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 "U 6 r:>
 
 THE SUCCESSION 
 
 OF 
 
 SHAKSPEEE'S WOEKS 
 
 AND THE USE OF 
 
 METEICAL TESTS IN SETTLING IT, &c. 
 
 BEING THE INTRODUCTION TO 
 
 PROFESSOE GERVINUS'S 'COMMENTARIES ON SHAKSPERE' 
 
 TRANSLATED BY MISS BUNNETT 
 
 (Smith, Elder, & Co., 1877) 
 
 BY 
 
 FRED^- J. FURNIVALL, M.A. 
 
 TRINITY HALL, CAMBRIDGE 
 
 Founder and Director of the Neic Shakxpeve Society, the Chaucer Society, the Ballad Society, and 
 
 the Early English Text Society; Honorary Secretary of the Philological Society; 
 
 Editor of many MSS. and Old Boots 
 
 LONDON 
 SMITH, ELDER, & CO., 15 WATERLOO PLACE 
 
 1877 
 
 Price Sixpence
 
 THE SUCCESSION 
 
 OF 
 
 SHAKSPEEE'S WOEKS 
 
 4-c.
 
 THE SUCCESSION 
 
 OF 
 
 SHAKSPEEE'S WOEKS 
 
 AND THE USE OF 
 
 METEICAL TESTS IN SETTLING IT, &c. 
 
 BEING THE INTEODUCTION TO 
 
 PROFESSOR GERVINUS'S 'COMMENTARIES ON SHAKSPERE ' 
 
 TRANSLATED BY MISS BUNNETT 
 
 (Smith, Elder, & Co., 1877) 
 
 BY 
 
 FEED^- J. FURNIVALL, M.A. 
 
 TRIXITY HALL, CAMBRIDGE 
 
 Foundtr und Lirector of the New Shakspere Society, t?ie Chaucer Society, the Ballad Society, and 
 
 the Early English Text Society; Honorary Secretary of the Philological Society; 
 
 Editor of many MHS. and Old Books 
 
 LONDON 
 SMITH, ELDER, & CO., 15 WATERLOO PLACE 
 
 1877
 
 m 
 
 INTEODUCTION. 
 
 * It IS a disgrace to England, that even now, 258 years after Sliak- 
 spere's death, the study of him has been so narrow, and the criticism, 
 however good, so devoted to the mere text and its illustration, and 
 to studies of single plays, that no book by an Englishman exists which 
 deals in any worthy manner with Shakspere as a whole, which tracks 
 the rise and growth of his genius from the boyish romanticism or the 
 sharp youngmanishness of his early plays, to the magnificence, the 
 splendour, the divine intuition, which mark his ablest works. The 
 profound and generous " Commentaries" of Gervinus — an honour to a 
 German to have written, a pleasure to an Englishman to read — is still 
 the only book known to me that comes near the true treatment and the 
 dignity of its subject, or can be put into the hands of the student who 
 wants to know the mind of Shakspere.' ' 
 
 These words were written by me in the autumn of 1873, when I 
 founded * The New Shakspere Society,' and have appeard in that 
 Society's Prospectus up to this day. Their truth has been confirmd by 
 all the best judges to whom I have spoken about Gervinus's ' Com- 
 mentaries ' since. One of the ablest of these, my friend Professor 
 J. R. Seeley — a student of Shakspere from his youth — said, on 
 returning the book to me, ' The play of Cymheline had always 
 puzzld me ; and now, for the first time, Gervinus has explaind it. I 
 could not have believd before, that any man could have taught me, at 
 my time of life, so much about one of Shakspere's plays. It is all 
 clear now.' In Germany Gervinus's book still holds its ground as the 
 best esthetic work on our great poet, and is respected by all thoughtful 
 men. 
 
 My strong conviction of its value leads me, however unworthy for 
 the task, to say now a few words of recommendation of the book to my 
 English fellow-students of Shakspere, and to note, for the use of be- 
 ginners, a few points that may help them in their work : 1 . On Gervinus's 
 book. 2. On the change in Shakspere's metre as he advanct in life, 
 
 • I should now add ' The Mind and Art of Shakspere,' by my friend Professor 
 Dowden, and my cwn Introduction to 'The Leopold Shakspere,' Cassell & Co. 
 
 b
 
 xsii INTRODUCTION— %\. Gervimts's View of Shakspcre. 
 
 and on * Metrical Tests.' 3. On the spurious portions of plays calld 
 Shakspere's, and the use of metrical tests in detecting them. 4. On 
 noting the progressive changes in Sliakspere's language, imagery, 
 and thought. 5. On the succession of Shakspere's plays. 6. On 
 the helps for studying them. I want just to tell a beginner now, 
 what I Avish another student had told nie when I began to read 
 Shakspere. 
 
 § 1. Most Englishmen who read Shakspere are content to read 
 his plays in any haphazard order, to enjoy and admire them — some 
 greatly, some not much — without any thought of getting at the 
 meaning of them, and at the man who lies beneath them ; without 
 any notion of tracing the growth of his mind, from its first upshoot 
 till the ripening of its latest fruits. Yet this is not the way in which 
 the works of Shakspere, the chief glory of English literature, should 
 be studid. Carelully and faithfully is every Englishman bound to 
 follow the course of the most splendid imagination of his land, and to 
 note its purpose in every mark it leaves of its march. Shakspere 
 must be studied chronologically, and as a whole. In this task the 
 student will get most real and welcome help from Professor Gervinus. 
 The Professor starts with Shakspere's earliest poems, the Venus 
 and Adonis, (full of passion and of Stratford country life), and Lucrece, 
 (of Avhich Chaucer's Troylus must surely have been the model) ; then 
 reviews his life in London, — wild in its early days, — and the condition 
 of the stage when Shakspere joind it ; next, his earliest dramatic 
 attempts, his touchings of Titus Andronicus {Pericles must be put 
 later), and Henry VI., Part I., and his recast of 2 and 3 Henry VI. ; 
 Avith his farces The Comedy of Errors and The Taming of the Shreiv. 
 Then the works of his Second Period, in foi;r divisions: 1. His 
 erotic or love-pieces. 2. His historical plays. 3. His comedies of T/;e 
 Merry Wives, As You Like It, Much Ado, and Twelfth Night. 4. 
 His Sonnets. Next, the Professor treats the great Third Period of 
 Shakspere's Tragedies, headed by the tragi-comedy Measure for Mea- 
 sure, and winding-up with the purposeful and peaceful comedies of 
 later age. The Tempest and Winter's Tale, and Henry VIII., which 
 (says Mr. Spedding) Shakspere plannd. but wrote less than half: 
 of (1,16G lines), Fletcher writing the rest (1,761 lines). / 
 
 Shakspere's coiu-se is thus shown to have run from the amoroiis-, 
 ness and fun of youth, through the strong patriotism of early manhood,. 
 to the wrestling with the dark problems that beset the man of middle ; 
 age to the time of gloom which weighd on Shakspere (as on so 
 many men) in later life, when, though outwardly successful, the world \ 
 seemd all against him, and his mind dwelt with sympathy on scenes of i 
 faithlessness of friends, treachery of relations and subjects, ingratitude '■ 
 of children, scorn of his kind ; till at last, in his Stratford home again, 
 peace came to him, Miranda and Perdita in their lovely freshness and ' 
 charm greeted him, and he was laid by his quiet Avon's side. /
 
 I^TEODUCTION—l \. Characteristics of Gervlnus. xxiii 
 
 In his last section, ' Shakespeare,' Gervinus sets before ns his view 
 of the poet and his works as a whole, and rightly claims for liim the 
 highest honour as the greatest dramatic artist, the rarest jndge of men 
 and human affairs, the noblest moral teacher, that Literature has yet 
 known. 
 
 What strikes me most in Gervinus is his breadth of culture and 
 view, his rightiiess and calmness of judgment, his fairness in looking 
 at both sides of a question, his noble earnest purpose, his resolve to 
 get at the deepest meaning of his author, and his reverence and love 
 for Shakspere. No one can read his book without seeing evidence 
 of a range of reading and study rare indeed among Englishmen. No 
 one can fail to notice how his sound judgment at once puts the new ' 
 * Affaire du Collier,' — the Perkins folio forgeries, &c., — in its true light ; 
 how he rejects the ordinary biographer's temptation — to which so many 
 English Shakspereans yield — of making his hero an angel ; how he 
 takes the plain and natural meaning of the ' Sonnets' as their real one,^ 
 and yet shows us Shakspere rising from his vices to the height of a \ 
 great teacher of men. No one can fail to see how Gervimis, noble-^ 
 natured and earnest himself, is able to catch and echo for us the, 
 'still small voice' of Shakspere's hidden meaning even in the lightest^ 
 of his plays. No Englishman can fail to feel pleasure in the heartfelt 
 tribute of love and praise that the great Historian of German Literature 
 gives to the English Shakspere. 
 
 No doubt the book has shortcomings, if not faults. It is German, 
 and occasionally cumbrous ; it has not the fervour and glow, or the 
 delicacy and subtlety, of many of Mrs. Jameson's Studies ; it does 
 not do justice to Shakspere's infinite humour and fun ; it makes, 
 sometimes, little odd mistakes.^ But still it is a noble and generous 
 
 * The old forgeries printed by Mr. Collier as genuine were the documents 
 from the EUesmere (or Bridgwater House) and Dulwich College Libraries, a 
 State Paper, and the latter additions to the Dulwich Letters (see Dr. Ingleby's 
 Complete View). I, in common with many other men, have examind the originals 
 with his prints of them. Mr. Collier printed one more name to one document than 
 was in it when produc'd. See Mr. A. E. Brae's opinion at p. 13 of 'Collier, 
 Coleridge, and Shakespeare : a Review, by the Author of " Literary Cookery," ' 
 1860. None of Mr. Collier's statements should be trusted till they have been 
 verified. The entries of the actings of Shakspere's Plays in Mr. Peter Cunning- 
 ham's ' Revels at Court ' (Shakespeare Society, 1842), pp. 203-5, 210-11, are also 
 printed from forgeries (which Sir T. Duffus Hardy has shown me), though 
 Mr. Halliwell says he has a transcript of some of the entries, made before Mr. 
 Cunningham was born. Thus the following usually relied-on dates are forgd : 
 1605, Moor of Venis, Merry Wives, Measure for Measure, Errors, Love's Labours 
 Lost, Henry V., Merchant of Venice. 1612, Tempest, Winter's Tale. 
 
 ^ Professor Seeley notices three : — 1. In the comment on 1 Henry IV. G^wmws 
 takes as literal and serious (p. 309) Hotspur's humourous exaggeration of Morti- 
 mer's keeping him nine hours listening to devils' names : 
 
 I tell you what : 
 He held me last Night at least nine howres 
 In recknini^ vp the seucniU Deuils Names 
 That wern hi? Lackucvca. (111. i. 155-8, Folio, p. CI, col 1.) 
 b2
 
 xxiv INTRODUCTION.— % 2. Metrical Tests. 
 
 book, which no true lover of Shakspere can read without gratitude 
 and respect. 
 
