INTRODUCTION THE characteristic features of this edition of A Midsummer-Night's Dream are, first, an attempt to produce a text in advance of anything which has hitherto been published; and, secondly, an attempt to elucidate some of the long-standing difficulties connected with the interpretation of well-known passages in the play. Such, e.g., are (a) the corrections of "fair spirit,” II. i. I ; of "room good fairy," II. i. 58; of "lack-love kill-courtesy," II. ii. 76; of No, No, he'll . . .," III. ii. 257; "poor simple duty," v. i. 91; of "lily mows," v. i. 328: (b) the elucidations of "hold or cut bow-strings," I. ii. 112; "the human mortals want their winter cheer," II. i. 101; the source of the wellknown "fearful wild-fowl," III. i. 33; the attempted elucidation of "wondrous strange snow,” v. i. 59; and the true meaning of "late deceased" in v. i. 53. It remains to be seen how far the judgement and knowledge of the editor fall short of attaining that ideal standard of textual criticism which every editor of Shakespeare worthy of the name ought always to keep in mind; a standard which is only to be attained, to quote the words of Dr. H. H. Furness (New Variorum ed., Preface, xxi), by the exercise of that "exquisite nicety demanded at the present day in emending Shakespeare's text,-a nicety of judgment, a nicety of knowledge of Elizabethan literature, a nicety of ear, which alone bars all foreigners from the task, and, beyond all, a thorough mastery of Shakespeare's style and ways of thinking, which alone should bar all the rest of us." It can only be attained by the exercise, as Mr. Churton Collins puts it, in his essay on "The Porson of Shakespearean Criticism" (Essays and Studies, 1895, p. 281), "of that fine and rare faculty, if it be not rather an exquisite temper and harmony of various faculties, which seems to admit a critic for a moment into the very sanctuary of genius. In less figurative language, it is the faculty of divining and recovering, as by the power of some subtle sympathy, the lost touch-the touch of magic, often in the expression of poetry so precarious and delicate, that, dependent on a single word, a stroke of the pen may efface, just as a stroke of the pen may restore it." If the standard cannot be attained, it can at least be kept in sight. But the critic of this latter day does not keep the ideal in sight. He is usually satisfied to print the old corruptions, and to adopt the despairing position of Dr. Furness when he says (Preface, p. xxii)," Moreover, by this time the text of Shakespeare has become so fixed and settled that I think it safe to predict that unless a veritable MS. of Shakespeare's own be discovered, not a single future emendation will be generally accepted in critical editions. Indeed, I think, even a wider range may be assumed, so as to include in this list all emendations, that is, substitutions of words, which have been proposed since the days of Collier. . . . There is the text, and we must comprehend it if we can." Now the text of Shakespeare is by no means “fixed and settled." Far from it. Even in A Midsummer-Night's Dream, the text of which has reached us in a state of comparative correctness and purity, there are passages which are admittedly corrupt, but which have hitherto defied the efforts of all the critics and commentators to fix and settle. The true course for an editor to adopt in the matter of textual criticism, is neither the despairing attitude of rigid conservatism, nor yet the "wild and whirling freedom of exsufflicate and blown surmises," but rather that sober boldness and spirit of inquiry commingled of blood and judgement, the result, so far as he can attain it, of that nicety of knowledge and judgement of which Dr. Furness speaks. To make his text and textual notes of any permanent value, he must at least stamp them with his own individuality. He must, in the words of the admonition beheld by Spenser's Britomart on the "yron dores" in the castle of Busyrane (Faerie Queene, III. c. xi. st. 54): Be bold, be bold, and everywhere be bold; He must have no timidity in rejecting questionable readings. But, and there is every virtue in this " but,”—there must be no restless ingenuity or imperfect knowledge. He must be neither over-bold nor over-cautious; and, above all, he must remember that nothing is to be gained by perpetuating error. And this is exactly what he continues to do. Now, in this respect, we have, once and for all, the old texts with us. They are our κτήματα ἐς ἀεί. Nothing short of a world's cataclysm can deprive us of them. But nothing is more certain than that we have not got the text of the plays as they left their author's hand. I cordially agree with Dyce in his remarks in the Preface to his second edition, 1866, speaking of the difference between legitimate emendation and extravagant alteration: "In short, I now believe that an exact reprint of the old text with its multifarious errors forms a more valuable contribution to literature than a semi-corrected text, which, purged here and there of the grossest blunders, continues still, almost in every page, to offend against sense and metre. If the most eminent classical scholars, in editing the dramas of antiquity, have not scrupled frequently to employ conjecture for the restoration of the text, I cannot understand why an editor of Shakespeare-whose plays have come down to us no less disfigured by corruption than the masterpieces of the Athenian stage-should hesitate to adopt the happiest of the emendations proposed from time to time during more than a century and a half" [Dyce would now say during nearly two centuries "]" by men of great sagacity and learning,-always assuming that the deviations from the early editions are duly recorded." The true function, therefore, of the well-equipped editor— "all-furnish'd, all in arms"-is, not to perpetuate error by reprinting admitted corruptions, but to strive with all his might after the attainment of a perfect text, and only to leave it, according to the measure of his abilities, in such a state as he conceives it might have left the great master's hand. The text is, after all, the unum necessarium, the one thing needful," the weightier matter of the law": so far indeed is it from being "the mint, anise, and cumin of pedantic criticism," as a recent editor puts it. (See Mr. Bellyse Baildon's Introduction to Titus Andronicus, Arden edition, p. x.) The text of this play has reached us in a state more perfect than perhaps that of any other play of Shakespeare. This may be due to its having been printed, in all probability, either from the authentic MS. of Shakespeare himself, or at least from an accurate copy, or, perhaps, copies of the actors' parts, transcribed in the theatre from the original MS. At any rate we are primarily concerned with three important originals-if they may be so stylednamely, the two Quartos, both printed in 1600, in Shakespeare's own lifetime, and the First Folio, printed in 1623, seven years after his death. Strictly speaking, there is only one "original," the First Quarto. The First Quarto (QI), sometimes called "Fisher's Quarto," was the initial trade venture of a young stationer called Thomas Fisher, and was issued under a licence to print granted by the Master Wardens of the Stationers' Company in October 1600, such licence being the nearest approach in later Elizabethan times to the system of modern copyright. In Arber's Transcript of the Stationers' Register, vol. iii. p. 174, the licence runs as follows: 8 Octobris THOMAS FFYSSHER. The title-page of Q I runs as follows: "A | Midfommer nights dreame. | As it hath beene fundry times pub- | lickely acted, by the Right honoura- | ble, the Lord a |