_Shakspeare's Works with a Digest of all the Readings_ (Vol. viii., pp. 74.
170. 362.).--I am exceedingly obliged to your correspondent ESTE for his
suggestions, and need not say that any sincere advice will be most
respectfully considered. In the second volume of my folio edition of
Shakspeare, I am partially endeavouring to carry out the design to which he
alludes, by giving a digest of all the readings up to the year 1684. How is
it possible to carry out his wish farther with any advantage? I should feel
particularly thankful for a satisfactory reply to the following questions
in relation to this important subject:--1. As many copies of the first and
other folio editions, as well as nearly all the copies of the same quarto
editions, differ from each other, how are these differences to be treated?
What copies are to be taken for texts, and how many copies of each are to
be collated? 2. Are such books as Beckett, Jackson and others, to be
examined? If not, are _any_ conjectural emendations of the last and present
centuries to be given? Where is the line to be drawn? A mere selection is
valueless, or next to valueless; because, setting aside the differences in
opinion in such matters, we want to know what conjectures are new, and
which are old? 3. Are the various readings suggested in periodicals to be
given? 4. Can any positive and practical rules be furnished, likely to
render such an undertaking useful and successful?