THE PLAYS

IN CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER

In the foregoing pages the plays have been arranged according to subject; but it is of great advantage to study them also in the order of their production; and, therefore, their titles are subjoined in chronological order.

On the ascertainment of the chronology there has been expended by scholars an immense amount of labour, every source of information being explored; yet the results are only approximate; and in the dates given below no painful accuracy is attempted; it being enough for our purpose to know when or whenabout any drama was produced.

The dates of publication of the Quartos is a guide for about half of the plays, though of course the publication may not always have synchronized with the writing of a play. Then, there are allusions in contemporary literature, the most important of these being the following passage in Meres' Palladis Tamia, Wit's Treasury, published in 1598: "As Plautus and Seneca are accounted the best for comedy and tragedy among the Latins, so Shakspeare among the English is

in just and moving language of those principles on which depend the dignity and the welfare of both individuals and nations. Every beginner is astonished at the number of lines and passages with which he is acquainted already, because these have passed into the common speech and dialect of men. Except the Bible, there is no other book from which so dazzling a collection of beauties or so complete a body of proverbs and maxims can be culled. But the most all-pervading element is that which has been styled the "metaphysical"-namely, the sense of the universe, as bodied forth by the poet's imagination, being surrounded and interpenetrated by something impalpable and immeasurable-call it thought, wisdom, righteousness, love, or what you will-through which it is ordered and unified, evolving towards a perfection never attained yet sunk as a promise and a hope at the centre of all existence.

As the foundation of Shakspeare's fame was laid by the first publication of his Complete Works, so has the best service been rendered to it by the continued republication of these. By a long series of editors, uninterrupted down to the present day-Rowe, Pope, Theobald, Hanmer, Warburton, Johnson, Cappell, Steevens, Malone, Dyce, Knight, Aldis Wright, Gollancz and many others—the text has been purified, the obscurities have been cleared up, and the thought illustrated, till the reader can complain of no want of assistance. Indeed, a serious danger of an opposite

description has arisen; for comment has been accumulating to such a degree that the general reader is in danger of being debarred from the text itself by mountains of learned rubbish. These obstacles ought, however, to be disregarded, the reader accepting only as much of explanation as is absolutely required and then committing himself, without bias or preconception, to the actual thought and mind of the author himself.

The lowest stage of appreciation in England was during the eighteenth century, when Hume, the historian, for example, passed judgment on Shakspeare in terms which now stand as the severest judgment on himself. Hume was influenced by Voltaire, who called Shakspeare a barbarian; and the French mind has, on account of its own constitution, not a little difficulty in comprehending our great poet.1 It has, however, since Voltaire's days, made the attempt not without success; and there stands in the city of Paris a monument to Shakspeare.

To the German mind the task of appreciation has always been far more easy and congenial. In Germany there have long existed excellent translations, and Germans have taken the lead in expositions of the mind of the poet. The commentaries of Ulrici,

1 Even Chateaubriand, leader of the Romantic movement, said that he preferred Racine to Shakspeare, as he did the Apollo Belvedere to an uncouth Egyptian statue.

Gervinus, Elze, Kreyssig and others are accessible in English, and so are the incomparable chapters on the Women of Shakspeare from the pen of the poet Heine. In not a few German universities prelections on Shakspeare form a regular feature of the curriculum, and in the great cities of the Fatherland the plays of Shakspeare hold a leading place in the repertoire of the theatres. There is in Germany a Shakspeare Society, with aims similar to the English ones.

It is, however, to America that we must look for the principal assistance in the preservation and exploitation of this asset of the Anglo-Saxon race. There the merits of the best products of English genius have frequently been both detected earlier and rewarded more adequately than at home; and in everything that concerns the appreciation and interpretation of Shakspeare, in particular, Americans at least rival native scholars and admirers. It is not without significance that, on entering the town of Stratford-onAvon, the visitor has his attention first solicited by a handsome fountain gifted by an American citizen; and, if he desires not only to see the objects but to feel the atmosphere of the place, he cannot do better than entrust himself to the guidance of the American writers, such as Washington Irving, Nathaniel Hawthorne and William Winter. Washington Irving especially has thrown over the whole town and neighbourhood the glamour of his genius; though