 § 2. Though Gervinus's criticism is mainly aesthetic,' yet, in settling 
 the dates and relations of Shakspere's plays, he always shows a keen 
 appreciation of the value of external evidence, and likewise of the 
 metrical evidence, the markt changes of metre in Shakspere's verse 
 as he advanct in life. As getting the right succession of Shakspere'a 
 plays is ' a condition precedent ' to following the growth of his mind, 
 and as ' metrical tests' are a great help to this end, though they have 
 had, till lately, little attention given to them in England, ^ I wish to say 
 a few Avords on them. 
 
 Admitting (as I contend we must admit) that Love's Labours Lost 
 is Shaksjjere's earliest Avholly-genuine play, and contrasting it with 
 two of his latest, The Tempest and Winter's Tale, we find that — 
 (I.), while in Love's Labours Lost the 5-measure ryming lines are 
 1,028, and the blank verse only 579 ; in The Tempest such ryming 
 lines are 2, and the blank verse 1,458, while in the Winter's Tale there \ 
 are no 5-measure ryming lines to 1,825 blank verse ones. Again, "C 
 (II.) Shakspere's early blank verse was written on the model of ryming 
 verse, nearly every line had a pause at the end ; but as he wrote on, he 
 struggld out of these fetters into a freer and more natural line, which J 
 
 When Hotspur of course means ten or twelve minutes, or perhaps even five. 
 Certainly poor evidence that Hotspur is patient when in repose, pliable and yield- 
 ing like a lamb ! 2. Gervinus (p. 310) misses the humoui- of Hotspur's speech to 
 Kate his wife (11. iii. Folio, p. 55, col. 2) : 
 
 Hot. Come, wilt thou see me ride ? 
 
 And when I am a hnrsebacke, I will sweare 
 
 I loue thee infinitely, 
 
 though he is right in saying Hotspur does love his wife, and that because he ban- 
 ters her. 3. He turns Desdemona's words into Othello's own (p. 517), ' She gave 
 him a " world of sighs ; " and she swore (even in remembrance the Moor deemed it 
 strange a7id wondrus ^pitiful) that she wished she had not heard his story.' 
 Whereas Shakspere says, I. iii. 159-162, Folio, p. 314, col. 1 : 
 
 She gaue me for my paines a world of [sighs] : 
 
 She swore, in faith, 'twns strange, 'twas strange, 'twas passing strange, 
 
 'Twas pittifull, 'twas wondrous pittifull : 
 
 She wish'd she had not heard it. . . . 
 
 Professor Dowden (who refers to the notice of Gervinus in vol. vi. of the Shakspere 
 Jahrbuch) thinks that Gervinus often goes much astray, as in what he saj's of 
 Mercutio ; and that his strong historical tendency imports meanings into the plays 
 which are not there, as when he calls Hamlet a culturd man in an age of rude 
 force, whereas it's an age of Osric, Polonius, universities, &c. The inconsistency, 
 Buch as it is, seems to me in the facts, and not in Gervinus. 
 
 ' Mr. Halliwell complains of this word being stretcht to include 'psychological 
 and philosophical.' 
 
 " Maloue in 1778 pointed out the value of the Ryme-Test in settling the 
 priority of one early play over another. He also noticed the unstopt or run-on 
 liue test, which the late Mr. Bathurst brought more markedly under the notice of 
 Ui</iern folk by his little book (1857) on Shakspere's differences of versification.
 
 INTRODUCTION— I 2. The Unstopt-Lme and Pause Tests. 
 
 XXV 
 
 often ran-on into the next, took the pause from the end, and jiiit it in or 
 near the middle of the line. Contrast these three extracts : — 
 
 LOVES LABOURS LOST, II. i. 13-34. 
 
 (Folio, p. 126, revised.) 
 
 Prin. Good Lord Boyet, my beauty, 
 
 though but mean, 
 Needs not the painted floiirish of your 
 
 praise. 
 Beauty is bought by iudgement of the 
 
 eye, 
 Not vttred by base sale of chapmens 
 
 tongues. 
 I am lesse proud to heare you tell my 
 
 worth, 
 Then you much willing to be counted 
 
 wise, 
 In spending your wit in the praise of 
 
 mine. 
 But now to taske the tasker : good 
 
 Boyet, 
 You are not ignorant, all-telling fame 
 Doth noyse abroad, Nauar hath made a 
 
 vow. 
 Till paineful studie shall outweare three 
 
 yeares, 
 No woman may approach his silent 
 
 Court: 
 Therefore, to's seemeth it a needfull 
 
 course, 
 Before we enter his forbidden gates. 
 To know his pleasure i and, in that 
 
 behalfe. 
 Bold of your worthinesse, we single you, 
 As our best mouing faire soliciter. 
 Tell him, the daughter of the King of 
 
 France, 
 On serious businesse crauing quicke 
 
 dispatch, 
 Importunes personal! conference with 
 
 his grace. 
 Haste ; signifie so much ; while we at- 
 tend. 
 Like humble visag'd suters, his high will. 
 
 LEAR, IV. iii. 17-25. 
 
 (From the Quarto of 1008, sig. L 7, ed. 
 Steevens ; Dyce, vii. 318, revised.) 
 Kc7it. then it mou'd her, 
 
 Gent. Not to a rage : patience and sor- 
 row strouo 
 Wlio should expresse her goodliest. You 
 
 have scene 
 Sun-shine and raine at once : her smiles 
 
 and teares 
 Were like a better day': those happy 
 
 smilets 
 That plaid on her ripe lip, seem'd nut 
 
 to kn jw 
 What guests were in her eyes; which 
 
 parted thence 
 As pearles from diamonds dropt. In 
 
 briefe, sorrow 
 Would be a rarity most belou'd, if aU 
 Could so become it. 
 
 THE WINTERS TALE, III. ii. 232-243. 
 
 Folio, p. 288, col. 1. 
 
 Leo. Thou didst speake but well 
 
 When most the truth : which I receyue 
 
 much bet|ter 
 Then to be pittied of thee. Prethee, 
 
 bring me 234 
 
 To the dead bodies of my Queene, and 
 
 Sonne ; 
 One graue shall be for both. Vpon 
 
 them shall [237 
 
 The causes of their death appeare (vnto 
 Our shame perpetuall). Once a day He 
 
 vis|it 
 The Chappell where they lye ; and teares 
 
 shed there 
 Shall be my recrea|tion. So long as 
 
 Na|ture 210 
 
 Will beare vp with this exercise, so long 
 I dayly vow to vse it. Come and leade 
 
 I me 242 
 
 To these sorrowes. 
 
 • Compare Venus aiid Adonis, et. 161, 1. 961-6. 
 
 The dullest ear cannot fail to recognize the difference between the 
 early Love's Labours Lost pause or dwelling on the end of each line,\ 
 and the later Lears and Winter's Tale disregard of it, with (III.) the 
 following shift of the pause to or near the middle of the next line. In 
 short, the proportion of run-on lines to end-pause ones in three of the 
 earliest and three of the latest plays of Shakspere is as follows : — )
 
 XXVi iyTR01)U€TI0y. — %-2,. The Extra- Syllable and Weak-Ending Tests. 
 
 Earliest Plays 
 
 Loues Labour's Lost 
 Tho Comedy of Errours 
 The Two Gentlemen of 
 Verona . , 
 
 Proportion of 
 uustopt lilies to 
 eud-stopt ones 
 
 1 in 181-i 
 
 1 in 10-7 
 
 } 
 
 1 iu 10 
 
 Proportion of 
 Latest Plays unstopt lines to 
 
 eud-stopt ones 
 
 The Tempest . . . 1 in 3-02 
 
 Cynibeline King of Bri- ) , • „ ..-, 
 •'. . ■= Mm 2-o2 
 
 bune . . . . S 
 
 Tho Winters Tale . . 1 in 2-12 
 
 Again, note that all the above Love's Labours Lost lines have 
 only five measures, or ten syllables, each ; and not one weak ending, 
 that is, a final unemphatic word, or a word that clearly belongs to the 
 next line, while in 2'he Winter's Tale extract there are four lines with 
 ! lextra syllables (240 having one also before the central pause) and three 
 ^with weak endings, 234, 237, 242. In these points contrast the Love's 
 Labours Lost lines also with the two following passages, from The 
 Winter's Tale, (Act ii., sc. i., 1. 158-170 ; Folio, p. 283), and bhak- 
 spere's part of Henri/ VII L : — 
 
 Lord. I had rather you did lacke then I (my Lord) 
 
 Ypon this ground : and more it would content | me 159 
 
 To haue her Honor true, then your suspit|ion, 
 Be blam'd for't how you might. 
 Leo. Why, what neede we 161 
 
 Commune with you of this? but rather fol|low 
 Our forcefuU instigation ? Our prerog|ative 
 Cals not your Counsailes, but our naturall good|nesse 
 Imparts this : which, if you, or stupified, 
 Or seeming so, in skill, cannot or will | not 
 Hellish a truth, like vs, informe your selues ; 
 We neede no more of your aduice : tho mat|ter, 
 The losse, the gaine, the ord'ring on't, is all 
 Properly ours. {Winter's Tale, ii. i. 158-170.) 
 
 Here (IV.) are seven lines with extra syllables,' and (V ) two lines, 
 159, 161, with 'weak-endings,' the coming of which in any number 
 is a sure sign of Shakspere's late work (see the Postscript). Again, 
 tiike, for the weak ending, Henry VIII., Act ill., sc. ii., I. 97-104 ; 
 Eolio, p. 220, col. 2 : — 
 
 ' Professor Hertzberg's table of the proportion of ll-svUable lines to all the 
 others (12-syllable and short lines too) in the following 17 plays is given in the 
 Introduction to his German translation of Cyiubeline, as follows : — 
 
 
 Per cent. 
 
 
 Per cent. 
 
 Love's Labour's Lost 
 
 4 
 
 As You Like It 
 
 
 18 
 
 Titus Andronicus 
 
 5 
 
 Troilus and Cressida 
 
 
 20 
 
 King John . . 
 
 . 6 
 
 All's Well 
 
 
 21 
 
 Kichard II. 
 
 . 11-39 
 
 Othello . 
 
 
 26 
 
 Errors 
 
 . 12 
 
 Winter's Tale . 
 
 
 31-00 
 
 Merchant of Venice . 
 
 . 16 
 
 Cymbeline . . 
 
 
 32 
 
 Two Gentlemen 
 
 . 15 
 
 Tempest . . . 
 
 
 33 
 
 Shrew 
 
 . 1« 
 
 Henry VUI. . 
 
 
 44 
 
 Kichard III. . 
 
 . Ifc 
 
 

 
 INTRODUCTION.— % 2. The Weak-Ending Test. xxvii 
 
 What though I know her ver|tuou3 
 And -well deseruing ? Yet, I know her for 98 
 
 A spleeny Lutheran, and not wholsome to 09 
 
 Our cause, that she should lye i' th' bosome of 100 
 
 Our hard-rul'd King. Againe, there is sprung up 
 An Heretique, an Arch-one ; Cranmer, one 
 Hath crawl'd into the fauour of the King, 
 And is his Oracle. 
 
 Three weak endings in three consecutive lines, 98-100; only one 
 end-stopt line in 7 ; one with an extra syllable. These are notes of 
 kShakspere's latest plays ; indeed, his share in Henry VIII. was almost 
 certainly his last work. Or take Mr. Spedding's beautiful instance 
 from Cymbeline, Act iv., sc. ii., 1. 220-4 ; Folio, p. 389, col. 1 ; — 
 
 Thou shalt not lacke 
 The Flower that's like thy face, Pale Primrose, nor 221 
 
 The azur'd Hare-bell, like thy Veines : no, nor 222 
 
 The leafe of Eglantine, whom not to slan|der 
 Out-sweetned not thy breath. 
 
 • ' I doubt whether you will find a single case in any of Shakspere's 
 undoubtedly early plays of a line of the same structure. Where you 
 find a line of ten syllables ending with a word of one syllable — that 
 word not admitting either of emphasis or paiise, but belonging to thcL 
 next line, and forming part of its first word-group — you have a metrical \ 
 effect of which Shakespeare grew fonder as he grew older ; frequent in \ 
 his latest period ; up to the end of his middle period, so far as I can/ 
 remember, unknown.' (Mr. Spedding's letter to me on his ' Pause- 
 Test.' 'New Shakspere Soc.'s Trans.,' 1874, p. 31.) Professor W. 
 A. Hertzberg counts seventy-two weak endings in the 2,407 (omitting 
 the songs and other lyrical pieces) of Cyinbeline, or 1 to 33'43, showing 
 its very late date, 1611 (?) There are other metrical tests, of which 
 (VI.) the abandonment of doggrel — used only in five plays, all early 
 or earlyish — and (VII.) the use of 6-measure lines, are two. No one 
 test can be trusted ; all must be combind and considerd, and us'd as 
 helps for the higher esthetic criticism. Every student should work at 
 these tests for himself.^ As material that may help him in using the 
 
 ' Don't turn your Shakspere into a mere arithmetic-book, and fancy you're a 
 great critic because you add up a lot of rymes or end-stopt lines, and do a great 
 many sums out of your poet. This is mere clerk's work ; but it is needed to im- 
 press the facts of Shakspere's changes in metre on your mind, and to help others, 
 as well as yourself, to data for settling the succession of the plays. Metrical tests 
 are but one branch of the tree of criticism. Mr. Hales's seven tests for the growth 
 of Shakspere's art and mind in his plays are : 1. External Evidence (entries in the 
 Stationers' Registers, Diaries, &c.) 2. Historical Allusions in the Plays. 3. 
 Changes of Metre. 4. Change of Language and Style; then, Development of 
 Dramatic Art, as shown in 5. Power of Characterization, and 6. Dramatic Unity. 
 7. (the most important of all) Knowledge of Life (not only knowledge of its facts, 
 but a growth of moral insight, and of belief in moral laws ruling men, and the 
 course of world). See my report of his two Lectures ou Shakspere in 21ie Avademi/, 
 Jan. 17, 1874, p. 63 ; Jan. 31, p. 117.
 
 XXVlll 
 
 INTRODUCTION.— I 3. Mdrical Table. 
 
 ryme-test, I roprint from the ' Ne^v Sh. Soc/s Trans,' 1874, p. IH, Mr. 
 Fleay'8 'Metrical Table of Shakespeare's Plays,' though the order of 
 the plays is not rightly given in it— has beeh since largely alterd by its 
 compiler — and though it has not been veriti'd by any other counter : — 
 
 METEIOAL TABLE OF SHAKSPERE'S PLATS. 
 
 PLAT. 
 
 fa 
 
 
 
 1 m 
 
 1 . jj 
 
 ?;■ 
 
 
 
 
 
 J 
 
 « 
 m 
 
 
 en 
 
 S 
 
 o . 
 en 
 
 
 M 
 
 % 
 
 isg 
 
 22 
 
 O 
 
 
 H 
 
 -< 
 
 2; 
 o 
 
 CO 
 
 
 
 
 
 S3 
 
 g 
 
 P-) 
 
 ^ -1! 
 
 3S 
 
 « 2 
 
 o 
 
 =0 
 
 si 
 
 Ed 
 
 a 
 o 
 
 o 
 
 Id 
 
 
 % 
 
 
 
 
 
 1 iO 
 
 U 
 
 
 
 ■< 
 
 
 
 
 <M 
 
 « 
 
 -* 
 
 I. PLAYS OF FIRST (RHYMING) PERIOD. 
 
 Love's L. Lost. 
 Midsura.N. D. 
 Com. of Errors. 
 Rom. and Jul. 
 Hichard H. 
 
 Richard m. 
 King John. 
 
 1 Henry IV. 
 
 2 Hemy IV. 
 
 II. HISTORIES OF SECOND PERIOD. 
 
 Eeiiry V. 
 
 T. Gent, of V. 
 Mcr. of Ven. 
 Twelf. Night. 
 As you Like it. 
 Merry Wives. 
 Much Ado, &c. 
 
 AU's WeU. 
 Meas. for Sle. 
 
 Troylus and C. 
 
 Macbeth. 
 
 Cymbeline. 
 
 Hamlet. 
 
 Othello. 
 
 King Lear. 
 
 Julius Caesar. 
 Coriolanus. 
 Antony and C. 
 Tempest. 
 Winter's Tale. 
 
 III. COMEDIES OF SECOND PERIOD. 
 
 COMEDIES OF THIRD PERIOD. 
 
 IV. 
 
 I 20311 1453 1 1234 1 2801 2 I 12 I 2281 8 I 14 
 12809 1134 11574 1 73| 22 | 3 | 338| — | — 
 
 31 1 31 
 
 10 29 
 
 V. TRAGEDIES OF THIRD PERIOD. 
 
 3423 
 
 11S5 
 
 2025 
 
 196 
 
 — 
 
 16 
 
 441 
 
 |19!>3 
 
 158 
 
 1688 
 
 118 
 
 129 
 
 — 
 
 399 
 
 8448 
 
 638 
 
 2585 
 
 107 
 
 — 
 
 32 
 
 726 
 
 3924 
 
 1208 
 
 2490 
 
 81 
 
 — 
 
 60 
 
 50S 
 
 3324 
 
 541 
 
 2672 
 
 86 
 
 — 
 
 25 
 
 646 
 
 3298 
 
 903 
 
 2238 
 
 74 
 
 — 
 
 83 
 
 567 
 
 [84 1. in vision] 
 [86 1. in play] 
 
 VI. PLAYS OF FOURTH PERIOD. 
 
 2789 
 
 1086 
 
 579 
 
 1028 
 
 54 
 
 32 
 
 9 
 
 230 
 
 71 
 
 194 
 
 4 
 
 12 
 
 13 
 
 — 
 
 2251 
 
 441 
 
 87S 
 
 731 
 
 138 
 
 63 
 
 29 
 
 158 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 5 
 
 3 
 
 — 
 
 1770 
 
 240 
 
 11, -iO 
 
 380 
 
 
 
 — 
 
 137 
 
 64 
 
 — 
 
 109 
 
 3 
 
 8 
 
 9 
 
 — 
 
 3002 
 
 405 
 
 2111 
 
 486 
 
 
 
 — 
 
 118 
 
 62 
 
 28 
 
 — 
 
 10 
 
 20 
 
 16 
 
 4? 
 
 2044 
 
 — 
 
 2107 
 
 537 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 148 
 
 12 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 11 
 
 17 
 
 26 
 
 22 
 
 3599 
 
 55? 
 
 3374 
 
 170 
 
 
 
 
 
 570 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 20 
 
 39 
 
 13 
 
 23 
 
 2.^.53 
 
 — 
 
 2403 
 
 150 
 
 
 
 — 
 
 54 
 
 12 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 1 
 
 9 
 
 4 
 
 4 
 
 3170 
 
 1464 
 
 1622 
 
 S4 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 60 
 
 4 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 16 
 
 17 
 
 16 
 
 16 
 
 3437 
 
 1860 
 
 1417 
 
 74 
 
 7 
 
 15 
 
 203 
 
 [ristol 64 1.) 
 
 3 
 
 13 
 
 7 
 
 — 
 
 3320 
 
 1531 
 
 1678 
 
 101 
 
 2 
 
 8 
 
 291 
 
 [Plst 
 1571 
 
 \^' 
 
 — 
 
 ^ 
 
 13 
 
 10 
 
 4 
 
 2060 
 
 400 
 
 1510 
 
 116 
 
 — 
 
 15 
 
 203 
 
 16 
 
 — 18 
 
 8 
 
 15 
 
 32 
 
 8 
 
 2705 
 
 673 
 
 1896 
 
 93 
 
 34 
 
 9 
 
 297 
 
 4 
 
 — 4 
 
 8 
 
 16 
 
 22 
 
 2 
 
 26S4 
 
 1741 
 
 763 
 
 120 
 
 — 
 
 60 
 
 152 
 
 — 
 
 — — 
 
 8 
 
 21 
 
 23 
 
 6 
 
 2904 
 
 16S1 
 
 925 
 
 71 
 
 130 
 
 97 
 
 211 
 
 10 
 
 — 2 
 
 3 
 
 10 
 
 33 
 
 1 
 
 ,3018 
 
 2703 
 
 227 
 
 69 
 
 — 
 
 19 
 
 32 
 
 [Pistol 39 1.) 
 
 — 
 
 3 
 
 3 
 
 — 
 
 2823 
 
 2106 
 
 643 
 
 40 
 
 18 
 
 18 
 
 129 
 
 22 
 
 — 1 — 
 
 2 
 
 7 
 
 15 
 
 4 
 
 10 
 
 46 
 
 62 
 
 13 
 
 8 
 
 28 
 
 43 
 
 8 
 
 8 
 
 15 
 
 31 
 
 18 
 
 20 
 
 53 
 
 55 
 
 11 
 
 19 
 
 66 
 
 71 
 
 13 
 
 18 
 
 34 
 
 116 
 
 22 
 
 2440 
 
 16512241 
 
 84 
 
 
 
 
 
 369 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 -^ 
 
 14 
 
 SI 
 
 55 
 
 6 
 
 3.W2 
 
 829 1 2521 
 
 42 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 708 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 3 
 
 33 
 
 76 
 
 19 
 
 3964 
 
 255 2761 
 
 42 
 
 — 
 
 
 
 613 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 14 
 
 38 
 
 84 
 
 31 
 
 2068 
 
 453 1458 
 
 2 
 
 — 
 
 96 
 
 476 
 
 [54 I. inmaoq.] 
 
 2 
 
 16 
 
 47 
 
 5 
 
 2758 
 
 844 1826 
 
 
 
 — 
 
 57 
 
 639 
 
 [32 1 
 
 incl 
 
 lor.] 
 
 8 
 
 14 
 
 19 
 
 13 
 
 6 
 33? 
 
 16 
 
 2 
 
 13 
 
 23 
 
 5 
 U, 
 10 
 5 
 9 
 4 
 
 5 1 14 
 
 5 47 
 
 43 
 
 13 
 
 42 
 47 
 78 
 50 
 
 16 
 42 
 61 
 U 
 13 
 
 VII. PLAYS IN WHICH SHAKSPERE WAS NOT SOLE AUTHOR. 
 
 Henry Vm. 
 Two Noble K. 
 Pericles. 
 Timon of A. 
 
