Excerpt from Notes, Criticism, and Correspondence Upon Shakespeare's Plays and Actors The sketches and essays which occupy the follow ing pages, necessarily partaking more or less of a personal character - the author so often Speaking of his own experience or observations - there would seem to be required no further preface at his hands. He cannot, however, neglect to avail himself of the time-honored privilege of saying a word to the reader, were it only to exchange the customary form of salu tation when meeting. For he would have his book regarded not as an elaborate attempt at authorship to which he makes no pretensions - but in the spirit of a familiar and friendly, yet earnest conversation, when one is listened to with partiality, as he discourses upon topics of admitted interest, or revises the traits of those whom the world has been accustomed to admire. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.