great founders of our dramatic literature, instead of being the mere follower and improver of Marlowe, and Greene, and Peele, and Kyd. We shall think ourselves fortunate if we have made out an additional proof of Shakspere's early excellence from the interpretation we have now given of the ‘Thalia' of Spenser.

But there is another poem of Spenser, published in 1595, in which Shakspere is mentioned, there can be little doubt, with reference to another variety of his excellence. In 'Colin Clout's come home again" we have a description of the "Shepherds" of "Cynthia's" court-the court of Elizabeth— who are able" her name to glorify." These, with the exception of two, are mentioned under feigned names. Daniel, one of the two, is noticed as "a new shepherd." To whom can this description apply?—

"And there, though last not least, is Ætion;

A gentler shepherd may nowhere be found,
Whose muse, full of high thoughts' invention,
Doth, like himself, heroically sound."

Verstegan, in his Restitution of Decayed Intelligence,' speaking of the surnames of our ancient families, says, "Breakspear, Shakespear, and the like, have been surnames imposed upon the first bearers of them for valour and feats of arms." Fuller in his Worthies' quaintly compares William Shakspeare to "Martial" (the Roman poet) "in the warlike sound of his surname (whence some may conjecture him of a military extraction), Hasti-vibrans, or Shake-speare." Ben Jonson has a somewhat similar fancy:

"He seems to shake a lance

As brandish'd in the eyes of Ignorance."

Spenser, it would appear, adopted the same association with the name of Shakspere, whose muse

"Doth, like himself, heroically sound."

The "pleasant Willy" had now, we think, quitted

"Fine counterfesance and unhurtful sport,"

for "high thoughts' invention." The author of the early plays of Henry VI. had struck a bolder note in the Richard II.' and 'Richard III.' He had more completely become the poet of the chivalrous times of England. It has been the fashion to hold that Shakspere's first historical plays were only the patchwork in which he joined something of his own to the less finished productions of other poets; and it has been also held that he did this somewhat dishonestly. We have endeavoured to show in the Essay on Henry VI.' that these opinions are without foundation. We abbreviate a passage from that Essay which has more especial reference to Shakspere's personal history and character. It has been maintained that the two plays which form the staple of what we call the Second and Third Parts of 'Henry VI.' were not written by Shakspere, but by Greene or Peele, two contemporary dramatists, or both together. Those two plays were called the First and Second Parts of the 'Contention of the Two Houses of York and Lancaster;' and the second of them was sometimes called "The True Tragedy of Richard Duke of York.' We have no hesitation in saying, comparing these original plays with Greene's acknowledged productions, that the character of his mind, and his habits of composition, rendered him utterly incapable of producing, not the two Parts of the Contention,' or one Part, but a single sustained scene of either Part. Those who have maintained the contrary opinion have not done so upon any examination of Greene's works, but solely upon their interpretation of a passage in a posthumous pamphlet, in which he unquestionably makes some vague charges against Shakspere. Greene died in 1593.

The entire pamphlet of Greene's is, perhaps, one of the most extraordinary fragments of autobiography that the vanity or the repentance of a sinful man ever produced. The recital which he makes of his abandoned course of life involves not only a confession of crimes and follies which were common to a very licentious age, but of particular and especial depravities, which even to mention argues as much shamelessness as repentance. The portion, however, which relates to the

subject before us stands alone, in conclusion, as a friendly warning out of his own terrible example:-" To those gentlemen, his quondam acquaintance, that spend their wits in making plays, R. G. wisheth a better exercise, and wisdom to prevent his extremities." To three of his quondam acquaintance the dying man addresses himself. To the first, supposed to be Marlowe "thou famous gracer of tragedians "—he speaks in words as terrible as came from

"that warning voice, which he who saw Th' Apocalypse heard cry in heav'n aloud."

