[Prefaces and Prologues to Famous Books by Charles W. Eliot]@TWC D-Link book
Prefaces and Prologues to Famous Books

PREFACE TO THE FIRST FOLIO EDITION OF SHAKESPEARE'S PLAYS ( 1623)[A] TO THE GREAT VARIETY OF READERS From the most able, to him that can but spell: There you are number'd
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But since it hath bin ordain'd otherwise, and he by death departed from that right, we pray you do not envie his Friends, the office of their care, and paine to haue collected & publish'd them, and so to haue publish'd them, as where (before) you were abus'd with diuerse stolne, and surreptitious copies, maimed, and deformed by the frauds and stealthes of iniurious imposters, that expos'd them euen those, are now offer'd to your view cur'd, and perfect of their limbes, and all the rest, absolute in their numbers, as he conceiued them.

Who, as he was a happie imitator of Nature, was a most gentle expresser of it.

His mind and hand went together.

And what he thought, he vttered with that easinesse, that wee haue scarse receiued from him a blot in his papers.

But it is not our prouince, who onely gather his works, and giue them you, to praise him.


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