Merchant of Venice. - Repositories

^xiv
INTROD UCTION
the Stratford church. There is one other likeness, a
portrait, regarded as fairly authentic, which in 1623
yas prefixed to the first collective edition of Shakespeare^s
works. A copy of this portrait forms the
frontispiece of the present edition of The Merchant
of Venice.
The Fate of his Works.—Of the house that Shakespeare
meant to be the home of his last years, hardly
one stone remains upon another. His line of descent
became extinct with the death of his granddaughter
in 1670. His works, however, remain, although many
have been the dangers through which they have
passed. At the time in which Shakespeare was writing
his plays in London, the theatrical managers and
agents for whom he wrote were not usually willing to
let the manuscripts of plays fall into the hands of
printers. The deputies of leading publishers, nevertheless,
frequently visited the play-houses, and sought
by a system of shorthand notes to steal the words
from the actors' lips. Many a spurious and garbled
edition was thus thrown upon the market. Sometimes
also in self-defence the author was obliged to
deliver his manuscript to the printer. Even when
the manuscript could be obtained, it was doubtless
often hard to decipher it because of the many changes
and notes that had been inserted during rehearsals.
These earlier editions were called " quartos'' from the