In exhorting his friend to turn from atheism he ran the risk of consigning him to the stake, for Francis Kett was burnt for his opinions only three years before Greene's death. Marlowe resented this address to him. With his second friend, supposed to be Lodge, his plain speaking is much more tender : "Be advised, and get not many enemies by bitter words." He addresses the third, supposed to be Peele, as one "driven as myself to extreme shifts;" and he adds, "thou art unworthy better hap, sith thou dependest on so mean a stay." What is the stay? "Making plays." The exhortation then proceeds to include the three "gentlemen his quondam acquaintance that spend their wits in making plays."- "Base-minded men all three of you, if by my misery ye be not warned: for unto none of you, like me, sought those burs to cleave; those puppets, I mean, that speak from our mouths; those antics garnished in our colours." Up to this point the meaning is perfectly clear. The puppets, the antics, by which names of course are meant the players, whom he held, and justly, to derive their chief importance from the labours of the poet, in the words which they uttered and the colours with which they were garnished,--had once cleaved to him like burs. But a change had taken place: "Is it not strange that I, to whom they all have been heholding-is it not like that you, to whom they all have been beholding, shall, were ye in that case that I am now, be, both, of them at once forsaken?" This is a lamentable picture of one whose powers, wasted by dissipation and enfeebled by sickness, were no longer required by those to whom they had once been serviceable. As he was forsaken, so he holds that his friends will be forsaken. And chiefly for what reason? "Yes, trust them not: for there is an upstart crow, beautified with our feathers, that, with his tiger's heart wrapped in a player's hide, supposes he is as well able to bombast out a blank-verse as the best of you: and, being an absolute Johannes factotum, is in his own conceit the only Shakescene in a country." There can be no doubt that Shakspere was here pointed at; that the starving man spoke with exceeding bitterness of the successful author; that he affected to despise him as a player; that, if "beautified with our feathers" had a stronger meaning than "garnished with our colours," it conveyed a vague charge of borrowing from other poets; and that he parodied a line from the True Tragedy of Richard the Second,' "his tiger's heart," &c. This is literally every word that can be supposed to apply to Shakspere. Greene proceeds to exhort his friends "to be employed in more profitable courses."-" Let these apes imitate your past excellence, and never more acquaint them with your admired inventions."-" Seek you better masters." It is perfectly clear that these words refer only to the players generally; and, possibly, to the particular company of which Shakspere was a member. As such, and such only, must he take his share in the names which Greene applies to them, of "apes,"" rude grooms,"-" buckram gentlemen,"-" peasants," and "painted monsters." It will be well to give the construction that has been put upon these words, in the form in which the "hypothesis" was first propounded by Malone :

"Shakspeare having therefore, probably not long before the year 1592, when Greene wrote his dying exhortation to his friend, new-modelled and amplified these two pieces, (the tw Parts of the Contention,') and produced on the stage wha in the folio edition of his works are called the Second and

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Third Parts of King Henry VI.,' and having acquired considerable reputation by them, Greene could not conceal the mortification which he felt at his own fame, and that of his associate, both of them old and admired playwrights, being eclipsed by a new upstart writer (for so he calls our great poet), who had then first perhaps attracted the notice of the public by exhibiting two plays, formed upon old dramas written by them, considerably enlarged and improved. He therefore, in direct terms, charges him with having acted like the crow in the fable, beautified himself with their feathers; in other words, with having acquired fame furtivis coloribus, by new-modelling a work originally produced by them: and wishing to depreciate our author, he very naturally quotes a line from one of the pieces which Shakspeare had thus rewritten, a proceeding which the authors of the original plays considered as an invasion both of their literary property and character. This line, with many others, Shakspeare adopted without any alteration. The very term that Greene uses, to bombast out a blank-verse,'-exactly corresponds with what has been now suggested. This new poet, says he, knows as well as any man how to amplify and swell out a blank-verse. Bumbast was a soft stuff of a loose texture, by which garments were rendered more swelling and protuberant."

Thus, then, the starving and forsaken man-rejected by those who had been beholding to him; wanting the very bread of which he had been robbed, in the appropriation of his property by one of those who had rejected him; a man, too, prone to revenge, full of irascibility and self-love-contents himself with calling his plunderer "an upstart crow, beautified with our feathers"-" A Johannes factotum".

