I. 1. 62. This passage, which is printed as prose in the Quartos, is arranged and read by Capell thus:
I. 3. 208. Theobald inserts here two lines from the old play:
We have omitted them, agreeing with Capell, Malone, Mr Knight, Mr Collier, and Mr Grant White, that their insertion is not absolutely necessary. Besides Shakespeare would hardly have left so lame a line as the second unaltered. It is possible that some such line as the following may have dropped out:
I. 4. At the commencement of this scene Rowe, and Pope in his first edition, inserted the stage direction ‘Flourish’ which belongs to the end of the previous scene. Pope, in his second edition, omitted it altogether, and Theobald restored it to its right place.
II. 1. 84. Having recorded up to this point throughout the scene all the cases in which the arrangement of the lines in the Folios is defective, we have thought it unnecessary to do so any more, except where there is any doubt as to what the true arrangement should be. The restoration of the metre is, in almost all instances, due to Pope.
II. 1. 125–132. In the first Folio this passage stands as follows:
Pope alters the first four lines thus:
The following is Hanmer’s reading of the first six lines:
In the rest of the scene several arbitrary changes have been made by different editors for the sake of the metre.
II. 2. 45, 46. The first Folio has the whole passage thus:
The later Folios follow the first, except that in the seventh line they read ‘She then was’ for ‘She was.’
Rowe read, ‘Who was son to Edmond Langley,’ but made no other change; and Pope followed him.
Theobald read:
and arranged the following lines as they are found in our text.
Hanmer:
It was Capell who arranged the earlier lines of the speech as we have given them. Steevens, as usual, adopted his arrangement without acknowledging the obligation.
Mr Collier, in his first edition, read:
III. 1. We retain here Salisbury and Warwick among the persons who enter to the parliament, because they are found both in the Folios and Quartos. In the latter their ‘exeunt’ is also marked. Capell was the first to omit them because they do not speak throughout the scene.
III. 2. 11. The murderer’s answer ’Tis, which Rowe changed to Yes without authority, shows that we ought to retain the Is of the first Folio notwithstanding the grammatical inaccuracy. In the Quartos the murderer says, ‘All things is hansome now my Lord.’
III. 2. 26. We have left ‘Nell’ in the text as the mistake is, in all probability, Shakespeare’s own. He was thinking of the Duchess of Gloucester. Oddly enough neither Rowe nor Pope discovered the blunder. Shakespeare again wrote ‘Elianor’ or ‘Elinor’ for ‘Margaret’ in the 79th, the 100th, and 120th lines of this scene. In Henry V. V. 1. the author has made a similar mistake and written ‘Doll’ for ‘Nell.’ See also note VII on The Two Gentlemen of Verona.
III. 2. 182. This is a striking example of the way in which corrections were made in the successive Folios; i.e. by mere guess-work, without reference to the first. The true reading escaped the notice of all editors before Capell.
IV. 10. 14. By comparing this scene as it stands in the Quartos with that of the Folios it will appear that Shakespeare, in remodelling it, intended that Iden should be alone when he encountered Cade, as his first speech is evidently a soliloquy; and after he has killed Cade he disposes of the body with his own hands. Shakespeare omitted, however, to strike out the reference to the ‘five men’ in line 36.
Steevens who brought the servants on the stage forgot to send them off it. The mistake remained uncorrected down to Mr Dyce’s first edition.
Another example of Shakespeare’s incomplete alteration of the Quarto has been pointed out by Malone at V. 1. 56.
V. 2. 66. Malone, referring to the corresponding passage of the Quartos, supposes that a line has been omitted, to the following effect: