7. THE THIRD PART OF KING HENRY THE SIXTH. About 1592. Class D. The subject is simply the history of the time, without any dominant idea. Still, the mild prophetic piety of Henry; over against his figure, the terrible one of Queen Margaret. What an image of life and of woman! The same conception of woman recurs in the next play.

About 1592 or

Ulrici

8. KING RICHARD THE THIRD. 1593. Class B. The subject is Conscience. says, it is Tyranny. Richard is a hypocrite, inhumanly gross. Great contrast between the rush and compression of events here and their tedious movement in the foregoing play. There is great power in this play, especially in the last Act, but no delicacy or subtlety. The view of woman is extremely low.

About 1593.

9. KING RICHARD THE SECOND. Class B. The subject is the Plague of Favourites; see it expressed especially in the last Scene of the third Act. The execution is perfect, everything being clearly expressed, and the language sometimes suggesting the dazzling force of action, at other times the gay spirit of chivalry. Patriotism very prominent, embodied especially in John of Gaunt, with whom is contrasted the ease-loving King. Yet the latter becomes kingly in his fall, especially in the wonderful third Act. Observe in the third Scene of the fifth Act the reference to Prince Hal:

As dissolute as desperate; yet through both
I see some sparkles of a better hope,

Which elder years may happily bring forth.

10. ROMEO AND JULIET. About 1593 or 1597; the first sketch may be as early as 1591. Class B. Subject, the Course of True Love. The execution is fluent and natural, but much better in the last three than in the first two acts. Juliet's character is especially great; she is a perfect incarnation of love; and her passion makes a complete woman of her, calm, resolute, straightforward; love is a light which for one glorious hour illuminates her destiny, but then a fire which destroys her. Romeo's love is much less pure, though more passionate. In the first Act he is in love with another, Rosaline; he is a sentimentalist, loving woman rather than a woman. The Friar's judgment on him is severe in the third Scene of the third Act. Ulrici's remark is acute, that Juliet is more her nurse's than her mother's child, bearing the stamp of the nurse's sensuousness. is something extremely fine in Friar Laurence-old, yet the confidant of the young and the friend of the whole town; the reverence of his whole appearance is conveyed without being expressed.

There

II. THE MERCHANT OF VENICE. 1594 or 1596. Class A. The subject is Friendship. Antonio for friendship sacrifices himself; Shylock almost destroys friend

ship; but Bassanio brings back the usury of help; and, at the close, after encountering many dangers, friendship is triumphant. Ulrici says that the subject is Summum Jus Summa Injuria-that is to say, law requires correction from equity. The execution is

brilliant in the last degree. The play is, in fact, perfection itself, the various threads of interest being easily woven into a harmonious whole, and the three principal characters-Antonio, Shylock, Portia—taking rank with the foremost of the dramatist's creations. In this play there is a fuller working-out of several ideas already found in the Two Gentlemen of Verona, which has the same subject.

12. KING JOHN. 1594 or 1596. Class B. The subject is Patriotism, embodied in the Bastard; see it expressed in the last lines of the play, already quoted in the first chapter of the present work, top of p. 16. Such passages are frequent, and they have a ring of tender and powerful emotion. Maternal love is so fully treated in the person of Constance as to be almost the theme. Shakspeare is now master of a peculiar heroic diction, with sustained eloquence, absolute clearness, and passages of power occurring constantly. The Bastard is a typical Englishman, free, self-scornful, loyal, strenuous, proud of England

"the large composition of this man". Exquisite beauty in the episode of Arthur.

13. A MIDSUMMER-NIGHT'S DREAM. About 1594 or 1597. Class A. The subject is the Power of Imagination; see it expressed at the commencement of the first Scene in the fifth Act. Imagination creates the fairy world for those in the condition of Theseus and Hippolyta. It is lacking in the players, who give their audience no credit for it. The play is more a mask than a comedy, and was composed, it is reported, for a wedding attended by Queen Elizabeth, to whom reference is made as "a fair vestal throned by the West". The execution is wonderful for both complexity and simplicity, the various groups-Theseus and Hippolyta, Lysander and Demetrius, Oberon and Titania, Bottom and the players-being loosely but skilfully connected, like wheel within wheel. There is no development of character; but all the fairy world is exquisitely perfect. The mockery of the plays and players of the day culminates in Bottom, the very genius of stupidity, whose self-satisfaction is infinite. Midsummer Night was a time for spells and general intercourse with the spirit world.

14. ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL. About 1595; rewritten 1602. Class C. The subject is the Prodigal Son. There is much obscurity in the language, but the story is interesting, and the characters are singularly individual and attractive. Helena is a kind of

Ruth, treading without stain a path beset with indelicacy. In the King a noble picture of old age.

15. THE TAMING OF THE SHREW. About 1595. Class D. The subject is Homœopathy: Katharina is cured by seeing her own ill-temper caricatured: see it expressed in the second Act:

And where two raging fires meet together,

They do consume the thing that feeds their fury. The play is a prolonged farce, in which are allowed all kinds of impossibilities.

16. THE FIRST PART OF KING HENRY THE FOURTH. About 1596 or 1597. Class A. The subject is Ingratitude. The execution is simple and direct. Probably the comic incidents were intended to be a kind of fantastic illumination round the text of the history; but the comedy becomes the picture, the history being but the frame. Hotspur is the image of an irascible dog-of-war, delighting in fighting as a huntsman in the chase—a thoroughly English type. Prince Hal a genius, fond of seeing life in all, even its lowest, aspects, yet capable of everything high and chivalrous.

17. THE SECOND PART OF KING HENRY THE FOURTH. Same date and class as preceding. The subject is an Uncorrupted Prodigal; see it expressed in the fourth Scene of the fourth Act :