"The only Shake-scene in the country." "He could not

conceal his mortification!" It would have been miraculous if he could. And how does he exhibit it? He parodies a line from one of the productions of which he had been so plundered, to carry the point home-to leave no doubt as to the sting of his allusion. But, as has been most justly observed, the epigram would have wanted its sting if the line parodied had not been that of the very writer attacked. Be this as it may, the dying man, for some cause or other, chose to veil his deep wrongs in a sarcastic allusion. He left the manuscript containing this allusion to be published by a friend; and it was so published. But the matter did not stop here. Chettle, also a player, the editor of the posthumous work, actually apologised to the " upstart crow :”—“ I am as sorry as if the original fault had been my fault, because myself hath seen his demeanour no less civil than he excellent in the quality he professes; besides divers of worship have reported his uprightness of dealing, which argues his honesty, and his facetious grace in writing, that approves his art." This apology was not written by Chettle at some distant period; it came out in the same year with the pamphlet which contained the insult. The terms which he uses-" uprightness of dealing," and "facetious grace in writing"—seem as if meant distinctly to refute the vague accusation of "beautified with our feathers." It is perfectly clear that Chettle could not have used these terms if Shakspere had been the wholesale plunderer either of Greene or of any other writer that it is assumed he was by those who deprive him of the authorship of the two Parts of the Contention.' If he had been this plunderer, and if Chettle had basely apologised for a truth uttered by his dying friend, would the matter have rested there? Were there no Peeles, and Marlowes, and Nashes in the world to proclaim the dishonour of the plagiarist and the apologist? No one repeated the calumny, though doubtless some believed it. Probably never yet any great author appeared in the world who was not reputed, in the onset of his career, to be a plagiarist; or any great literary performance, produced by one whose reputation had to be made, that was not held to be written by some one else than the man who did write it-there was some one behind the curtain-some mysterious assistant-whose possible existence was a consola

tion to the envious and the malignant. Examples in our own day are common enough. If Shakspere felt an honest indignation in being attacked in this way as "an upstart crow beautified with our feathers," it must have been consoling to have had the greatest of his poetical contemporaries speak at the same period of him as "full of high thoughts' invention."

If we have succeeded in establishing a just ground for belief that the "pleasant Willy" of Spenser's 'Thalia' was William Shakspere, we have at once disposed of the assertion that he had attained no reputation previous to 1591. Malone connects the supposed date of Shakspere's commencement as a dramatic writer with the notice of him by some of his contemporaries. He passes over Nashe's "whole Hamlets" in 1589; he maintains that the description of the "gentle spirit," who

"Doth rather choose to sit in idle cell

Than so himself to mockery to sell,"

applied not to Shakspere, but to Lyly, who was at that instant most active in "mockery;" but he fixes Shakspere with having begun to write in 1592, because Greene, in 1593, ridicules him as the "only Shake-scene in the country." In an age when there were no newspapers and no reviews, it must be extremely difficult to trace the course of any man, however eminent, by the notices of the writers of his times. An author's fame then was not borne through every quarter of the land in the very hour in which it was won. More than all, the reputation of a dramatic writer could scarcely be known, except to a resident in London, until his works were committed to the press. The first play of Shakspere's which was printed was 'The First Part of the Contention' ('Henry VI.,' Part II.), and that did not appear till 1594. Now, Malone says, "In Webbe's 'Discourse of English Poetry,' published in 1586, we meet with the names of most of the celebrated poets of that time; particularly those of George Whetstone and Anthony Munday, who were dramatic writers; but we find no trace of our author, or of any of his works." But Malone does not tell us that in Webbe's 'Discourse of Poetry' we meet with the following passage :

"I am humbly to desire pardon of the learned company of gentlemen scholars, and students of the Universities and Inus of Court, if I omit their several commendations in this place, which I know a great number of them have worthily deserved, in many rare devices and singular inventions of poetry for neither hath it been my good hap to have seen all which I have heard of, neither is my abiding in such place where I can with facility get knowledge of their works." "Three years afterwards," continues Malone, "Puttenham printed his Art of English Poesy;' and in that work also we look in vain for the name of Shakspeare." The book speaks of the one-and-thirty years' space of Elizabeth's reign; and thus puts the date of the writing a year earlier than the printing. But we here look in vain for some other illustrious names besides those of Shakspere. Malone has not told us that the name of Edmund Spenser is not found in Puttenham ; nor, what is still more uncandid, that not one of Shakspere's early dramatic contemporaries is mentioned-neither Marlowe, nor Greene, nor Peele, nor Kyd, nor Lyly. The author evidently derives his knowledge of "poets and poesy" from a much earlier period than that in which he publishes. He does not mention Spenser by name but he does "that other gentleman who wrote the late 'Shepherd's Calendar.'" The 'Shepherd's Calendar' of Spenser was published in the year 1579. Malone goes on to argue that the omission of Shakspere's name, or any notice of his works, in Sir John Harrington's Apology of Poetry,' printed in 1591, in which "he takes occasion to speak of the theatre and mentions some of the celebrated dramas of that time," is a proof that none of Shakspere's dramatic compositions had then appeared. The reader will be in a better position to judge of the value of this argument by a reference to the passage of Sir John Harrington:

