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printed, and which it is highly probable were deſtroyed at the preſs; or that any diligence ſhould at the end of nine years have recovered their ſoiled and mutilated fragments? Such a ſuppoſition is as wild and chimerical, as many of that editor's arbitrary interpolations. This fancy ſhould ſeem to have originated from its having been thrown out in ſome modern publication, the title of which I have forgotten, that Heminge and Condell, the editors of the firſt folio, were probably likewiſe editors of the ſecond, which appeared in 1632; an aſſertion which, before the two books had been minutely examined and compared, and before the time of their reſpective deaths had been aſcertained, might paſs current enough; but unluckily for this theory, after a long ſearch in the Prerogative Office, I diſcovered the wills of both theſe actors, and have ſhewn that Condell died in 1627, and Heminge in the year 1630[1].—On this ſubject, however, we are not obliged to have recourſe to inferences from dates, or to conjecture, in order to prove that all the corrections, emendations, or interpolations of that copy (by whatever name they may be called) were arbitrary and capricious. The nume-
- ↑ Hiſtorical Account of the Engliſh ſtage pp. 190. 199,
