Capell's edition (10 volumes, small 8vo) was not published till 1768, though part of it had gone to press, as the editor himself tells us, in September, 1760. It contained the Plays in the order of the first and second Folios, with a preface, of which Dr Johnson said, referring to _Tempest_, I. 2. 356, 'The fellow should have come to me, and I would have endowed his purpose with words. As it is he doth gabble monstrously.'
Defects of style apart, this preface was by far the most valuable contribution to Shakespearian criticism that had yet appeared, and the text was based upon a most searching collation of all the Folios and of all the Quartos known to exist at that time. Capell's own conjectures, not always very happy, which he has introduced into his text, are distinguished by being printed in black letter.
The edition before us contains the scansion of the lines, with occasional verbal as well as metrical corrections, marked in red ink, in Capell's hand. This was done, as he tells us in a note prefixed to Vol. I., in 1769.
He described, much more minutely than Pope had done, the places of the scenes, and made many changes, generally for the better, in the stage directions.
In his peculiar notation, _Asides_ are marked by inverted commas, and obvious stage business is indicated by an obelus.
In a note to his preface, p. xxiii, Capell says:
'In the manuscripts from which all these plays are printed, the emendations are given to their proper owners by initials and other marks that are in the margin of those manuscripts; but they are suppressed in the print for two reasons: First their number, in some pages, makes them a little unsightly; and the editor professes himself weak enough to like a well-printed book; in the next place, he does declare, that his only object has been to do service to his Author; which provided it be done, he thinks it of small importance by what hand the service was administer'd,' &c.
By this unfortunate decision, Capell deprived his book of almost all its interest and value[11]. And thus his unequalled zeal and industry have never received from the public the recognition they deserved.
In 1774, a volume of notes[12] was printed in quarto, and in 1783, two years after his death, appeared _Notes, Various Readings, and the School of Shakespeare_, 3 vols. 4to.[13] The printing of this work was begun in 1779.