"For tragedies, to omit other famous tragedies: that, that was played at St. John's in Cambridge, of Richard III.,

Homer, Hesiod, Euripides, Æschylus, Sophocles, Pindarus, Phocylides, and Aristophanes; and the Latin tongue by Virgil, Ovid, Horace, Silius Italicus, Lucanus, Lucretius, Ausonius, and Claudianus; so the English tongue is mightily enriched, and gorgeously invested in rare ornaments and resplendent habiliments, by Sir Philip Sidney, Spenser, Daniel, Drayton, Warner, Shakespeare, Marlow, and Chapman.

would move, I think, Phalaris, the tyrant, and terrify all tyrannous-minded men." [This was a Latin play, by Dr. Legge, acted some years before 1588.] "Then for comedies. How full of harmless mirth is our Cambridge 'Pedantius' and the Oxford Bellum Grammaticale'!" [Latin plays again.] "Or, to speak of a London comedy, how much good matter, yea, and matter of state, is there in that comedy called the 'Play of the Cards,' in which it is showed how four parasitical knaves robbed the four principal vocations of the realm; videl. the vocation of soldiers, scholars, merchants, and husbandmen. Of which comedy, I cannot forget the saying of a notable wise counsellor that is now dead, who, when some (to sing Placebo) advised that it should be forbidden, because it was somewhat too plain, and indeed as the old saying is (sooth boord is no boord), yet he would have it allowed, adding it was fit that they which do that they should not, should hear that they would not."

Nothing, it will be seen, can be more exaggerated than Malone's statement, "He takes occasion to speak of the theatre, and mentions some of the celebrated dramas of that time." Does he mention 'Tamburlaine,' or 'Faustus,' or 'The Massacre of Paris,' or 'The Jew of Malta'? As he does not, it may be assumed with equal justice that none of Marlowe's compositions had appeared in 1591; and yet we know that he died in 1593. So of Lyly's 'Galathea,' 'Alexander and Campaspe,' 'Endymion,' &c. So of Greene's 'Orlando Furioso,' 'Friar Bacon,' 'James IV. So of the 'Spanish Tragedy' of Kyd. The truth is, that Harrington in his notice of celebrated dramas was even more antiquated than Puttenham; and his evidence, therefore, in this matter is utterly worthless. But Malone has given his crowning proof that Shakspere had not written before 1591, in the following words :

"Sir Philip Sidney, in his Defence of Poesie,' speaks at some length of the low state of dramatic literature at the time he composed this treatise, but has not the slightest allusion to Shakspeare, whose plays, had they then appeared, would doubtless have rescued the English stage from the contempt which is thrown upon it by the accomplished writer; and to which it was justly exposed by the wretched compositions of those who preceded our poet. The Defence of Poesie' was not published till 1595, but must have been written some years before."

There is one slight objection to this argument: Sir Philip Sidney was killed at the battle of Zutphen, in the year 1586; and it would really have been somewhat surprising if the illustrious author of the Defence of Poesy' could have included Shakspere in his account" of the low state of dramatic literature at the time he composed this treatise." If he had done anything in dramatic literature before 1586, he had done little. We have thus gone through all the usual proofs that Shakspere could not have written before 1591,-1593, according to some authorities, and we leave our readers to judge of their value.

If the instances of the mention of Shakspere by his contem. poraries during his lifetime be not numerous, we are compensated by the fulness and explicitness of one notice-that of Francis Meres, in 1598. Short as his notice is, it is by far the most valuable contribution which we possess towards the 'Life' of Shakspere. Meres was a master of arts of Cambridge, and subsequently entered the church. In 1598 he published a book called 'Palladis Tamia, Wit's Treasury.' It is a collection of moral sentences from ancient writers, and it is described by Anthony Wood as "a noted school-book." Prefixed to it is 'A Comparative Discourse of our English Poets, with the Greek, Latin, and Italian Poets.' Nothing can be more decisive than this Comparative Discourse' as to the rank which, in 1598, Shakspere had taken amongst the most eminent of his contemporaries. It has been usual to quote only one passage from this treatise (which is indeed far the most important)-that in which Shakspere's works are recited, but we prefer to quote the whole :

"As the Greek tongue is made famous and eloquent by

"As the soul of Euphorbus was thought to live in Pythagoras, so the sweet witty soul of Ovid lives in mellifluous and honey-tongued Shakespeare; witness his Venus and Adonis,' his 'Lucrece,' his sugared sonnets among his private friends, &c. "As Plautus and Seneca are accounted the best for comedy and tragedy among the Latins, so Shakespeare, among the English, is the most excellent in both kinds for the stage; for comedy, witness his Gentlemen of Verona, his 'Errors, his 'Love Labours Lost,' his 'Love Labours Won,' his Midsummer's Night Dream,' and his Merchant of Venice;' for tragedy, his 'Richard II.,' ' Richard III.,' 'Henry IV.,' 'King John,' Titus Andronicus,' and his 'Romeo and Juliet.'