 2754 
 
 67? 12613 
 
 16 
 
 — 
 
 12 
 
 1195 
 
 2734 
 
 17912468 
 
 64 
 
 — 
 
 33 
 
 1079 
 
 2386 
 
 418 1436 
 
 225 
 
 89 
 
 — 
 
 120 
 
 2358 
 
 596 1560 
 
 184 
 
 18 
 
 — 
 
 257 
 
 [46 1. in Piol. 
 
 2 
 
 19 
 
 18 
 
 3 
 
 & Epilogue]. 
 
 9 
 
 19 
 
 46 
 
 17 
 
 [222 1. Gower]. 
 
 17 
 
 49 
 
 59 
 
 26 
 
 — 1 — 1 — 
 
 15 
 
 28 
 
 54 
 
 30 
 
 VIII. FIRST SKETCHES IN EARLY QUARTOS. 
 
 Rom. and Jul. 
 Hamlet. 
 Henry V. 
 Merry Wives. 
 
 T. of Shrew. 
 Titus Andron. 
 1 Henry VI. 
 8 Henry VI. 
 3 Henry VI. 
 Contention. 
 Irue Tragedy. 
 
 2066 
 
 261 
 
 1451 
 
 354 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 92 
 
 2058 
 
 .509 
 
 1462 
 
 54 
 
 43 
 
 — 
 
 209 
 
 1072 
 
 898 
 
 774 
 
 30 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 104 
 
 1395 
 
 1207 
 
 148 
 
 40 
 
 38 [f; 
 
 mes 
 
 J 19 
 
 28 I - I - 
 [301. in play] 
 
 >UA] 
 
 PvTO 
 
 s. 
 
 
 J 
 
 26 
 
 so 
 
 21 
 
 13 
 
 45 
 
 76 
 
 37 
 
 1 
 
 25 
 
 35 
 
 31 
 
 — 
 
 1 
 
 — 
 
 5 
 
 IX. DOUBTFUL PLAYS 
 
 2671 
 
 516 
 
 1971 
 
 169 
 
 15 
 
 — 
 
 260 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 49 
 
 4 
 
 18 
 
 22 
 
 23 
 
 2,525 
 
 43 
 
 2338 
 
 144 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 154 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 4 
 
 8 
 
 9 
 
 9 
 
 2693 
 
 
 
 2379 
 
 314 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 140 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 5 
 
 6 
 
 4 
 
 7 
 
 3032 
 
 448 
 
 2562 
 
 122 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 255 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 8 
 
 25 
 
 15 
 
 21 
 
 2904 
 
 — 
 
 2749 
 
 155 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 346 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 13 
 
 11 
 
 14 
 
 U 
 
 1052 
 
 381 
 
 1,571 
 
 44 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 54 
 
 — 
 
 
 
 — 
 
 
 
 14 
 
 16 
 
 32 
 
 2101 
 
 — 
 
 2035 
 
 66 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 1^.8 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 14 
 
 21 
 
 29 
 
 33 
 
 32 
 
 5 
 
 18 
 
 37 
 
 92 
 
 30 
 
 li5 
 
 4 
 
 5 
 
 If? 
 
 12 
 
 12 
 
 7 
 
 44
 
 LNTEODUCTION.- % 3. Metrical Tests for genuine Work. xsix 
 
 Tliat the ryme-tcst fails to place Slialcspere's Plays in their right 
 order, I have shown on pages 32-5 of the 'New Sh. Soc.'s Trans.' 1874 ; 
 but its value, in combination with other te.-ts, is great. Prof. Ingram 
 has tabulated the results of his search with the weak-ending test, so 
 valuable for Shakspere's late plays, and it will be given in my Post- 
 script, p. liv. 
 
 § 3. Besides helping in settling the order of Sliakspere's plays, 
 metrical tests give important aid in — 1, suggesting, by their differing 
 proportions in different acts, possibly different dates for portions of his 
 genuine plays; and 2, different authors in doubtful plays, and drawing 
 definite bnes between spurious and genuine work ; but these tests 
 must never be allowd to override the higher criticism : that must be 
 judge. To take point 2 first. In his undergraduate days at Cambridge 
 (1829-33) Mr. Tennyson pointed out — to Mr. Hallam, among others, 
 who unwisely pooh-poohd the notion — that Fletcher's hand was 
 largely in Henry VIII. Later, his friend Mr. James Spedding (the 
 learned and able editor of ' Bacon's Works,' &c.) publisht his w^orking- 
 out of Mr. Tennys' n's hint, in an analysis of the play, in ' The 
 Gentleman's Magazine' for August 1850. Mr. Spedding first. showd, — 
 by their having markedly the characteristics of Shakspere's style, 
 and the rest of the play not having these ' notes ' of authorship, but 
 having other ' notes ' of Fletcher's hand, — that the scenes below markt 
 Shakspere were his, and those marked Fletcher his. ^ Mr. Spedding 
 then applied the extra-syllable (or feminine-ending) test, and I (in 
 1873) the end-stopt-line test, with the following result: — 
 
 Act 
 
 Scene 
 
 Lines 
 
 Extra Syll. 
 
 Proportion. 
 
 Author 
 
 Unstopt line. 
 
 I. 
 
 1 
 
 225 
 
 G3 
 
 1 to 3-5 
 
 Shakspere 
 
 1 to 1-83 
 
 
 2 
 
 215 
 
 7-1 
 
 ,, 2-9 
 
 J, 
 
 „ 1-86 
 
 
 3&4 
 
 172 
 
 100 
 
 ., 1-7 
 
 Fletcher 
 
 „ 3-84 
 
 II. 
 
 1 
 
 164 
 
 97 
 
 „ 1-6 
 
 f> 
 
 „ 2-9R 
 
 
 2 
 
 129 
 
 77 
 
 „ 1-6 
 
 ., 
 
 „ 3-43 
 
 
 3 
 
 107 
 
 41 
 
 „ 2-6 
 
 Shakspere 
 
 „ 2-37 
 
 
 4 
 
 230 
 
 72 
 
 ,, 31 
 
 ^» 
 
 „ 2-13 
 
 III. 
 
 1 
 
 166 
 
 119 
 
 „ 1-3 
 
 Fletcher 
 
 „ 4-83 
 
 
 *2 
 
 193 
 
 62 
 
 .. 3- 
 
 Shakspere 
 
 ,, 2- 
 
 
 3 
 
 257 
 
 152 
 
 „ 1-6 
 
 Fletcher 
 
 „ 3-43 
 
 IV. 
 
 1 
 
 116 
 
 57 
 
 „ 2- 
 
 »» 
 
 „ 3- 
 
 
 2 
 3 
 
 80 
 93 
 
 51 
 
 51 
 
 ,, 1-8 
 
 1) 
 
 } „ 4-55 
 
 
 1 
 
 176 
 
 68 
 
 „ 2-5 
 
 Shakspere 
 
 „ 2-28 
 
 V. 
 
 2 
 
 217 
 
 115 
 
 „ 1-8 
 
 Fletcher 
 
 ., 4-77 
 
 
 3 
 
 (almost a 
 
 11 prose or i 
 
 ough verse) 
 
 >» 
 
 „ 5-01 
 
 
 4 
 
 37 i 
 
 44 
 
 „ 1-6 
 
 » 
 
 „ 6-41 
 
 ^ To exit of the King. The rest of ii. is made iii. 
 In short, the proportion of Shakspere's double endings,^ was 1 to 
 
 ' Mr. S. Ilickson had arrivd before, privately and independently, at tlie same 
 rodult. See Prof. Ingram's confirma.tion on p. liv. n. below. 
 
 * Calld also extra syllables, or feminine endings. Very rarely in Shakspere,
 
 XXX INTIWDUCTION.—^ 3. Metrical Tests for genuine Work. 
 
 3, of Fletcher's 1 to 1'7; of Shakspere's unstopt lines, 1 to 2"03, of 
 Fletcher's 1 to 3'79, both tests making Shakspere's part of the plsiv 
 liiri latest work. Mr. Spedding's division of the play between Shak| 
 spere and Fletcher was confirmd independently by the late Mr. S> 
 Ilickson, in 'Notes and Queries,' ii. 198, Aug. 24, 1850; and by 
 Mr, Fleay in ' New Sh. Soc. Trans.,' 1874, Appendix, p. 23.* It may 
 be lookt on as certain. Again, Mr. Tennyson us't in his under- 
 graduate days to read the genuine parts of -JPericles to his frieads 
 in college. He read them to me in London last December (1873). 
 He pickt tliem out by his ear and his knowledge of Shakspere's hand. 
 Last April Mr. Fleay sent me, as genuine, the same parts of Pericles, 
 got at mainly by working metrical tests. Sidney Walker, Gervinus 
 (nearly), Delius and others, had before attaind the same result. 
 Shakspere Avrote the Marina story in Acts iii. iv. v., less the brothel 
 scenes and the Gower choruses. These, Eowley wrote, says Mr. Fleay, 
 while G. Wilkins wrote Acts i. and ii. and arrangd the play. (' New Sh. 
 Soc. Trans.,' 1874, p. 195, &c.) Further, the late Mr. Samuel Hickson, 
 in the ' Westminster and Foreign Quarterly' for April 1847, and 
 working after Mr, Spalding and other critics,' assignd to Shakspere 
 large part of The Two Noble Kinsmen, which was not publisht till 
 1634, as ' Written by the memorable worthies of the time: Mr. John 
 Fletcher, and Mr. William Shakspeare, Gent.' Mr. Hickson argu'd 
 that Shakspere designd the under-plot as well as the main plot of the 
 play, and wrote Acts L ; H. i. ; HL i. ii. ; IV. iii. (prose) ; V. all but 
 scene ii. But I cannot allow that all these are Shakspere's. See my 
 Forewords to the New Sh. Soc, reprint of Professor Spalding's Letter. 
 The rest Fletcher wrote, as is shown by its weakness, and its oftener 
 use of the extra final syllable. The double-ending and the end-stopt 
 line tests show that while in the 1,124 supposd Shakspere- lines in the 
 play there are 321 with double endings, that is, 1 in 3'5, and only 1 
 line of 4-measures, in the 1,398 Fletcher- lines there are 771 with 
 double endings, or 1 in 1*8 (nearly twice as many as in the supposd 
 Shakspere), and 14 lines of 4-measures. Also in the supposd Shakspere'a 
 lines the proportion of unstopt lines to end-stopt ones is 1 in 2*41, while 
 in Fletcher's it is 1 in 5-53. See 'Appendix to New Sh. Soc. Trans.,' 
 1874, where Mr. Spedding's and Mr. Hickson's Papers are reprinted. 
 
 Again, the spurious parts of Timon of Athens had been more or 
 less completely pointed out by Charles Knight and others. By 
 metrical tests, with some slight help on {esthetic grounds from me, Mr. 
 Fleay has, as I believe, rightly separated the genuine part of the play 
 
 more frequently in Fletcher, the last syllable is dwelt on : — ' Up with a course or 
 two, and tack about, boys.' T'wo Nuble Kins?nen, Fletcher, iii., v. 10 (see also ii., 
 
 ii., 63, 68, 71, 73). 
 
 ' Mr. Tennyson always held that Shakspere wrote much of The Two Noble 
 Kinsmen. So did Coleridge, Charles Lamb, and De Qniucey. See page Iv, below.
 
