From F. J. Furnivall, Director of the New Shakspere Society, London.
The merit I see in Mr. Rolfe's school editions of Shakspere's Plays over those most widely used in England is that Mr. Rolfe edits the plays as works of a poet, and not only as productions in Tudor English. Some editors think that all they have to do with a play is to state its source and explain its hard words and allusions ; they treat it as they would a charter or a catalogue of household furniture, and then rest satisfied. But Mr. Rolfe, while clearing up all verbal difficulties as carefully as any Dryasdust, always adds the choicest extracts he can find, on the spirit and special "note" of each play, and on the leading characteristics of its chief personages. He does not leave the student without help in getting at Shakspere's chief attributes, his characterization and poetic power. And every practical teacher knows that while every boy can look out hard words in a lexicon for himself, not one in a score can, unhelped, catch points of and realize character, and feel and express the distinctive individuality of each play as a poetic creation.
From Prof. Edward Dowden, LL.D., of the University of Dublin Author of "Shakspere : His Mind and Art."
I incline to think that no edition is likely to be so useful for school and home reading as yours. Your notes contain so much accurate instruction, with so little that is superfluous ; you do not neglect the æsthetic study of the play; and in externals, paper, type, binding, etc., you make a book "pleasant to the eyes" (as well as "to be desired to make one wise")—no small matter, I think, with young readers and with old.
From Edwin A. Abbott, M.A., Author of "Shakespearian Grammar."
I have not seen any edition that compresses so much necessary information into so small a space, nor any that so completely avoids the common faults of commentaries on Shakespeare — needless repetition, superfluous explanation, and unscholar-like ignoring of difficulties.
From Hiram Corson, M.A., Professor of Anglo-Saxon and English Literatwe, Cornell University, Ithaca, N. Y.
In the way of annotated editions of separate plays of Shakespeare, for educational purposes, I know of none quite up to Rolfe's.