"As Epius Stolo said that the Muses' would speak with Plautus's tongue, if they would speak Latin; so I say that the Muses would speak with Shakespeare's fine filed phrase, if they would speak English.

"As these tragic poets flourished in Greece-Eschylus, Euripides, Sophocles, Alexander Ætolus, Achæus Eritbriæus, Astydamas Atheniensis, Apollodorus Tarsensis, Nicomachus Phrygius, Thespis Atticus, and Timon Appolloniates; and these among the Latins-Accius, M. Attilius, Pomponius Secundus, and Seneca; so these are our best for tragedy-the Lord Buckhurst, Doctor Leg of Cambridge, Doctor Edes of Oxford, Master Edward Ferris, the author of the Mirror for Magistrates,' Marlow, Peele, Watson, Kid, Shakespeare, Drayton, Chapman, Decker, and Benjamin Jonson.

"The best poets for comedy, among the Greeks, are these— Menander, Aristophanes, Eupolis Atheniensis, Alexis Terius, Nicostratus, Amipsias Atheniensis, Anaxandrides Rhodius, Aristonymus, Archippus Atheniensis, and Callias Atheniensis; and among the Latins, Plautus, Terence, Nævius, Sext. Turpilius, Licinius Imbrex, and Virgilius Romanus: so the best for comedy among us be-Edward Earl of Oxford, Doctor Gager of Oxford, Master Rowley (once a rare scholar of learned Pembroke Hall in Cambridge), Mr. Edwards (one of her Majesty's chapel), eloquent and witty John Lilly, Lodge, Gascoyne, Greene, Shakespeare, Thomas Nash, Thomas Heywood, Anthony Mundye (our best plotter), Chapman, Porter, Wilson, Hathway, and Henry Chettle."

The praise of Shakspere by Meres is much more detailed than that which he gives to any other writer. In his own peculiar walk, (comedy and tragedy,) he "is the most excelleut in both kinds for the stage." The list of Shakspere's plays which Meres gives in 1598 can scarcely be supposed to be a complete one. Previous to 1598 there had been only printed the two Parts of the Contention,' 'Richard III.,' 'Richard II.,' and Romeo and Juliet.' Of the six comedies mentioned by Meres, not one had been published; neither had 'Henry IV.,''King John,' nor Titus Andronicus;' but, in 1597, 'Love's Labour's Lost,' and the First Part of Henry IV.,' had been entered in Stationers' Hall. Without the list of Meres, therefore, we could not have absolutely shown that the Two Gentlemen of Verona,' the Comedy of Errors,' the All's Well that Ends Well,' (which, we have every reason to think, was designated as 'Love Labours Won,') the 'Midsummer Night's Dream,' the 'Merchant of Venice,' the 'King John,' and the Titus Andronicus,' were written and produced before 1598. The list of Meres omits the original Hamlet' and the Taming of the Shrew,' which, we have reason to think, were produced before 1598; but, looking at Meres's list alone, how gloriously had Shakspere earned that reputation which he had thus acquired in 1598! He was then thirty-four years of age, but he had produced all his great historical plays, with the exception of 'Henry V.' and 'Henry VIII.' (we include 'Henry VI.' as a matter of course, because it must have preceded

'Richard III."); he had given us Romeo and Juliet,' and had even "corrected and augmented" it; the stage was in possession, and the fame acknowledged, of six of his most delicious comedies. Before the close of that century we have little doubt that he had also produced 'Henry V.,' 'The Merry Wives of Windsor,' and 'Much Ado about Nothing.' It would be impossible in this place to attempt any classification of these plays in strict chronological order. In the Pictorial Edition of Shakspere' we have collected all the evidence which we could find to bear upon the particular date of each play; and we may here very briefly group them in cycles, according to the notions which we entertain of the separate dates.

