_To set forth a booke without an Epistle, were like to the old English prouerbe_, A blew coat without a badge, _& the Author being dead, I thought good to take that piece of worke vpon mee: To commend it, I will not, for that which is good, I hope euery man will commend, without intreaty: and I am the bolder, because the Authors name is sufficient to vent his worke. Thus leauing euery one to the liberty of iudgement: I haue ventered to print this Play, and leaue it to the generall censure._ _Yours_, Thomas Walkley. This first Quarto contains many oaths and expletives, which in all the later editions are altered or omitted. This shows that the MS. from which it was printed had not been recently used as an acting copy. Many passages are omitted in Q₁, by accident or design, and some which we find only in the later editions look like afterthoughts of the author. The title-page of the second Quarto is letter for letter the same as the first, except that it has the following imprint: _LONDON_,| Printed by _A. M._ for _Richard Hawkins_, and are to be sold at | his shoppe in Chancery-Lane, neere Sergeants-Inne. | 1630. | Of this Quarto, which we term Q₂, Mr Collier says: 'It was unquestionably printed from a manuscript different from that used for the Quarto of 1622, or for the Folio of 1623.' But after a minute comparison of the two it appears to us clear that the Quarto of 1630 must have been printed from a copy of the Quarto of 1622, which had received additions and corrections in manuscript. The resemblances between the two are too close to allow of any other supposition. These additions and corrections, though agreeing for the most part with the first Folio, which had appeared in the interval, were derived from an independent source. The third Quarto, which we refer to as Q₃, was printed from the second, and is called 'The Fourth Edition.' It has the following imprint: _LONDON_, | Printed for _William Leak_ at the _Crown_ _in Fleet-_ | _street_, between the two Temple Gates, 1655 | Jennens, in his edition of _Othello_, published in 1773, was not aware of the existence of the Quarto of 1630, and quotes as the readings of the second Quarto those of the edition of 1655. An edition in Quarto, without date, is quoted by Capell on the authority of Pope; but on reference to Pope's list it appears that, though he has omitted the date, he refers to the Quarto of 1622, which contains the publisher's preface.