Act I. Scene 1. The acts and scenes are marked throughout in the Folios, but not in the Quartos.

I. 1. 25, 26. There is a curious example of careless printing here in the third Quarto, which reads:

I. 1. 36. 'and tis our fast intent.' 'This,' says Warburton, 'is an interpolation of Mr Lewis Theobald, for want of knowing the meaning of the old reading in the Quarto of 1608, and first folio of 1623; where we find it—and 'tis our FIRST intent, which is as Shakespear wrote it.' Warburton's error was corrected by Johnson.

I. 1. 80-84. The reading given in the text is that of the Folios, except as otherwise stated in the foot note. The first Quarto, which is followed, except in the spelling of a word or two, by the rest, has:

I. 1. 114. This and other anonymous conjectures are found in MS. in an imperfect copy of the second Quarto of 1608, now in the British Museum (C. 34. k. 17). Besides those which we have quoted there are many others made by the MS. corrector which agree either with the other Quartos or with the Folios.

I. 1. 220. Hanmer, adopting Rowe's alteration, reads the whole passage thus:

The next lines he also alters thus:

I. 4. 225-228. In this passage Rowe followed the Folios. Pope introduced some of the lines of the Quartos, making verse of them thus:

Theobald and Hanmer followed Pope. So did Warburton, except that in the second line he read 'Of sovereignty of knowledge, &c.' Johnson and Capell followed the Folios. Steevens in his edition of 1773 read as in the text, but in 1778 recurred to the reading of Pope: except that he transferred 'Lear's shadow?' to the end of the previous line, and for 'learn' read 'learn that.' Mr Dyce, in his first edition, arranged lines 225-228 thus:

In his second edition he reads:

Mr Staunton reads 'I would ... reason' as prose, and the next line as verse. He suggests that "possibly the meaning may be restored by simply omitting the comma after sovereignty, 'by the marks of sovereignty knowledge and reason,' i.e. of supreme or sovereign knowledge, &c." But his later conjecture is that for 'Of sovereignty, of knowledge' we should read 'Of sovereignly knowledge.' Mr Keightley, adopting some of the readings of the Quartos, arranges the whole passage as follows:

I. 4. 338. In the imperfect copy of Q₂ in the British Museum 'attaskt for' was the original reading, but the first two letters of the word have been erased. In II. 1. 123, 'lest,' the original reading, has been altered to 'best.'

II. 1. 76. We take this opportunity of stating that we have not thought it worth while, either in this play or in Hamlet, to notice the few inaccuracies which occur in Steevens's reprints.

II. 2. 40. Mr Dyce first suggested that 'Part' was intended as a stage-direction.

II. 2. 136-142. The first Quarto, followed substantially by the others, reads here:

The Folios have only the following lines:

II. 2. 163. The first Quarto here reads:

The other Quartos differ only in spelling. The first Folio, followed substantially by the rest, has:

Rowe reads:

Pope followed him, but restored 'From' in the second line, and this reading was silently adopted by Theobald and Warburton, and by Hanmer in his margin. Johnson thinks the passage very obscure if not corrupt. Jennens prints it as follows:

Steevens (1773) gives as his own conjecture what Jennens had already published.

Singer (ed. 1) read thus:

Dr Delius adopts nearly the same punctuation:

III. 1. 53-55. The first Folio, followed substantially by the rest, reads thus:

The Quartos thus:

Pope:

Hanmer follows Pope, reading however 'for which' instead of 'in which' in the first line. Steevens, in his edition of 1773, reads with the Quartos, adopting the following strange punctuation, and dividing the lines thus:

III. 2. 2. Both Capell and Jennens agree in giving 'Your' as the reading of the Quartos in this line for 'You,' but Capell's own copies and all others that we have seen read 'You.'

III. 6. 101-114. Every editor from Theobald downwards, except Hanmer, has reprinted this speech from the Quartos. In deference to this consensus of authority we have retained it, though, as it seems to us, internal evidence is conclusive against the supposition that the lines were written by Shakespeare.

IV. 1. 12. These conjectures of Hanmer's are derived from a letter of his to Warburton, still unpublished, which is now in the British Museum (Egerton, 1957).

IV. 6. 196-200. The first Quarto has in this passage:

The second Quarto omits 'Gent. Good Sir.'

The first Folio has:

The second and following Folios put a full stop at 'King.'

Pope combines the readings of the Folios and second Quarto thus:

V. 1. 26. 'Not bolds the king' is usually interpreted as an elliptical phrase for 'Not as it emboldens the king.' This is however a very harsh construction, and the word 'bolds' occurs nowhere else in Shakespeare with this meaning, though we have, according to the most probable reading, 'dear'd,' for 'endear'd,' in Antony and Cleopatra, I. 4. 44. Possibly these words are corrupt and a line has dropped out before them. Albany ought to say something of this kind: 'I should be ready to resist any mere invader, but the presence in the invader's camp of the king and other Britons, who have just cause of enmity to us, dashes my courage.'

V. 3. 315. Capell reads 'rough' in his text, believing that he had the authority of the first Quarto for it; but in his own copy and that of the Duke of Devonshire, the reading is plainly 'tough,' though the 't' is broken.