If 'Titus Andronicus' were written by Shakspere, (and the positive evidence that it was so written is most distinct,) we must place it very early. It belongs unquestionably to the transition state of the drama; it is what Shakspere would not have written in his middle life; it is full of extravagant horrors; it is obnoxious to the censure of Charles Lamb that "blood is made as light of in some of these old dramas as money in a modern sentimental comedy." The versification, too, is more monotonous than that of Shakspere's later works. 'Pericles' is an example of a very different style of drama. It is the legendary tale of the old stage-a succession of adventures spread over a long series of years, without any very distinct cohesion-presenting passages of great vigour and beauty, in connexion with others contrasting remarkably in their feebleness. It has been shown satisfactorily enough that 'Pericles' was called a new play in 1608: and that it was very popular in the later Shaksperian period. But we cannot reconcile a belief in this with the internal evidence of the play itself. It may have been revived in 1608; it may then have been altered by the poet himself; but we must still cling to the opinion so confidently expressed by Dryden, that

"Shakspere's own muse his Pericles' first bore."

The two plays of Titus Andronicus' and 'Pericles' are by many still considered as not written by Shakspere. Believing them to be very early plays, we may ask, Who else could have written them? Of the other plays assigned to Shakspere, and printed in one of the folio editions of his works, but whose genuineness cannot, we think, be asserted upon any unprejudiced examination of their internal evidence, it may be sufficient to mention the titles - Locrine,' 'Sir John Oldcastle,' 'Lord Cromwell,' 'The London Prodigal,' 'The Puritan.' It is not impossible that 'A Yorkshire Tragedy,' a very short and hasty performance of considerable power, may be Shakspere's.

To the period, then, from Shakspere's early manhood, from the time of his marriage, to 1591, the date of Spenser's "Tears of the Muses,' we would assign not less than nine dramas, instead of believing that he first began to write in 1591. Some of those dramas may possibly then have been created in an imperfect state, very different from that in which we have received them.

If the Titus Andronicus' and 'Pericles' are Shakspere's, they belong to this epoch in their first state, whatever it might have been. We have no doubt that the three plays, in their original form, which we now call the three Parts of 'Henry VI.,' were his; and they also belong to this epoch. That 'Hamlet,' in a very imperfect state, probably more imperfect even than the sketch in the possession of the Duke of Devonshire, is the play alluded to by Nashe in 1589, we have no doubt. In the Duke of Devonshire's copy, dated 1603, there are passages, afterwards omitted, which decidedly refer to an early state of the stage. In that copy, for example, "Termagant" and "Herod" are mentioned, and this mention has reference to the time when these characters possessed the stage in pageants and mysteries. Again, the reproof of the extemporal clowns-the injunction that they should speak no more than is set down for themapplied to the infancy of the stage. Shakspere had reformed the clowns before the date usually assigned to 'Hamlet.' In a book, called 'Tarleton's Jeasts,' published in 1611, we have some specimens of the licence which this prince of clowns was wont to take. The author, however, adds, " But would I see

our clowns in these days do the like? No, I warrant ye." In the original copy of Hamlet' the reproof of the clowns is more diffuse than in the augmented copy; and the following passage distinctly shows one of the evils which Shakspere had to contend with, and which he probably had overcome before the end of the sixteenth century :-" And then you have some again that keeps one suit of jests, as a man is known by one suit of apparel; and gentlemen quote his jests down in their tables before they come to the play, as thus: Cannot you stay till I eat my porridge? and, you owe me a quarter's wages; and, my coat wants a cullison; and, your beer is sour; and, blabbering with his lips, and thus keeping in his cinkapase of jests, when, God knows, the warm clown cannot make a jest unless by chance, as the blind man catcheth a hare: Masters, tell him of it." The additions to these directions to the players, in the augmented copy, are, on the other hand, such as bespeak a consciousness of the elevation which the stage had attained in its “high and palmy state," a little before the death of Elizabeth, when its purpose, as realised by Shakspere and Jonson especially, was "to hold, as 't were, the mirror up to nature; to show virtue her own feature, scorn her own image, and the very age and body of the time his form and pressure."

