Let us glance at its history. Some eight years after the poet's death two of his 'friends and fellows John Heminge and Henry Condell — collected such of his plays as they could — probably, with the exception of 'pericles,' all he wrote or was largely concerned in — and gave them to the world in a handsome folio. To this folio was prefixed an Address, a part of which is so important that it should be literally trans cribed.