To the great Variety of Readers.

From the most able, to him that can but spell: There you are number'd. We had rather you were weighd. Especially, when the fate of all Bookes depends vpon your capacities: and not of your heads alone, but of your purses. Well! It is now publique, & you wil stand for your priuiledges wee know: to read, and censure. Do so, but buy it first. That doth best commend a Booke, the Stationer saies. Then, how odde soeuer your braines be, or your wisedomes, make your licence the same, and spare not. Iudge your sixe-pen'orth, your shillings worth, your fiue shillings worth at a time, or higher, so you rise to the iust rates, and welcome. But, what euer you do, Buy. Censure will not driue a Trade, or make the Iacke go. And though you be a Magistrate of wit, and sit on the Stage at Black-Friers, or the Cock-pit, to arraigne Playes dailie, know, these Playes haue had their triall alreadie, and stood out all Appeales; and do now come forth quitted rather by a Decree of Court, then any purchas'd Letters of commendation.

It had bene a thing, we confesse, worthie to haue bene wished, that the Author himselfe had liu'd to haue set forth, and ouerseen his owne writings; But since it hath bin ordain'd otherwise, and he by death departed from that right, we pray you do not envie his Friends, the office of their care, and paine, to haue collected & publish'd them; and so to haue publish'd them, as where (before) you were abus'd with diuerse stolne, and surreptitious copies, maimed, and deformed by the frauds and stealthes of iniurious impostors, that expos'd them: euen those, are now offer'd to your view cur'd, and perfect of their limbes; and all the rest, absolute in their numbers, as he conceiued th&ebar;. Who, as he was a happie imitator of Nature, was a most gentle expresser of it. His mind and hand went together: And what he thought, he vttered with that easinesse, that wee haue scarse receiued from him a blot in his papers. But it is not our prouince, who onely gather his works, and giue them you, to praise him. It is yours that reade him. And there we hope, to your diuers capacities, you will finde enough, both to draw, and hold you: for his wit can no more lie hid, then it could be lost. Reade him, therefore; and againe, and againe: And if then you doe not like him, surely you are in some manifest danger, not to vnderstand him. And so we leaue you to other of his Friends, whom if you need, can bee your guides: if you neede them not, you can leade your selues, and others. And such Readers we wish him.

To the memory of my beloued, The AVTHOR Mr. William Shakespeare: And what he hath left vs. [secondary verse]
To draw no enuy (Shakespeare) on thy name,
  Am I thus ample to thy Booke, and Fame:
While I confesse thy writings to be such,
  As neither Man, nor Muse, can praise too much.
'Tis true, and all mens suffrage. But these wayes
  Were not the paths I meant vnto thy praise:
For seeliest Ignorance on these may light,
  Which, when it sounds at best, but eccho's right;
Or blinde Affection, which doth ne're aduance
  The truth, but gropes, and vrgeth all by chance;
Or crafty Malice, might pretend this praise,
  And thinke to ruine, where it seem'd to raise.
These are, as some infamous Baud, or Whore,
  Should praise a Matron. What could hurt her more?
But thou art proofe against them, and indeed
  Aboue th' ill fortune of them, or the need.
I, therefore will begin. Soule of the Age!
  The applause! delight! the wonder of our Stage!
My Shakespeare, rise; I will not lodge thee by
  Chaucer, or Spenser, or bid Beaumont lye
A little further, to make thee a roome:
  Thou art a Moniment, without a tombe,
And art aliue still, while thy Booke doth liue,
  And we haue wits to read, and praise to giue.
That I not mixe thee so, my braine excuses;
  I meane with great, but disproportion'd Muses:
For, if I thought my iudgement were of yeeres,
  I should commit thee surely with thy peeres,
And tell, how farre thou didstst our Lily out-shine,
  Or sporting Kid, or Marlowes mighty line.
And though thou hadst small Latine, and lesse Greeke,
  From thence to honour thee, I would not seeke
For names; but call forth thund'ring Æschilus,
  Euripides, and Sophocles to vs,
Paccuuius, Accius, him of Cordoua dead,
  To life againe, to heare thy Buskin tread,
And shake a Stage: Or, when thy Sockes were on,
  Leaue thee alone, for the comparison

