  The poems contained in this volume, which comprise the whole of the Tales and the first eleven of the Tales of the Hall, are without exception printed from the edition of 1823, the last of Crabbe’s works published in this country in his lifetime. The Variants in the Tales are from the first edition (1812) and from the ‘Original MS.’ readings given as footnotes in the younger Crabbe’s edition of his father’s Life and Poems (1834). The Variants in the Tales of the Hall are from the first edition (1819); from the ‘Original MS.’ readings as above; from the Crabbe MSS. in the possession of the Cambridge University Press (which will be described in the Preface to Vol. III, where a much fuller use will be made of them), and from the MSS. in the valuable collection of Mrs Mackay of Trowbridge, most kindly lent by her for examination and use (to which the same remark applies). In the present volume will also be found certain Addenda to the Variants in Vol. I, from the ‘Original MS.’ readings printed by the younger Crabbe. Among the Errata in this volume are included a considerable number of quotations from Shakespeare with wrong indications of acts or scenes, and occasionally even of the plays from which the passages are taken. A large proportion of the quotations are in themselves imperfect, or otherwise incorrect. Perhaps it is stretching In the preparation of the present volume, I have again enjoyed the advantage of the friendly aid and cooperation of Mr A. T. Bartholomew, to whom I am specially indebted for the compilation of the Variants. Our joint efforts have been occasionally defeated by the illegibility of passages in the Crabbe MSS. acquired by our University Press. It is hoped that the third and concluding volume of this edition, which will contain a considerable amount of previously unpublished verse, will appear in the course of the summer. Peterhouse Lodge, Cambridge.
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