Ir must have occurred to many who have studied his Works in the First Folio (1623), that Shakspere had a rule of distinguishing in his Manuscripts, by a Capital Letter, every Word which ought to be emphasised, in order to the bringing out of his full meaning; this system having been originally adopted, no doubt, for the guidance of Players in the delivery of their parts. That this First Folio was in scrupulous accordance with "his own writings" (and not “the copies" with which the public had been thitherto abused), we learn from its Dedication; and that these writings were legible, and nice in every particular, we know through the oft-quoted words of its Editors: "We have scarce received from him a blot in his papers." But, altogether apart from this assurance, we, for ourselves, would have been satisfied that the First Folio was printed from the Poet's Manuscripts, though this one thing, namely, the frequent and invariably intelligent employment of Capital Letters, quite away from proper names, or the beginnings of lines or sentences, and in situations where these are by no means commonly met with, even in printed books of the same character and period. Shakspere seems to have so marked every word he intended stress to be laid on, and here, in our opinion, is the Key to the way in which he read his own Works, and in which they ought to be read by others. While there are fewer Capital Letters in the earlier Works included in the original Folio, and while, no doubt, many belonging to the twenty-two Plays of which it was the first Edition (and which are rich in them), escaped the loving vigilance of Heminge and Condell, in their self-imposed, laborious, and admirably executed task, still there exist thousands upon thousands of them, and there is not one such crowned word but stands up authoritatively as an interpreter on behalf of the author. It is no mere chance, or |