# Shakespeare of Stratford/The Biographical Facts/Fact 69

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New Haven: Yale University Press, pages 87–96
​LXIX. INTRODUCTORY MATTER TO THE SHAKESPEARE FOLIO (1628).
(A) Dedicatory Epistle of Heminge and CondelL to the Earls of Pembroke and Montgomery.
​To the most noble and incomparable pair of brethren: William, Earl of Pembroke, &c., Lord Chamberlain to the King’s most excellent Majesty; and Philip, Earl of Montgomery, &c., Gentleman of his Majesty’s Bedchamber—both Knights of the most noble Order of the Garter, and our singular good lords.
Right Honorable: Whilst we study to be thankful in our particular for the many favors we have received from your Lordships, we are fallen upon the ill fortune to mingle two the most diverse things that can be: fear and rashness—rashness in the enterprise, and fear of the success. For when we value the places your Highnesses sustain, we cannot but know their dignity greater than to descend to the reading of these trifles; and while we name them trifles, we have deprived ourselves of the defence of our dedication.
But since your Lordships have been pleased to think these trifles something heretofore, and have prosecuted both them and their author, living, with so much favor, we hope that (they outliving him, and he not having the fate, common with some, to be executor to his own writings) you will use the like indulgence toward them you have done unto their parent. There is a great difference whether any book choose his patrons or find them. This hath done both. For so much were your Lordships’ likings of the several parts, when they were acted, as before they were published the volume asked to be yours. We have but collected them, and done an office to the dead, to procure his orphans guardians: without ambition either of self-profit or fame, only to keep the memory of so worthy a friend and fellow alive as was our SHAKESPEARE by humble offer of his plays to your most noble patron ​age. Wherein, as we have justly observed no man to come near your Lordships but with a kind of religious address, it hath been the height of our care, who are the presenters, to make the present worthy of your Highnesses by the perfection.
But there we must also crave our abilities to be considered, my Lords. We cannot go beyond our own powers: country hands reach forth milk, cream, fruits, or what they have; and many nations, we have heard, that had not gums and incense, obtained their requests with a leavened cake. It was no fault to approach their gods by what means they could; and the most, though meanest, of things are made more precious when they are dedicated to temples. In that name, therefore, we most humbly consecrate to your Highnesses these remains of your servant Shakespeare: that what delight is in them may be ever your Lordships’, the reputation his, and the faults ours, if any be committed by a pair so careful to show their gratitude both to the living and the dead as is
Your Lordships’ most bounden
John Heminge Henry Condell
(B) Epistle of Heminge and Condell to the readers of the Folio.
To the Great Variety of Readers.—From the most able to him that can but spell: there you are numbered. We had rather you were weighed; especially when the fate of all books depends upon your capacities, and not of your heads alone, but of your purses. Well, it is now public, and you will stand for your privileges, we know: to read and censure. Do so, but buy it first: that doth best commend a book, the sta​tioner says. Then, how odd soever your brains be or your wisdoms, make your license the same, and spare not. Judge your six-penn’orth, your shilling’s worth, your five shillings’ worth at a time, or higher, so you rise to the just rates, and welcome. But, whatever you do, buy! Censure will not drive a trade or make the jack go. And though you be a magistrate of wit, and sit on the stage at Blackfriars or the Cockpit to arraign plays daily, know, these plays have had their trial already and stood out all appeals, and do now come forth quitted rather by a decree of court than any purchased letters of commendation.
It had been a thing, we confess, worthy to have been wished that the author himself had lived to have set forth and overseen his own writings; but since it hath been ordained otherwise, and he by death departed from that right, we pray you, do not envy his friends the office of their care and pain, to have collected and published them:—and so to have published them, as where before you were abused with divers stolen and surreptitious copies, maimed and deformed by the frauds and stealths of injurious impostors that exposed them, even those are now offered to your view cured and perfect of their limbs, and all the rest absolute in their numbers as he conceived them,—who, as he was a happy imitator of nature, was a most gentle expresser of it. His mind and hand went together, and what he thought he uttered with that easiness that we have scarce received from him a blot in his papers. But it is not our province, who only gather his works and give them you, to praise him: it is yours’ that read him. And there, we hope, to your divers capacities, you will find enough both to draw and hold you; for his wit can no more lie hid than it ​could be lost. Read him, therefore, and again and again; and if then you do not like him, surely you are in some manifest danger not to understand him, and so we leave you to other of his friends whom if you need can be your guides. If you need them not, you can lead yourselves and others, and such readers we wish him.
John Heminge. Henry Condell.
(C) Ben Jonson’s Eulogy.
To the memory of my beloved, the Author, Mr. William Shakespeare, and what he hath left us.
​(D) Elegiac sonnet of Hugh Holland.
Upon the Lines and Life of the Famous Scenic Poet, Master William Shakespeare.
(E) Dedicatory verses by Leonard Digges.
To the Memory of the deceased Author, Master W. Shakespeare.
(F) Memorial Verses by James Mabbe.
To the memory of M. W. Shake-speare.
(G) List of the Principal Actors in Shakespeare’s Plays.
​The Names of the Principal Actors in all these plays.
| William Shakespeare. | Samuel Gilburne. |
| Richard Burbadge. | Robert Armin. |
| John Heminings. | William Ostler. |
| Augustine Phillips. | Nathan Field. |
| William Kempt. | John Underwood. |
| Thomas Poope. | Nicholas Tooley. |
| George Bryan. | William Ecclestone. |
| Henry Condell. | Joseph Taylor. |
| William Slye. | Robert Benfield. |
| Richard Cowly. | Robert Goughe. |
| John Lowine. | Richard Robinson. |
| Samuell Crosse. | John Shancke. |
| Alexander Cooke. | John Rice. |
* ↑ Beaumont had been buried, a few months before Shakespeare’ death, in Westminster Abbey, where Chaucer and Spenser also lay.
* ↑ I.e. with Chaucer, Spenser, and Beaumont.
* ↑ I.e. mature.
* ↑ Seneca, born at Cordova.
* ↑ Comedies.
* ↑ The messenger in Senecan tragedy who reported the deaths to the audience.
* ↑ Bankrupt.
* ↑ I.e. Brutus and Cassius, parleying with swords half drawn.
* ↑ A longer poem by Digges, in the same strain but with more detail, was printed in the 1640 edition of Shakespeare’s Poems.
* ↑ Shakespeare’s death.
* ↑ The appearance of the Folio.
* ↑ The play’s successful close.
Footnotes