition was once Mr Warburton's; who has claim'd in it the notes he gave to the former which that former depriv'd him of and made his own, and some Passages in the Preface, the passages being put between hooks and the notes signed with his name. E. C.' The passage quoted from Theobald's Preface is one of those between hooks.] [Footnote 7: Thomas Rymer, whose book, called _A short View of Tragedy of the last Age_, 1693, gave rise to a sharp controversy.] [Footnote 8: Capell, who might be supposed to write 'sine ira et studio,' denies to Theobald even this merit: 'His work is only made a little better [than Pope's] by his having a few more materials; of which he was not a better collator than the other, nor did he excel him in use of them.' The result of the collations we have made leads us to a very different conclusion.] [Footnote 9: Notwithstanding this claim of identity, Warburton seems to have used Theobald's text to print from. Capell positively affirms this, (Preface, p. 18).]