 INTRODUCTION.— % 2. Genuine and spurious Work. xxxi 
 
 from the spurious, except in one instance, and printed it in the ' New 
 ISh. Soc.'s Trans.,' 1874, p. 153-194. Once more, Farmer nearly 100 
 years ago said that Shakspere wrote only the Petruchio scenes in the 
 Taming of the Shrew. Mr. Collier hesitatingly adopted this view. 
 Mr. Grant White developt it, and I (and Mr. Fleay afterwards) turnd it 
 into tigures, making the following parts Shakspere's, though in many 
 places they are workt up by him from the old Taming of a. Shrew : — 
 Induction; Act II., sc. i., 1. 168-326 (? touching 115-167); III. ii. 
 1-125, 151-240; IV. i. (and ii. Dyce) ; IV. iii. v. (IV. iv. vi. Dyce) ; 
 V. ii., 1-180 ; in short, the parts of Katharine and Petruchio, and 
 almost all Grumio, with the characters on the stage with them, and 
 possible occasional touches elsewhere. (' New Sh. Soc. Trans.' 1874, 
 103-110.) The rest is by the alterer and adapter of the old A 
 Shrew, possibly Marlowe, ;is there are deliberate copies or plagiarisms 
 of him in ten passages (G. White). 
 
 The Cambridge editors, Messrs. Clark and Wright, have lately 
 opend an attack, in their Clarendon-Press edition, on the genuineness 
 of certain parts of Ilacbeth, and the attack has been inconsideiately 
 developt by Mr. Fleay ^ in the ' New Sh. Soc.'s Trans.,' 1874. So tar 
 as the assault is on the Porter's speech, it seems to me a complete 
 lailure ; ^ and the notion that a fourth-rate writer like Middleton could 
 have written the grim and pregnant humour of that Porter's speech, I look 
 on as a mere idle fancy. Mr. Hales thinks that the change to the iambic 
 metre in Hecate's speeches, and their inferior quality, point to a differ- 
 ent hand, perhaps Middleton's ; ^ but that is all of the play that he or I 
 (who still hesitate'*) can yet surrender. The wonderful pace at which 
 the play was plainly written — a feverish haste drives it on — will account 
 for many weaknesses in detail. The (probably) after-inserted King's- 
 evil lines are manifestly Shakspere's. Mr. Fleay's late attack on the 
 
 ' See Mr. Hales's excellent Paper on ' The Porter in Macbeth ' in The New Sh. 
 Soc. Trans., 1874. Also De Quincey on the Knocking, Works, xiii. 192-8; 
 Furness's Macbeth, p. 437. 
 
 ^ P.S. — Mr. Fleay's attack on the Porter's speech is now withdrawn. His 
 attempt to make spurious the last three acts of The Two Gentlemen has also been 
 wisely withdrawn. His theories, when not confirming former results, should Lo 
 lookt on with the utmost suspicion. 
 
 ^ Middleton is selected, because in his Witch (p. 401-2 Furness's Macbeth) is 
 a song ' Come away, come away,' which Davenant (wlio professt to be Shakspere's 
 son by an inn-keeper's wife) inserted in his version of Shakspere's Macbeth (p. 337, 
 Fiu:ness) at the point (III. v. 33) where Shakspere or liis editors put Come away, 
 come away, in the Folio. Also at the Folio's ' Musieke and a Song. BJacke 
 Spirits' IV. i. 43, Davenant inserts Middleton's song ' Black spirits and white, 
 red spirits ami gray' (p. 404, p. 339, Furness), with variations. 
 
 * Compare with the stilted Witch speeches Lucianus's charm-lines in Hamlet, 
 III. ii. 266-271. (Consider whether Hamlet's speech for the players of a dozen or 
 sixteen hues (II. li. 566, III. n. 1, 86) is III. ii. 197-223, or is never deliverd, 
 as his own excited utterance (III. ii. 272-5), and the King's remorseful rising 
 (276) bring on the crisis which the speech was perhaps intended (III. ii. 86) to 
 provoke. See Prof Seeley and Mr. Malkson hereon, in N. Sh. Soc. Trans., Pt. 2 or 3.
 
 XXxii INTRODUCTIOK-l 3. Bichard III.; Henry VI. 
 
 genuineness of parts of Julius Ccvsar ('New Sh. Soc. Trans.,' 1874, 
 Part 2.) is so groundless, weak and vague, as hardly to deserve mention. 
 
 Richard III. has yet to be dealt with. The continuous strain of the 
 women's speeches, and the monotonous 5-measure end-stopt line, have 
 been thought by some to point to a second hand in the play, probably 
 Marlowe's. But ]\Ir. Spedding and I are strongly opposd to this view. 
 
 In 1 Henrij VI. every reader will, I apprehend, see, like Gervinus 
 (p. 101), three hands, though all may not agree in the parts of the play 
 they assign to those hands. Reading it independently, though liastily, 
 before I knew other folks' notions about it, I could not recognise Shak- 
 spere's hand till II. iv., the Temple-Garden scene ' (as Hallam notes). 
 That is all of the play that can be safely assignd to him.. I doubt his 
 having written the Suffolk and Margaret love-scene. It so soon falls 
 off.^ A new ryming man seems to me to begin in IV. vi. vii. ; and 
 the first hand seeins to write V. ii. iv.,^ if not all V. 
 
 For the argument that Marlowe, Peele, and Greene, wrote I7ie Con- 
 tention and T7-ue Traged//, — the foundations of the 2nd and 3id Parts of 
 Henry VI. , — Malone's essay should be consulted. (Variorum ed. of 
 1821, vol. xviii., p. 555.) On the other side, for the fallacious argu- 
 ment (from the imity of historical view, &c.) that Shakspere wrote all 
 the Three Parts of Henry VI., as Avell as llie Contention and True 
 Tragedy, Charles Knight's essay in his ' Pictorial Shakspere ' (Histories, 
 vol. ii.. Library ed. vol. vii.) should be read. For the argument from 
 style, that in lifting or altering 1,479 lines from Tlie Contention for 
 
 ' This scene has a very large proportion of extra-syllable Hues ; 30 iu 134, or 
 1 in 4-46. It has 6 run-on lines, or 1 in 22-33. II. ii. 1-15 may have a touch of 
 Shakspere, hut are probably Marlowe. 
 
 * Compare 1. 28, Folio, p. Ill, col. 2 :— 
 
 • Ten thousand French haue tane the Sacrament 
 To ryue their dangerous Artillerie 
 Vpon no Christian soule but English Talbot.' 
 
 with Bic. II., V. ii. 17, Folio, p. 42, col. 2 :— 
 
 ' A dozen of them heere haue tane the Sacrament. , . . 
 To kill the King at Oxford.' 
 
 ' Mr. Grant Wliite ' ventures to express the opinion that the greater part of 
 the First Part of King Henry the Sixth was originally written by Greene, whose 
 Btyle of thought and versification may be detected throughout the play, beneath 
 the thin embellishment with which it was disguised by Shakespere, and especially 
 in the first and second Scenes of the first Act ; that traces of Marlowe's furious 
 pen may be discovered in the second and third scenes of Act II. ; and I should be 
 inclined to attribute the couplets of the fifth, sixth, and seventh Scenes of Act IV. 
 to Peele (for their pathos is quite like his in motive, and it must be remembered 
 that Shakespeare has retouched them), were it not that Peele could hardly have 
 written so many distichs without falling once into a peculiarity of rhyme which 
 constantly occurs in his works, and which consists in making an accented syllable 
 rhyme with one that is unaccented.' (Cp. royal, withal; ago, rainbow; way, Ida; 
 deny, attorney, &c., in 'The Arraignment of Paris.')
 
 INTnODUCT10N.—% 3. Ilcnr;/ VI., Titus, Edw. IIL XXxlii 
 
 Henry VJ., Part 2 ; and 1,931 lines from True Tragedy iov Henry F/., 
 Part 3, Shakspere was but transferring (but with few exceptions) hia 
 own early work to his later recast of these plays, see Mr. R. Grant 
 White's very able essay in his New York edition of Shakspere, vol. 
 vii., p. 403, &c.* Mr. Grant White's view certainly goes too far. 
 Marlowe, or one of his school, assuredly helpt in the revision of the 
 early plays. Perhaps a third hand did so too. Miss Jane Lee has in 
 her Paper in the 'New Sh. Soc.'s Trans.,' 1876, given her division of 
 Marlowe's work from Greene's in the Contention and Ti-ue Tragedy, 
 and of Shakspere's from Marlowe's in the revising of these plays into 
 3^-3 Henry VI. The reader must carefully work over the ground 
 under Miss Lee's guidance. She assigns to Marlowe's revision, in 
 2 Henry VI. (Globe lines): IL iii. 1-58; III. i. 142-199, 282-330, 
 357-383; IIL ii. 43-121 (with Shakspere); IV. i. 1-147, x. 18-90 
 (? IV. ix, Greene); V. i. 1-160, 175-195; ii. 10-11, 19-30 (?), 31-65. 
 In 3 Henry VI.: L ii. 5-76; IL i. 81-6, 200-4; ii. 6, 53, 56, 79, S3, 
 143, 146-8; iii. 49-56; iv. 1-4, 12, 13; v. 114-120; vi. 31-6, 
 47-50, 58, 100-2 ; IIL iii. 4-43, 47, 48, 67-77, 110-120, 134-7, 
 141-150, 156-161, 175-9, 191-201, 208-18, 221, 226, 233-8, 
 244-255 (?); IV. ii. 19-30; V. i. 12-16, 21, 22, 31-3, 39, 48-57, 
 62-6, 69-71, 78-9, 87-97; iii. i. 24. I should take away even more 
 from Shakspere. See my ' Leopold Shakspere,' Introduction, p. xxxviii. 
 
 Titus Andronicus one would only be too glad to turn out of 
 Shakspere's plays, so repulsive are its subject and the treatment of it. 
 But the external evidence is too strong for us.^ Lie no doubt retoucht 
 it. He never wrote it. Mr. Wheatley has collected in the ' New Sh. 
 Soc.'s Trans.,' 1874, p. 126-9, the passages in which he thinks he sees 
 Shakspere's hand. See, too, Gervinus, p. 102-6, below. 
 
 Act II. of King Edward III.., the King's making love to Lady Salis- 
 bury, is good enough for a young Shakspere. The metrical evidence shows 
 
 • Mr. E. Grant White's 'opinion is, that the First Part of The Contention, 
 The True Tragedy, and probably an early form of the First Part of King Henry 
 the Sixth, unknown to us, were written by Marlowe, Greene, and Shakespeare (and 
 perhaps Peele) together .... soon after the arrival of Shakespeare in London ; 
 and that he, in taking passages, and sometimes whole Scenes, from those plays for 
 his King Henry the Sixth did little more than to reclaim his own' (vii. 407). 
 'We find, then, that .... Shakespeare retained 2,299 lines of the old version in 
 the new, that he wrote 2,524 lines especially for the new version, and that 1,111 
 lines of the new version are alterations or expansions of passages in the old. 
 That is, more than three-fourths of the Second and Third Parts of King Henri/ 
 the Sixth may be regarded — with slight allowance for unobliterated traces of his 
 co-laborers — as Shakespeare's own in every sense of the word ; and to the re- 
 mainder he probably has as good a claim as to many passages whicji he found in 
 prose in various authors, and which were transmuted into poetry in their passage 
 through the magical alembic of his brain.' — E. Grant White, Shakesjieare's WorJi'-", 
 vii. 462. 
 
