PREFACE TO THE AMERICAN EDITION

AN Edition of the Works of William Shakspeare is now offered to the citizens of the United States. This poet has always been considered as the father of the English drama, and as, beyond any comparison, the greatest theatrical writer in the English language. Within the last thirty years, we may safely compute that his plays have undergone at least thirty editions. One of these, published about three years ago, by Mr. Boydell of London, was upon a superfine quarto page, and including numerous superb engravings, each copy cost about an hundred guineas. No other English poet has afforded such an inexhaustible harvest for critical illustration. It is indeed hardly possible to open any English book on the Belles Lettres, without meeting a reference to Shakspeare. So incessant is the echo of his name, so tumultuous the admiration of his talents, that a plain reader may be tempted to feel something like that Athenian, who was tired with constantly hearing of ARISTIDES THE JUST. Quintilian tells us that Menander, the ancient comic poet, had so totally surpassed all his competitors in that species of composition, that they served only as foils to reflect his lustre. A remark of this kind may be applied to the plays of Shakspeare; for a jury of critics would agree that they are more truly valuable than all the other productions collectively of the English stage.