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Amongst the comedies, that 'The Two Gentlemen of Verona' belongs to this cycle we have already mentioned our belief. Pope called the style of 'The Two Gentlemen of Verona' "simple and unaffected." It was opposed to Shakspere's later style, which is teeming with allusion upon allusion, dropped out of the exceeding riches of his glorious imagination. With the exception of the few obsolete words, and the unfamiliar application of words still in use, this comedy has, to our minds, a very modern air. The thoughts are natural and obvious, the images familiar and general. The most celebrated passages have a character of grace rather than of beauty; the elegance of a youthful poet aiming to be correct, instead of the splendour of the perfect artist, subjecting every crude and apparently unmanageable thought to the wonderful alchymy of his all-penetrating genius. Of 'Love's Labour's Lost,' Coleridge, who always speaks of this comedy as a "juvenile drama”a young author's first work"-says, "The characters in this play are either impersonated out of Shakspere's own multiformity by imaginative self-position, or out of such as a country town and a schoolboy's observation might supply." The story has most of the features which would be derived from an acquaintance with the ancient romances. The action of the comedy, and the higher actors, are the creations of one who was imbued with the romantic spirit of the middle ages. With these materials, and out of his own "imaginative self-position," might Shakspere have readily produced the King and Princess, the lords and ladies, of this comedy;-and he might have caught the tone of the court of Elizabeth,-the wit, the play upon words, the forced attempts to say and do clever things,without any actual contact with the society which was accessible to him after his fame conferred distinction even upou the highest and most accomplished patron. The more ludicrous characters of the drama were unquestionably within the range of "a schoolboy's observation." In 'The Comedy of Errors' we have two descriptions of internal evidence to show that it was a very early play. First, the great prevalence of that measure which was known to our language as early as the time of Chaucer by the name of "rime dogerel." This peculiarity is found only in three of our author's plays,-in 'Love's Labour's Lost,' in 'The Taming of the Shrew,' and in The Comedy of Errors.' But this measure was a distinguishing characteristic of the early English drama. It prevails very much more in this play than in 'Love's Labour's Lost;' for prose is here much more sparingly introduced. The doggrel seems to stand half-way between prose and verse, marking the distinction between the language of a work of art and that of ordinary life, in the same way that the recitative does in a musical composition. Secondly, in 'Love's Labour's Lost,' Romeo and Juliet,' 'A Midsummer Night's Dream,'

and The Comedy of Errors,' alternate rhymes are very frequently introduced. Shakspere obtained the mastery over this species of verse in the Venus and Adonis,' "the first heir of his invention," as he himself calls it. He writes it with extraordinary facility-with an ease and power that strikingly contrast with the more laboured elegiac stanzas of modern times. Nothing can be more harmonious, or the harmony more varied, than this measure in Shakspere's hands. Take, for example, the well-known lines in the Venus and Adonis,' which, themselves the most perfect music, have been allied to one of the most successful musical compositions of the present day :"Bid me discourse, I will enchant thine ear, Or, like a fairy, trip upon the green, Or, like a nymph, with long dishevell'd hair, Dance on the sands, and yet no footing seen."

There was clearly a time in Shakspere's poetical life when he delighted in this species of versification; and in many of the instances in which he has employed it in the dramas we have mentioned, the passages have somewhat of a fragmentary appearance, as if they were not originally cast in a dramatic mould, but were amongst those scattered thoughts of the young poet which had shaped themselves into verse, without a purpose beyond that of embodying his feeling of the beautiful and the harmonious. When the time arrived that he had fully dedicated himself to the great work of his life, he rarely ventured upon cultivating these offshoots of his early versification. The doggrel was entirely rejected-the alternate rhymes no longer tempted him by their music to introduce a measure which is scarcely akin with the dramatic spirit-the couplet was adopted more and more sparingly-and he finally adheres to the blank verse which he may almost be said to have created,-in his hands certainly the grandest as well as the sweetest form in which the highest thoughts were ever unfolded to listening humanity.

It is very difficult to assign a date to 'The Taming of the Shrew; for it is to all appearance founded on a play entirely different in its versification, its style of imagery, and its characters, but essentially the same in the conduct of its incidents. We have formerly expressed a belief that the older play was Greene's. It appears very difficult to understand how Shakspere could have undertaken the task of re-writing the play of a contemporary author without adopting a line of his original. The mode in which the two men deal with the same materials is certainly a most remarkable exhibition, not only of the different degrees of their power, but of their different views of their art. The only satisfactory solution of this problem would be the discovery of some still older play which they had each used as common stock.