 ^ In the Preface to Titus in my big Folio edition you will find a new theory on 
 this subject.— J. 0. (Halliwell) Phillipps.
 
 XXxiv INTRODUCTION.— % 3. Ear/// and late WorJc in Tlays. 
 
 that there are probably two hands in the play (' Academy,' April 25, 
 1874, p. 462), and the beauty and power of this episode confirm the 
 fact. Moreover, the episode introduces * two new characters ' (Derby 
 and Audley) who ' are afterwards developt after a totally different 
 fashion,' and a third, ' Lodowick, the King's poet-secretary,' who is 
 confind to the episode only. But the episode has nothing to do Avith 
 the main story of the play: it is not taken from Holinshed's ' Chronicle,' 
 Shakspere's regular authority, but from a collection of novels, Painter's 
 * Palace of Pleasure,' where it is enlargd (and spoilt) from Froissart. 
 It is unrelievd by the humour shown in the parallel scene of Edward 
 IV. soliciting Lady Elizabeth Grey in 3 Henry VI. III. ii. ; it is 
 essentially undramatic, except in its last strong situation ; and although 
 Shakspere has echoes of it in his works, it is not his. Nor is any other 
 part of the play his. It is certain that Shakspere took no part in the 
 other ' doubtful plays ' formerly assignd to him. 
 
 We must now hark back to point 1 (p. xxix.), the help that metrical 
 tests give in suggesting or confirming different dates for different periods 
 of a play. This is a question to be approacht with very great caution, 
 and one on which trust in one test may lead to ridiculous absurdities. 
 We have as yet no comparative tables of the differences of metrical 
 peculiarities in the different acts and scenes of Shakspere's plays, nor 
 do we know whether any working test could be got from them if 
 we had. But we do know that Shakspere retouc'.it and enlargd 
 certain plays, and we are bound to see whether we can recognize in 
 them his later work. Love's Labours Lost^ for instance, which we 
 feel sure — from its excessive word-play, its prevalence of ryme 
 and end-stopt lines, its large use of doggrel, its want of dramatic 
 development (it is a play of conversation and situation), its faint 
 characterisation, &c. — must have been written quite early, say 
 before 1590, is stated by the Quarto of 1598 (the earliest known) to 
 have been ' Newly corrected and augmented.' ' So with AWs Well — 
 
 ' I believe that Berowne's last speech in Act III., at least his lines 305-8 in 
 IV. iii., and possibly V. ii. 316-334 (though more in the earlier style) are later 
 insertions. Dyce says on IV. iii. 299-304 (Globe), 312-319 (as compard with 
 320, &c.), 'Nothing can be plainer than that in this speech we have two pas- 
 sages, both in their original and in their altered shape, the compositor having 
 confounded the new matter with the old.' Mr. Spedding wrote thus on Saturday, 
 Feb. 2, 1839: 'Finished Love's Labour's Lost. Observe the inequality in the 
 length of the Acts ; the first being half as long again, the fourth twice as long, 
 the fifth three times as long, as the second and third. This is a hint where to look 
 for the principal additions and alterations. In the first Act I suspect Biron's re- 
 monstrance against the vow (to begin with) to be an insertion. In the fourth, 
 nearly the whole of the close, from Biron's bnrst " Who sees the heavenly Eosaline " 
 (IV. iii. 221). In the fifth, the whole of the first scene between Holofernes and 
 Sir Nathaniel bears traces, to me, of the maturer hand, and may have been inserted 
 bodily. The whole close of the fifth Act, from the entrance of Mercade (V. ii. 
 723), has been probably rewritten, and may bear the same relation to the original
 
 INTRODUCTION.-^ 3. Earh/ and late WorJc in Pla;jg. XXXV 
 
 possibly^' the recast o£ Loues Labours Wonne (Meres), — The Merchant 
 of Venice (in which I agree with Mr. Hales that the casket scenes at least 
 are earlier work), perhaps Midsummer Night's Dream, and other plays. 
 And we are bound to search and see whether w^e can detect any of these 
 augmentations — if not corrections — by their fuller thoiight and riper 
 style. Study of the parallel-text Quartos will largely help in this. 
 
 In the case of Troilus and Cressida, as Mr. Alexander J. Ellis 
 (our great authority on Early English and Shaksperean Pronunciation 
 and Metre) said to me, there are clearly three stories: 1. Of Troylus 
 and Cressida. 2. Of Hector. 3. Of Ajax, Ulysses, and the Greek 
 Carap2 — of which he car'd only to read the third, so far was it above 
 the other two. The point must have been notict often before. To 
 the parts of the play dealing with these three stories, Mr. Fleay has 
 applied the ryme-test, with the following result ('New Sh. Soc. Trans.,' 
 1874, p. 2), pointing to three different dates for the different parts of 
 the play. That there are two, an early, and a late, I do not doubt ; 
 the three dates I do doubt : — 
 
 ylus story 
 
 Hector story 
 
 Ajax story 
 
 
 72 
 
 50 
 
 16 
 
 Ehyme lines 
 
 607 
 
 798 
 
 873 
 
 Verse lines 
 
 1 :8-4 
 
 1 : 13-6 
 
 1 : 54-5 
 
 ratio 
 
 Discussions of the Parliament Scene in Richard II., All's Well, The 
 
 copy wliich Eosaline's speech " Oft have I heard of you, my Lord Biron," &;c. (V. 
 ii. 851-864) bears to the original speech of six lines (827-832), -which has been 
 allowed by mistake to stand. There are also a few lines (1-3) at the opening ot 
 the fourth Act which I have no doubt were introduced in the corrected copy. 
 Prince. "Was that the king, that spurr'd his horse so hard 
 
 Against the steep uprising of the hill? 
 Boget. I know not; but I think it was not he. 
 It was thus that Shakspere learnt to shade off his scenes, to carry the action 
 beyond the stage. Thus, in Romeo and Juliet, I. ii., old Capulet and Paris enter 
 
 talking : — 
 
 But Montague is bound as well as 1 
 In penalty alike, &c. 
 
 which was introduced in the amended copy.' 
 
 ' Professors Delius, Hertzberg (wlio lias specially gone into the point), Ingram 
 and Dowden hold that the style, verse, and plot all belong to one period. Craik's 
 and Hertzberg's view that Love's Labours Wonne is The Taming of the Shriw 
 cannot be supported in the face of the original Taming of (A) S/irew. 
 
 2 The Troylus story is in I. i. 1-107, ii. 1-321 ; II. i, 160, ii., iii. 1-33; IV. 
 i., ii., iii., iv. 1-141, v. 12-53; *IV. v. 277-293; *V. i. 89-93, ii., iii. 97-115, iv. 
 20-24,v. 1-5, vi. 1-11. (*InalltheActV. scenes, and in IV. V. 277-293, Ulysses 
 or Diomed comes in ; the stories overlap.) The Hector story is in I. i. 108-119, 
 iii. 213-309; II. ii. ; III. i. 161-172; IV. iv. 142-150, v. 1-11, 64-276; *V. i., 
 iii. 1-97, v., &c. to the end (except sc. vii. viii. ix., and epilogue, probably spurious). 
 — Fleay. Dyce says, ' That some portions of it, particularly towards the end, are 
 from the pen of a very inferior dramatist, is unquestionable ; and they belong . . . 
 perhaps to the joint production of Dekker and Chettle,' mentioned in Henslowe's 
 Diary, p. 1 47, &c., ed. Shakespeare Soc.
 
 xxxvi INTRODUCTION.— % ^. T>sts of Shakspere'a Growth. 
 
 Two Gentlemen (very feeble, as I think), and Twelfth Night, are also 
 contained in INIr. Fleay's paper. 
 
 § 4. As Shakspere'a change of metre was bnt one of the signs of 
 tlie growth of his art and power, the student must watch for all further 
 manifestations of that growth in the poet's work ; daring use of 
 words, crowding new and fuller meanings into them, so as often to 
 produce obscurity (specially in Macbeth and Lear^)\ change from 
 fancy to imagination in figures of speech ; increase in power of making 
 his characters live, so that they become real men and women to you; 
 deepening of purpose; heightening of tone ; broadening of view ; the 
 insight growing greater as the art became perfect. To this end, 
 registers should be made of all peculiar phrases, happy uses of words, 
 and striking metaphors in the plays, as successively read ; the parallel- 
 texts of the first and second Quartos of Romeo and Juliet (now in 
 the press for the New Sh. Soc, edited by Mr. P. A. Daniel), of Hamlet 
 (edited by Josiah Allen, with preface by Samuel Timmins ; Sampson 
 Low, 1860), and other plays, when publisht, should be compard. 
 Shakspere's treatment of the same thought or subject at different 
 periods of his life should also be compard ; take, for instance, the 
 pretty impatience of Juliet to get news of Romeo out of her nurse in 
 Romeo and Juliet ; of Rosalind to get news of her lover, Orlando, 
 out of Celia, in the later As You Like It; and of Imogen to get 
 tidings of her husband, Posthumus, out of Pisanio, in the still later 
 Cijmbeline, III., ii. Again, the separation in storm and shipwreck 
 of the family of ^geon, and the re-union of father, child, and mother 
 in the early Comedy of Errors, should be compard with the nearly- 
 like re-union, if not separation, in the much later Pericles, &c. For 
 incidents, take Mr. Spedding's happy instance of Shakspere's treat- 
 ment of the face of a beautiful woman just dead : 
 
 1. Romeo and Juliet, second edition (1599), not in the first 
 edition, therefore presumably written between 1597 and 1599 : — 
 
 Her blood is settled, and her joints are stiff. 
 Life and these lips have long been separated. 
 Death lies on her, like an zmtimcly frost 
 JJfon the fairest flower of all the field. 
 
 2. 'Antony and Cleopatra' (1608, according to Delius, &c.) : — 
 
 If they had swalloVd poison, 'twould appear 
 By external swelling ; hut she looks like sleep, 
 As she would catch another Anthony 
 In her strong toil of grace. 
 
 3. ' Cymbeline ' (date disputed, but / say one of the latest [? 16H 
 
 plays) : — 
 
 How found you him ? [Imogen disguisd as a youth.] 
 
 Stark, as you see, 
 Thus smiling, as some fly had tickled slumber. 
 Not as death's dart being lauylud at. His right cheek 
 Reposing on a cushion. 
 
 ' Mr. Hales, in Academy, Jan. 17, 1874, p. 63, col. 3.
 
