A New Variorum Edition of Shakespeare: The Tragedie of Anthonie, and Cleopatra (Classic Reprint)

Excerpt from A New Variorum Edition of Shakespeare: The Tragedie of Anthonie, and Cleopatra

It must be a source of gratification to all lovers of Shakespeare that the discussion in regard to the superiority of this or that Text is gradually declining, and that what, in the time of our forebears, was a furious ebullition, is now subsiding into a gentle simmer, whereof the murmur is soothing rather than exciting. It must be acknowledged, however, that the flames burned about certain plays more fiercely than about others. And it was those 'stolne and surreptitious copies,' the Quartos, that supplied the fuel. Undoubtedly, the Quartos have at times yielded valuable assistance, - notably in Hamlet and in Richard the Third, - more emphatically, however, in supplying deficiencies than in elucidating the Text. As to the Text, it is doubtful that any very pronounced superiority can be observed in those plays whereof we have Quartos over those whereof we have none. There have been times, I confess, in this present play, when I have been tempted to sigh for a Quarto; but the sigh has been stifled by the reflection that, in all probability, instead of one point of discussion, we should then have several points, and that there would always be disputants ready to cast up to the Quarto the stigma of its birth and refuse to accept its testimony. Whereof, in scanning the whole horizon, I have concluded that mankind is, in general, happier under the grey authority of the Folio, and of the Folio alone, which is nearer to Shakespeare than a stolen Quarto, and that

'Calm pleasures there abide, majestic pains.'

In this present play of Anthony and Cleopatra it is the Folio that, I must say happily, furnishes our sole Text. There is, to be sure, an entry in the Stationers' Registers which warrants the supposition that a Quarto, if it did not actually appear, was at least in contemplation.