16 MARCH 1889, Page 23

We have received the fourth volume of The Henry Irving

Shake- speare, edited by Henry Irving and Frank A. Marshall. (Blackie and Son.)—This volume contains King Henry V., The Merry Wives of Windsor, Much Ado about Nothing, As You Like It, and Twelfth Night. Mr. Marshall announces that he has

secured the help of Messrs. A. Wilson Verity and A. Symons. We do not wish to speak unkindly of a work on which, as is evident, a large amount of money and labour is expended, and

which in many respects is all that could be desired. But surely there is a want of judgment in such footnotes as these, in one of the Dogberry scenes :—"Ezhaition, used blunderingly as ' per- mission." "Burglary, a blunder for 'perjury." Surely people who read Shakespeare do not want to be told such things. Such notes would be an affront even in a school edition.—In the " Bankside Edition" of Comedies, Histories, and Tragedies of Mr. William Shake- speare, edited by Appleton Morgan (Triibner and Co., London ; Shakespeare Society of New York), we have The Taming of a Shrew. The editor prints on the opposite pages A Pleasant Conceited Historie, called "The Taming of a Shrew," published in 1574, which he believes to be an early work of Shakespeare.

We may mention, as also published by the New York Shakespeare Society, The Construction and Types of Shakespeare's Verse, as Seen in "Othello."