Can the wit of man suggest any other explanation than that the editing of the Folio was carelessly done; out of the best quartos and MSS. in the theatre for acting purposes, and,—­if the players did not lie in what they “often said,” and if they kept the originals,—­out of some MSS. received from Shakspere?  Whether the two players themselves threw into the press, after some hasty botchings, whatever materials they had, or whether they employed an Editor, a very wretched Editor, or Editors, or whether the great Author, Bacon, himself was his own Editor, the preparation of a text was infamously done.  The two actors, probably, I think, never read through the proof-sheets, and took the word of the man whom they employed to edit their materials, for gospel.  The editing of the Folio is so exquisitely careless that twelve printer’s errors in a quarto of 1622, of Richard iii, appear in the Folio of 1623.  Again, the Merry Wives of the Folio, is nearly twice as long as the quarto of 1619, yet keeps old errors.

How can we explain the reckless retention of errors, and also the large additions and improvements?  Did the true author (Bacon or Bungay) now edit his work, add much matter, and go wrong forty-seven times where the quarto was right, and go right twenty times when the quarto was wrong?  Did he, for the Folio of 1623, nearly double The Merry Wives in extent, and also leave all the errors of the fourth quarto uncorrected?

In that case how negligent was Bacon of his immortal works!  Now Bacon was a scholar, and this absurd conduct cannot be imputed, I hope, to him.

Mr. Pollard is much more lenient than his fellow-scholars towards the Editor or Editors of the Folio.  He concludes that “manuscript copies of the plays were easily procurable.”  Sixteen out of the thirty-six plays existed in quartos.  Eight of the sixteen were not used for the Folio; five were used, “with additions, corrections, or alterations” (which must have been made from manuscripts).  Three quartos only were reprinted as they stood.  The Editors greatly preferred to use manuscript copies; and showed this, Mr. Pollard thinks, by placing plays, never before printed, in the most salient parts of the three sets of dramas in their book. {215a} They did make an attempt to divide their plays into Acts and Scenes, whereas the quartos, as a general rule, had been undivided.  But the Editors, I must say, had not the energy to carry out their good intentions fully—­or Bacon or Bungay, if the author, wearied in well-doing.  The work is least ill done in the Comedies, and grows worse and worse as the Editor, or Bacon, or Bungay becomes intolerably slack.