Of all, that insolent Greece, or haughtie Rome
  sent forth, or since did from their ashes come.
Triumph, my Britaine, thou hast one to showe,
  To whom all Scenes of Europe homage owe.
He was not of an age, but for all time!
  And all the Muses still were in their prime,
When like Apollo he came forth to warme
  Our eares, or like a Mercury to charme!
Nature her selfe was proud of his designes,
  And ioy'd to weare the dressing of his lines!
Which were so richly spun, and wouen so fit,
  As, since, she will vouchsafe no other Wit.
The merry Greeke, tart Aristophanes,
  Neat Terence, witty Plautus, now not please;
But antiquated, and deserted lye
  As they were not of Natures family.
Yet must I not giue Nature all: Thy Art,
  My gentle Shakespeare, must enjoy a part.
For though the Poets matter, Nature be,
  His Art doth giue the fashion, And, that he,
Who casts to write a liuing line, must sweat,
  (such as thine are) and strike the second heat
Vpon the Muses anuile: turne the same,
  (And himselfe with it) that he thinkes to frame;
Or for the lawrell, he may gaine a scorne,
  For a good Poet's made, as well as borne.
And such wert thou. Looke how the fathers face
  Liues in his issue, euen so, the race
Of Shakespeares minde, and manners brightly shines
  In his well torned, and true-filed lines:
In each of which, he seemes to shake a Lance,
  As brandish't at the eyes of Ignorance.
Sweet Swan of Auon! what a sight it were
  To see thee in our waters yet appeare,
And make those flights vpon the bankes of Thames,
  That so did take Eliza, and our Iames!
But stay, I see thee in the Hemisphere
  Aduanc'd, and made a Constellation there!
Shine forth, thou Starre of Poets, and with rage,
  Or influence, chide, or cheere the drooping Stage;
Which, since thy flight fr&obar; hence, hath mourn'd like night,
  And despaires day, but for thy Volumes light. Ben: Ionson.

Vpon the Lines and Life of the Famous Scenicke Poet, Master William SHAKESPEARE. [secondary verse]
Those hands, which you so clapt, go now, and wring
You Britaines braue; for done are Shakespeares dayes:
His dayes are done, that made the dainty Playes,
Which made the Globe of heau'n and earth to ring.
Dry'de is that veine, dry'd is the Thespian Spring,
Turn'd all to teares, and Phœbus clouds his rayes:
That corp's, that coffin now besticke those bayes,
Which crown'd him Poet first, then Poets King.
If Tragedies might any Prologue haue,
All those he made, would scarse make one to this:
Where Fame, now that he gone is to the graue
(Deaths publique tyring-house) the Nuncius is.
  For though his line of life went soone about,
  The life yet of his lines shall neuer out. HVGH HOLLAND.

A CATALOGVE of the seuerall Comedies, Histories, and Tragedies contained in this Volume.

COMEDIES. The Tempest. Folio 1 The two Gentlemen of Uerona. 20 The Merry Wiues of Windsor. 38 Measure for Measure. 61 The Comedy of Errours. 85 Much adoo about Nothing. 101 Loues Labour lost. 122 Midsommer Nights Dreame. 145 The Merchant of Uenice. 163 As you Like it. 185 The Taming of the Shrew. 208 All is well, that Ends well. 230 Twelfe-Night, or what you will. 255 The Winters Tale. 304

HISTORIES. The Life and Death of King John. Fol. 1. The Life & death of Richard the second. 23 The First part of King Henry the fourth. 46 The Second part of K. Henry the fourth. 74 The Life of King Henry the Fift. 69 The First part of King Henry the Sixt. 96 The Second part of King Hen. the Sixt. 120 The Third part of King Henry the Sixt. 147 The Life & Death of Richard the Third. 173 The Life of King Henry the Eight. 205

TRAGEDIES. The Tragedy of Coriolanus. Fol. 1. Titus Andronicus. 31 Romeo and Juliet. 53 Timon of Athens. 80 The Life and death of Julius Cæsar. 109 The Tragedy of Macbeth. 131 The Tragedy of Hamlet. 152 King Lear. 283 Othello, the Moore of Uenice. 310 Anthony and Cleopater. 346 Cymbeline King of Britaine. 369

TO THE MEMORIE of the deceased Authour Maister W. Shakespeare. [secondary verse]
Shake-speare, at length thy pious fellowes giue
The world thy Workes: thy Workes, by which, out-liue
Thy Tombe, thy name must when that stone is rent,
And Time dissolues thy Stratford Moniment,
Here we aliue shall view thee still. This Booke,
When Brasse and Marble fade, shall make thee looke
Fresh to all Ages: when Posteritie
Shall loath what's new, thinke all is prodegie
That is not Shake-speares; eu'ry Line, each Uerse
Here shall reuiue, redeeme thee from thy Herse.
Nor Fire, nor cankring Age, as Naso said,
Of his, thy wit-fraught Booke shall once inuade.
Nor shall I e're beleeue, or thinke thee dead
(Though mist) vntill our bankrout Stage be sped
(Jmpossible) with some new straine t' out-do
Passions of Iuliet, and her Romeo;
Or till J heare a Scene more nobly take,
Then when thy half-Sword parlying Romans spake.
Till these, till any of thy Volumes rest
Shall with more fire, more feeling be exprest,
Be sure, our Shake-speare, thou canst neuer dye,
But crown'd with Lawrell, liue eternally. L. Digges. To the memorie of M. W. Shake-speare. [secondary verse]
VVee wondred (Shake-speare) that thou went'st so soone
From the Worlds-Stage, to the Graues-Tyring-roome.
Wee thought thee dead, but this thy printed worth,
Tels thy Spectators, that thou went'st but forth
To enter with applause. An Actors Art,
Can dye, and liue, to acte a second part.
That's but an Exit of Mortalitie;
This, a Re-entrance to a Plaudite. I. M.

The Workes of William Shakespeare, containing all his Comedies, Histories, and Tragedies: Truely set forth, according to their first ORJGJNALL.