We have only one drama to add to this cycle, and that we believe was 'Romeo and Juliet' in its original form. The first edition of that tragedy, printed in 1597, differs very materially from the second, of 1599. The dates which some of the earliest copies of Shakspere's plays bear furnish little evidence of the dates of their composition; for they were in several instances piracies from manuscripts that had been probably superseded in the theatre. We have no hesitation in believing, although it would be exceedingly difficult to communicate the grounds of our belief fully to our readers, that the alterations made by Shakspere upon his first copy of Romeo and Juliet,' as printed in 1597 (which alterations are shown in his second copy as printed in 1599), exhibit differences as to the quality of his mind-differences in judgment—differences in the cast of thought-differences in poetical power-which cannot be accounted for by the growth of his mind during two years only. If the first Romeo and Juliet' were produced in 1591, and the second in 1599, we have an interval of eight years, in which some of his most finished works had been given to the world. During this period his richness, as well as his sweetness, had been developed; and it is this development which is so remarkable in the superadded passages in Romeo and Juliet.'

The Midsummer Night's Dream' may be taken, we appre

hend, as a connecting link between the dramas which belong to the first cycle and those which may be assigned to the remaining years of the sixteenth century.

6

We have little difficulty in determining the plays which belong to Shakspere's middle period. The list of Meres, and the dates of the original editions of those plays, are our best guides. The exact years in which they first appeared can only be determined in one or two cases; and it is of little consequence if they could be determined. The earliest of the historical plays of this cycle were those which completed the great story of the wars of the Roses. 'Richard III.' naturally terminated the eventful history of the house of York; 'Richard II.' commenced the more magnificent exhibition of the fortunes of the house of Lancaster. Both these plays were printed in 1597. The two great historical plays which succeeded them were, no doubt, produced before 1599. Henry V.' undoubtedly belongs to that year; and this great song of national triumph grew out of the earlier history of the "mad-cap Prince of Wales." The three latter histories are most remarkable for the exhibition of the greatest comic power that the world has ever seen. When the genius of Shakspere produced Falstaff, its most distinguishing characteristics,his wit and humour, had attained their extremest perfection. There is much of the same high comedy in 'King John.' This was the period which also produced those comic dramas which are most distinguised for their brilliancy of dialogue-the "fine filed phrase" which Meres describes, The Merry Wives of Windsor,' 'Much Ado about Nothing,' and 'Twelfth Night.' The Merchant of Venice,' and 'All's Well that Ends Well,' belong more to the romantic class. The Twelfth Night' was originally thought to have been one of Shakspere's latest plays; but it is now proved, beyond a doubt, that it was acted in the Middle Temple Hall in the Christmas of 1601.

The close of the fifteenth century brings us to Shakspere's thirty-fifth year. He had then been about fifteen years in London. We are not willing to believe that his whole time was passed in the capital. It is not necessary to believe it; for the evidence, such as it is, partly gossip and partly documentary, makes for the contrary opinion. Aubrey tells us "the humour of the constable in 'A Midsummer Night's Dream' he happened to take at Grendon in Bucks, which is the road from London to Stratford, and there was living that constable about 1642, when I first came to Oxon." The honest antiquary makes a slight mistake here. There is no constable in A Midsummer Night's Dream;' but he probably refers to the ever-famous Dogberry or Verges. In the same paper Aubrey says, "he was wont to go to his native country once a-year." In another paper, which contains his notice of Sir William Davenant, he is more minute in this matter of Shakspere's journeys; and indulges in sly insinuations which scarcely beseem a grave antiquary :

"Sir William Davenant was born about the end of February baptized 3rd of March, A.D. 1605-6, in ...... .... Street, in the city of Oxford, at the Crown Tavern. His father, John Davenant, was a vintner there, a very grave and discreet citizen; his mother was a very beautiful woman, and of very good wit, and of conversation extremely agreeable. They had three sons, viz., 1, Robert; 2, William; 3, Nicholas (an attorney)— Robert was a Fellow of St. John's College in Oxon, then preferred to the parsonage of West Kington by Bishop Davenant, whose chaplain he was :—and two handsome daughters; one married to Gabriel Bridges, B.D. of C.C. College, beneficed in the Vale of White Horse; another to Dr. Sherburne, minister of Pembridge, in Hereford, and a canon of that church. Mr. William Shakespeare was wont to go into Warwickshire once a-year, and did commonly in his journey lie at this house in Oxon, where he was exceedingly respected. Now Sir William would sometimes, when he was pleasant over a glass of wine with his most intimate friends, e. g., Sam. Butler (author of Hudibras), &c., say, that it seemed to him that he writ with the very spirit that Shakespeare writ, and seemed contented enough to be thought his son."