But he only records
the purchase of one--the first part of _Henry IV._, though he mentions
that he read in addition _Othello_ and _Hamlet_. When his bookseller
first offered him the great First Folio edition of Shakespeare's
works, he rejected it for Fuller's _Worthies_ and the newly-published
Butler's _Hudibras_, in which, by the way, he failed to discover the
wit. Ultimately he bought the newly-issued second impression of the
Third Folio Shakespeare, along with copies of Spelman's _Glossary_ and
Scapula's _Lexicon_. To these soporific works of reference he
apparently regarded the dramatist's volume as a fitting pendant. He
seemed subsequently to have exchanged the Third Folio for a Fourth, by
which volume alone is Shakespeare represented in the extant library
that Pepys bequeathed to Magdalene College, Cambridge.
As a regular playgoer at a time when the stage mainly depended on the
drama of Elizabethan days, Pepys was bound to witness numerous
performances of Shakespeare's plays. On the occasion of forty-one of
his three hundred and fifty-one visits to the theatre, Pepys listened
to plays by Shakespeare, or to pieces based upon them. Once in every
eight performances Shakespeare was presented to his view.
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