 INTRODUCTION.— % ^, Tests of ShaTcs;pcre's Growth. XXXVU 
 
 ' The difference in the treatment in these three cases represents the 
 progress o£ a great change in manner and taste : a change which could 
 not be put on or off' like the fashion, but was part of the man ' (' New 
 Sh. Soc.'s Trans.,' 1874, p. 30). Beautiful as the tender pathos of the 
 first image, Fancy-bred, is, we must yet feel that in the second and third 
 the Imagination of the poet dwells no longer on the outside, but goes 
 to the very heart of the matter. Cleopatra is shown in the deepest 
 desire of her life ; Imogen in her purity smiling unconsciously at death.' 
 Of stage situations and business, Shakspere started with a perfect 
 mastery : his first two plays, Love's Labours Lost and Errors, prove 
 
 ' Compare, in Mr. Euskin's chapter " Of Imagination Penetrative," ' Modern 
 Painters/ Vol. 11., Part II., § 2, Chap. III., p. 158, ed. 1848, his instance of lips 
 described by Fancy, dwelling on the outside, and Imagination going to the heart 
 and inner nature of everything. The bride's lips red (Sir John Suckling) ; fair 
 Eosamond's, struck by Eleanor (Warner); the lamp of life, 'as the radiant 
 clouds of morning through thin clouds ' (Shelley) ; and then the bare bones of 
 Yorick's skull {Hamkt V. i. 207) :— 
 
 ' Here hung those lips that I have kissed, I know not how oft ! Where be 
 your gibes now? your gambols? your songs? your flashes of merriment, that were 
 wont to set the table on a roar?' 
 
 ' There is the essence of life, and the full power of imagination. 
 
 ' Again compare Milton's flowers in Lycidas with Perdita's (in the Winter's 
 Tale). In Milton it happens, I think generally, and in the case before us most 
 certainly, that the imagination is mixed and broken with fancy, and so the strength 
 of the imagery is part of iron and part of clay : — 
 
 ' Bring the rathe primrose, that forsaken dies, {Imagination') 
 The tufted crow-toe and pale jessamine, {Nugatory) 
 The white pink and the pansy freak'd with jet, {Fancy) 
 The glowing violet, {Imagination) 
 
 The musk rose and the well-attir'd -woodbine, {Fancy, vulgar) 
 With cowslips wan that hang the pensive head, {Imagination) 
 And every flower that sad embroidery wears.' {Mixed) 
 
 * Then hear Perdita : — 
 
 ' 0, Proserpina, 
 For the flowers now, that frighted thou let'st fall 
 From Dis's waggon. Daffodils, 
 That come before the swallow dares, and take 
 The winds of March with beauty. Violets, dim, 
 But sweeter than the lids of Juno's eyes, 
 Or Cytherea's breath. Pale primroses 
 That die unmarried, ere they can behold 
 Bright Phcebus in his strength, a malady 
 Most incident to maids.' 
 
 ' Observe how the imagination in these last lines goes into the very inmost 
 soul of every flower, after having toucht them all at first with that heavenly 
 timidness, the shadow of Proserpine's, and gilded them with celestial gathering; 
 and never stops on their spots or bodily shapes ; while Milton sticks in the stains 
 upon them, and puts us off with that unhappy freak of jet in the very flower that, 
 without this bit of paper-staining, would have been the most precious to us of alL 
 ♦.There is pansies : that's for thoughts.' (Ophelia, in Hamlet.)
 
 xxxviii INTBODUCTIO^.—^ 5. Shalcspere's rirst Period. 
 
 it, and his undoubtedly prior training as an actor,' render it probable ; 
 but in characterization his growth from Loves Labours Lost to 
 Ilenrtj IV. was wonderfully rapid and sure. INIiich higher than that 
 he could not grow, though he coidd spread hia branches over all the 
 earth. In knowledge of life he increast to the end ; ^ in wisdom he 
 ripend ; leaving his Avorks to us, a joy and possession for ever. 
 
 § 5. These works I would have the student read in the following 
 order, setting aside Titus Andronicus (quite early) and Henry VL 
 (recast before Henri) IV.), till he is able to judge of them for himself. 
 
 And as he reads, I would have him notice how Shakspere's successive 
 plays throw out tendrils round those on each side of them,^ and become 
 linkt together, and how Sliakspere himself grows undt-r his studier's 
 eyes, not only changing in the metrical points noticed on p. xxiv.-xxvii- 
 above, but also in all the high and deep qualities of his nature, mentioned 
 on p. xxxvi. The whole man mov'd together — word, mind, and spirit 
 too ; and, to go back to the metaphor above, 
 
 This royal tree hath left us royal fruit, 
 Which, mello-vrd by the stealing hours of time, 
 
 will be doubly enjoyd, in its ripeness, by the student who has watcht 
 it from its blossom in the spring. 
 
 Sliakspere began his dramatic career wi(h Fun, with quizzing some 
 o£ the absurd fashions of his day, holding ' the mirror up to nature,' 
 showing ' virtue her own feature, scorn her own image, and the very 
 age and body of the time his form and pressure.' {Hamlet, III. ii. 
 24-7.) In Love's Labours Lost — a play almost without a plot — he 
 ridicul'd the nonsensical euphuism of his day, the empty affectations 
 of the London wits, and a scheme for shutting out women from men- 
 students' society, as Tennyson did the converse in his ' Princess,' in 
 1847. He put into this play his Stratford outdoor life and rough 
 country acting ; got a good deal of fun out of the mistaking of one 
 person lor another (which is one of the links between his first three 
 plays, each being a Comedy of Errors) ; and made, as he so often after- 
 wards did, a woman the leader and teacher of men. This Love's 
 Labours Lost is full of crackers of word-play and puns. In his second 
 
 ' Though the earliest print of Shakspere's name as an actor is 1594 (found 
 by Mr. Halliwell), yet Mr. R. Simpson's quotations about ' feathers ' in The 
 Academy, April 4th, 1874, p. 368, col. 2, show that Greene, when calling Shak- 
 6pere an upstart crow ' beautified with our feathers' (G.'s prsthumus G-roafsvorfh 
 of Wit, 1592) meant to speak of him as an actor, and evidently then a well-known 
 one, as well as an author. In 1598 Shakspere acted in Ben Jonson's ' Every Man 
 in his Humour: ' see p. 72 of this comedy in Jonson's Works, 1616. 
 
 * Mr. Hales, in Academy, Jan. 17, 1874, p. 63, col. 3. 
 
 ' Each play has, in fact, a set of hooks-and-eyes of special pattern on each 
 side of it ; and, when its place is found, its hooks-and eyes will be found to fit into 
 the eyes and-hooks of the plays next it. •
 
 INTEODUCTiON.—% 5. Shakspm's Second Period. xxxix 
 
 play, The Comedy of Error Sy he took his farcical plot from Plautus, 
 and added to it the pathetic background of old ^geon's search for his 
 sons, and threatend death, with the first iipspringing of earnebt, tender 
 love of one Antipholus for Luciana. He dealt, too, with the relation 
 of man and wife in a happily-past tone. The play is a roaring farce, 
 full of capital situations. Then, in Midsummer Night'' s Dream, Shak- 
 spere took an immense shoot forward, wedded the loveliest, most 
 delicate fancy of fairyland' to Stratford clowndom, and first reveald a 
 genius able to reach to any height. This is specially his Stratford play, 
 full of out-door life and country lore. But it's a dream (as he calls 
 it), or ^ poem, rather than a play, and is disfigur'd by its heroines' 
 quarrels — one's long legs, and the other's sharp temper and nails. In 
 his fourth play Shakspere fell back in power, though he advanc't in 
 dramatic construction. He now first chose his subject from Italy — 
 that Italy which so taught Chaucer and the Western world — and in 
 The Two Gentlemen of Verona got hold of that quick, versatile, 
 passionate Southern nature that was hereafter to stand him in such 
 good stead. The play is interesting chiefly as its writer's first drama, 
 as containing his second comic creation — Launce — Bottom being the 
 first, and as preparing the way, by its banisht Valentine, for Romeo 
 and Juliet. Love and its vagaries, of the early plays, stop here ; 
 Passion follows. (The Two Gentlemen is very weak in the latter part ; 
 and, in its Valentine's willingness to surrender Sylvia, offends every 
 reader.) In his next play, and poems, Shakspere again takes another 
 enormous shoot forward. Passion is his theme noAV ; lawful in his 
 play, unlawful in his poems. The fresh young figure of Juliet, ' clad 
 in the beauty of the ' Southern spring, steps from her winter home, for 
 just two days and nights, into the light and warmth of summer sun, and 
 then sinks into the chill and horrors of the charnel-house and the grave, 
 leaving you under the witchery of her Cenci eyes, that follow you sadly, 
 wistfully, wander where you will. Young and poor as much of the 
 play is, it is yet * a joy for ever.' With it must be read Shakspere's 
 first poem. Venus and Adonis (1592-3) has all the lovely fancy — and 
 the fancy badly-turnd conceit — of Eomeo and Jidiet : and it has the 
 latter's passion, tho' unlawful, repulsive here. I can't help thinking that 
 Shakspere was askt by Lord Southampton to take the subject, and 
 then, through the close, hot atmosphere of heathen lust, he blew the 
 fresh cool breezes and scents of English meads and downs.^ Liicrece 
 (1593-4) is the story of Tarquin's lust. The pure image of the chaste 
 Lucrece asleep — to be set by that of Imogen in The Winter'' s Tale of 
 
 ' Possibly, part of this is of a later date than the framework of the play. 
 
 ' In the 'Venus' it is not only the well-known descriptions of the horse (1. 
 260-318), and the hare-hunt (1. 673-708), that show the Stralfurd man, but the 
 touches of the overflowing Avon (72), the two silver doves (366), the milch doe and 
 
 c2
 
 xl INTRODUCTION — I 5. Shahprre's Second Period. 
 
 1611' — is one of the triumplis of Sliakspcrc's early time. The long 
 complaints aftei- the Rape are qiiite in the manner of Troilus in the 
 4th and 5th books of Chaucer's poem, and I cannot doubt that Shak- 
 spere here followd * my maister Chaucer.' Possibly, too, at this time 
 he wrote the Troilus and Cressid part of his later play ; and I wish I 
 could add that he balanced it by the king-and -countess episode in 
 mdivard III. {seeii.xxxiu. above), with its pure and noble English 
 woman and wife, Lady Salisbury. But, notwithstanding Mr. Tennyson's 
 dictum in favour of its genuineness, I cannot accept this act as Shak- 
 spere's. Before or about this time Shakspere turned to English History. 
 Burning questions of the day were around him ; subjects in plenty at 
 hand to let him speak through, what, as an Englishman who lovd his 
 land, he had to say. Elizabeth was accus'd of being under the thumb 
 of favourites ; her deposition Avas plotted ; she herself said to Lambarde, 
 *I am Eichard 11. Know you not that?' her right to the Crown was 
 disputed ; foreign interference was calld for ; the Pope appeald to. On 
 these topics Shakspere spoke. He took first the weak English kings, 
 Richard II., Henry VI., and Jolin.'^ Or grant, if you will, that he 
 didn't take them, that Henry VI. was put into his hands to revise ; 
 that Richard II. and John were orderd by old Burbage ; or that some 
 one saw they'd make good plays. Yet Shakspere spoke, and said that 
 government by favourites, quarrels among nobles, ruind a kingdom, 
 lost its possessions (the loss of Calais in 1558 many of his hearers could 
 remember in 1592-4) ; that rebels who calld-in foreign helpers must 
 be betrayed by them ; but that if the nation would unite, 
 
 Come the three corners of the -world in arms, 
 
 And we shall shock them. Nought shall make us rue, 
 
 If England to itself do rest but true. 
 
