SEVENTEENTH CENTURY.
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Coimtriet, rteiur ditcovered till of late, by a strange Pilyrim in those Parts, by George Fairbanke.
1822, May 3. A Courant of Newes from Vi- enna mid other places, entered May 29, by Mr. Bourne and Thomas Archer.
1622, June 7. A Courant of Newes, by Mr. Butter.
A Courant oj Newes, dated at Rome, May 21 ; entered June 17, by Nath. Newbunie and Wil- Uam Sheffard.
1622, June 19. Newes from New England, by John Bellamte.
1022, Aug. 21. 7T&« certain Newes of the pre- tent Week, by Mr. Butter.
1622, Aug. 27. A Discourse of Newes from Prague in Bohemia, of a Husband who by Witchcraft had murthered eighteen Wives, and of a Wife who had likewise murthered nineteen Husbands, by Barth. Downes and William Sheffard.
1622, Sept. 3. A Courant, called Newes from sundry Places, with a relation of the Storm at Plymouth ; by Mr. Butter.
About this period, newspapers began also to be established on the continent. Their origina- tor at Paris is said to have been a physician, named Theophrastus Renaudot, who had found that it was conducive to success in his profession to be able to tell the news to* amuse his patients. Seasons were not always sickly, but his taste for the collection of gossip was incessant. He, there- fore, came to reflect that there might be some advantage in printing his intelligence periodi- cally, so that the world might have it whether sick or whole. His scheme succeeded, and he obtained a sole privilege from cardinal Richlieu, for publishing the Paris Gazette, and the first number appeared in April, in the year 1632.
1623. Edward Hulet gave to the stationers company £5 "for a drinking among them," and a silver bowl, gilt in fa^ion of an owl, weighing six ounces, inscribed " The gift of Edward Hulet, gentleman, 1623." This bowl was preserved in 1629, when all the rest of the plate was sold, to relieve the king's wants.
1623. The following work was printed at Am- sterdam in this year: — Voorbeelsels der Oude Wyse, handelande van trouw, ontrouw, list, haet, gheswtndiclteyt, ende alle audere Menschelucke gheneghenlheden, with curious cuts formed with types, instead of the common mode of engraving or casting entire subjects upon one piece, these consist of several. A book of the most extreme rarity, which appears to have escaped the re- searches of bibliographers. It must always rank as a curiosity on account of the cuts being formed of detached types. There is a copy in tbe royal library at Paris. A copy of this work was lately offered at £8 8«.
1623. ISAAC Jaooard and Edward Blount printed the first edition of Shakspeare's plays, with the following title :
Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, and Tragedies. Published according to the true Original Copies. London, 1623. Folio.
Tliis edition was published under the direction
of Heminge and Condell, two players, with the following dedication- to the earls of Pembroke and Montgomery :
" Since your lordships have been pleased to think these trifles something, heretofore," say these fellow -labourers in the art of pleasing, " and have prosecuted both them and their au- thor, living, with so much favour, we hope you will use the like indulgence toward them you have done unto their parent. There is a great diflerence, whether any book choose his parents or find them: this hath done both ; for so much were your lordships likings of the several parts, when they were acted, as before they were pub- lished, the volume asked to be yours. We nave but collected them, and done an office to the dead to procure his orphans guardians, without ambition either of self-profit or fame : only to keep the memory of so worthy a friend and fel- low alive, as wa.s our Shakspeare."
Leonard Digges wrote an elegy upon Shak- speare, immediately after the appearance of the first edition ; of which the following is an extract :
" Next nature only hdped Um, for look thorough This whole book, thon shalt find he doth not bocnnr One phrase from Greeks, nor Latins imitate, Mor once <rom vnlgar languages translate; Nor plagiary-like, from others glean. Nor begs he ih>m each witty friend a scene. To piece his acts with : all that he doth write Is pore bis own ; plot, language, exquisite."
Mostof the plays of Shakspeare were published in a detachea form during his lifetime. This edition was thrice reprinted before the close of this century, butwithout any attention being paid to the accuracy of the text. At length, in 1714, Nicholas Rowe, presented an edition in which an attempt was made to correct many words and phrases, which were either wrong or sup- posed to be so; now also was it thought, for the first time, necessaty to gather a few particulars respecting the life of the author.
This first edition is greatly prized by amateurs, as it contains the only portrait, which requires no evidence to support its authenticity. " It is," says John Home Tooke, " the only edition worth regarding, and it is much to be wished, that an edition of Shakspeare were given litera- tum according to the first folio," as " the igno- rance and presumption of the commentators have shamefully disfigured Shakspeare's text."
The insensibility of Shakspeare to the offspring of his brain may be the subject of our wonder or admiration; but its consequences have been calamitous to those who in after times have hung with delight over his pages. On the intellect and the temper of these ill-fated mortals it has inflicted a heavy load of punishment in the dulness and the arrogance of^ commentators and illustrators — in the conceit and petulance of Theobald; the imbecility of Capell ; the pert and tasteless dogmatism of Steevens, the ponder- ous littleness of Malone and of Drake. Some superior men, it is true, have enlisted themselves in the cause of Shakspeare. Rowe, Pope, War^ burton, Hanmer, and Johnson, have successively been his editors ; and have professed to give his
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