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Excerpt from The Works of Beaumont and Fletcher, Vol. 1 of 2: The Text Formed From a New Collation of the Early Editions; With Notes and a Biographical Memoir
Beaumont and fletcher only three critical editions have been hitherto ted. The first was that of 1750, commenced by Theobald and completed by l and Sympson, in which the most unwarrantable liberties were taken with the The second, published in 1778, was at least an improvement on that of 1750, ch as the editors (of whom the elder Colman was the chief) rejected the greater of the arbitrary alterations introduced by their predecessors. The third was 1812, edited by iveber, who, having availed himself of Monck Mason's Notes, d in produced on the whole the best edition of the dramatists which had )eared. H, however, remained to be done for Beaumont and Fletcher - principally by in of the early copies. In this respect the above-mentioned editors were so onably careless that, though (as their annotations prove) they used nearly all 1y copies extant, they yet entirely overlooked a great number of readings, by both the sense and the metre might have been restored. Nor were they less ing of censure on another account: in too many passages which they happened understand, they deliberately substituted their own improvements for the authors' clanguage. Text of the edition which I now submit to the public is formed from a minute m of all the early copies: but I have not thought it necessary to crowd the by noticing every triing variation which the quartos and the folios exhibit. The plays The Honest Alan's Fortune and 7728 Humorous Lieutenant have re tly amended by means Of mss. O the memoir of the authors, while I have endeavoured to state, with more pre han has hitherto been aimed at, the particulars already known concerning them and their writings, I have had the good fortune to discover, among some other tets of less importance, the date and place of Fletcher's birth. With the ihical details I have mingled such observations as were suggested to me by d perusals of the poets' works.
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