 While to the Pope, who backt the Armada of 1588, he, sent the 
 
 English message, 
 
 that no Italian priest 
 Shall tithe or toll in our dominions. 
 
 King John, III. i. 153-4. 
 
 fawn in some brake in Charlecotc Park (875-6), the red morn (453), of which the 
 ■weatherwise say : — 
 
 'A red sky at night 's a shepherd's delight ; 
 A red sky at morning 's a shepherd's warning ; ' 
 
 the hush of the wind before it rains (458), the many clouds consulting for foul 
 weather (972), the night owl (531), the lark (853), &c. &e. ; just as the artist (289) 
 and the shrill-tongued tapsters (849) show the taste of London life. — F. J. F., 
 in 'The Academy,' Aug. 15, 1874, p. 179, col. 1. 
 
 ' Note the contrast of treatment, as in all cases of early and late handling of a 
 like subject. 
 
 * The strong Richard III. was interpolated, to complete the Henry VI. series.
 
 INTBOI)UCTION.~% 5. Shakspcre's Second Period. xli 
 
 Looking at the historical plays only as dramas, one sees what a 
 sj)lendid subject Shakspere had in Henry VI., and one regrets that he 
 didn't rewiite the four plays on it (I count Richard III. as one of 
 them). The old love of Guinevere and Lancelot, with all its sad 
 accompaniment of ruin of Arthur's noble fellowship, was again seen in 
 IWargaret and Suffolk. The ' foirest beauty, tender,' soft as * downy 
 cygnets ' (1 Hen. VI. V. iii. 46-57) is turnd by ambition, and then by 
 loss of love, and child, and throne, into a * she-wolf of France,' but 
 "worse than wolves of France, a demoness of the French Revolution, 
 Whose tougue more poisons than the adder's tooth. 
 
 The noble Glo'ster, whom in her pride she murderd, who was the 
 chief pillar of her throne, by his fall let work all the eating passions of 
 the nobles, the schemes of the crafty Richard, that soon bring the 
 Queen and her weak and flabbily-pious Henry to the ground. The 
 figure of Richard rises, chuckling in his villainy and success. Bu-t 
 behind him is the gathering storm of Margaret's, Anne's, Elizabeth's 
 curses, the wail of murdered innocents mixt with the women's wrath ; 
 and at last the storrn bursts, with lightning flash, on the villain's head, 
 on him, erect, defiant, dreading death as little as he feared sin. What 
 could not Shakspere have made of this, with Third-Period power ? 
 Another element of effect, too, is the noble Talbot's death, with hig 
 gallant son's. Poor as the First Part is, messt about by divers hands, 
 we yet have Nash's witness how it toucht the Elizabethans.^ Among 
 Shakspere's additions in Parts II. and HI. to The Contention and True 
 Tragedy, are the fine speeches of Duke Humphrey, * Brave peers,' 
 I. i. ; the recast of the Cade scenes, IV. ii.-viii., in Part 2 ; and Henry's 
 reflection speech in II. v., in Part 3. 
 
 Richard III. is written in the manner of Marlowe,^ Shakspere's 
 only rival ; no doubt one of the authors of The Contention and True 
 Tragedy. Marlowe embodied a passion as his hero, — Ambition in 
 Tamburlaine, Avarice in Barabas, the Love of Knowledge in Faustus, — 
 and sacrifict the gradation of Nature to the one glaring hue he had 
 chosen for his chief character. Richard III. and lago are Shakspere's 
 only figures in this style. In Richard III. the figure of the king is 
 the whole picture, or nearly so ; and, striking though that figure is in 
 its deliberate, exultant, scornfully humourous villainy and hypocrisy, 
 we yet feel that the play as a drama suffers from the want of balance in 
 
 ' How would it have joy'd brave Talbot (the terror of the French) to thinke 
 that after he had lyne two hundred yoare in his tomb he should triumph againe 
 on the stage, and have his bones new embalmed with the teares of ten thous.uid 
 spectators at least (at sovcrall times), who, in the tragedian that represents his 
 person, imagine they behold him fresh bleeding. — Pierce Pcnilesse (1592), p. 60, 
 ed. 1842, Sh. Soc. 
 
 * lie was the son of a cobbler, or parish-clerk, at Canterbury; later, M.A. of 
 St. John's College, Cambridge, and stabd in a tavern brawl in 151)3, aged 29.
 
 xlil INTIiODUC'TIGN.—^ 5. Shakspere's Second Period. 
 
 U. The monotony of the cursing, the weakness of the citizens-scene, 
 the large proportion of extra- syllable lines (570, more than in Hamlet 
 or Lear), the want of relief in the play, have led many to suspect an 
 underlying hand in it, as in 2 and 3 Henry VI. Having once thought 
 this possible, if not likely, I now give it up. 
 
 Richard II. is a better balanct play than Riclmrd III., but less 
 powerful in conception and working-out ; very weak in its later rymed 
 scenes, and showing an odd absence of Shakspere's specialty of charac- 
 terization in the gardener, who talks like a philosopher, or Friar 
 Lawrence in Romeo and Juliet : sermons in plants they both find. 
 There is no mixture of comedy in the play, and no prose, as in John. 
 The character of the sham, clap-trap king, claiming the attributes of 
 royalty when its reality is no longer within him, affecting — the idiot ! — 
 to honour England's earth by touching it with his hand ; indulging in 
 tall talk like Hamlet, and then directly eating his big words ; up to 
 the heavens in one speech, and down to the dust in the next, — is well 
 brought out. Yet at last his weaknesses are hid, his sins against his 
 land well nigh forgiven, under the veil of pity for his end that 
 Shakspere throws over Richard's corpse. In Gaunt's speech on 
 England (II. i. 40-68) Shakspere the patriot speaks to its and all 
 Englishmen to the end of time. And sad it is to think that we 
 Victorians have to repeat his protest still, and say that in the support 
 of the einpire of Sodom, the misrule that suffers, and rewards the per- 
 petrators of, the direst savageries this age has heard of, — in the support 
 of this for ' English interests ' (or the devil's ?), this ' dear, dear land ' 
 
 of ours 
 
 ' is now bound in with shame, 
 With inky blots and rotten parchment bonds. 
 That England, that was wont to conquer others, 
 Hath made a shameful conquest of itself.' 
 
 King John, the play of pathos and patriotism, is linkt strongly 
 to Richard II. and Richard III., but is a great advance on them. It 
 is founded on, and follows, the earlier play of The Trotiblesome Raigne 
 of King John, and should be read carefully with it, to see the change 
 that genius has made in poorer work. The old outlines are mainly 
 left, but the glory of colour is new. Tlie hands are Esau's hands, but 
 the voice is the voice of Jacob. Unluckily, Shakspere left the guidance 
 of the old play which connects the poisoning of John with his opposition 
 to the Pope and his plundering the abbeys, and thus laid his drama 
 open to the objection that its climax has nothing to do with its motive 
 or action. And he did this in spite of one story in Ilolinshed which 
 justified the connection. But the passionate love and yearning of 
 Constance for her boy, which no one who has lost a child can ever 
 forget ; the pathos of young Arthur's appeal for his life, and then his 
 / death ; the lift, by it, of the rough Faulconbridge from his professt
 
 INTRODUCTION.— % ^. Shakspere's Second Period. xliii 
 
 following of gain as God, into true nobility and gentleness o£ soul : these 
 make King John a truly memorable play. After it Shakspere shone 
 forth in full power in The Merchant., whence Shylock's curses, Portia's 
 plea for mercy, Gratiano's humour, the Gobbos' farce, rise in harmony 
 with the song of heaven's own choir of stars. He next perhaps re-wrote 
 the amusing Petruchio-Katharine-Grumio scenes in The Taming of the 
 Shrew, with its racy Induction. In his three comedies of Fali-tafF, or 
 the First and Second Parts of Henry IV. and the Mei^rij Wives, ^ 
 he culminated in humour and comic power.^ Never equalld has Fal- 
 staiF been, and never will be, I believe. The drama of Shakspere's 
 hero, Henry V. (in 1599),^ then closd the connected series of his 
 histoficai plays,* with its splendid bursts of patriotism — possibly against 
 
 ' The Merry Wives was a piece hastily written to please Queen Elizabeth : so 
 says tradition ; and rightlj', I believe. No doubt it was revis'd; but for intrinsic 
 merit it cannot strind for a moment by Henry IV. 
 
 2 Henry IV., or at least the First Part of it, must have been written in or 
 about 1597, the proudest year of Shakspere's early life, when, not quite thirty- 
 three, he bought New Place, ' the great house ' of Stratford. 
 
 • In 1599 also, Shakspere became a partner in some of the profits of the Globe, 
 Sae the "Memorial of Cutbert Burbage, and Winifred his brother's wife, and William 
 his Sonne," in 1635, to the Lord Chamberlaine, discovered by Mr. J. 0. Halliwell in 
 1870, made public by hira in 1874, priuted by me from the Eecord Office MS. in 
 The Academy, March 7, and since issued privately by Mr. Halliwell. ' The father 
 of us, Cutbert and Kichard Burbage, was the first builder of playhowses, and was 
 himselfe in his younger yeeres a player. " The theater" hee built with many hundred 
 poundes taken up at interest. The players that lived in those first times had only 
 the profitts arising from the dores ; but now the players receave all the commiiigs 
 in at the dores to themselves, and halfe the galleries from the houskepers [the 
 owners or lessees of the theatre]. Hee built this house upon leased ground, by 
 which meanes the landlord and hee had a -great suite in law, and, by his death, the 
 like troubles fell on us his sonnes : wee then bethought us of altering from thence, 
 and at like expence built the' Globe [a.d. 1599 : Mr. Halliwell says] with more 
 summes of money taken up at interest, which lay heavy on us many yeares ; and 
 to ourselves wee joyned tJwse dcserveing men, Shakspere, Hemings, Gondall, Philips, 
 and others, partners m the projlttes of that they call the House. , . 
 
 ' Thus, Right Honorable, as concerning the Globe, where wee ourselves are but 
 lessees. Now for the Blackfriers: that is our inheritance ; our father purchased it 
 at extreame rates, and made it into a playhouse with great charge and trouble : 
 which after was leased out to one Evans that first sett up the boyes commonly 
 called the Queenes Majesties Children of the Chappell. In processe of time, the 
 boyes growing up to bee men, which were Underwood, Field, Ostler, and were 
 taken to strengthen the King's service ; and the more to strengthen the service, 
 the boyes dayly wearing out, it was considered that house would bee as fitt for 
 ourselves, and soe [we] purchased the lease remaining from Evans, with our 
 money, and placed meti players, which were Hnnivgs, Cundall, S/iakspcare,' SjC. 
 This could not have been till, or after the year 160.3, when James succeeded 
 Elizabeth, and there was a 'King's service.' Besides, the Warrant of King 
 James making Shakspere's company the King's Company, and which bears date 
 May 17th, 1603, mentions only the Globe, as this Company's ' now usuall house.' 
 
 * Henry VIII., not part of the series, was added at the end of Shakspere's life. 
 See Mr. Eichard Simpson's able Paper on the ' Politics of Shakspere's Historical
 
 xliv INTRODUCTION.— % 5. SJialsj^crc's Tlird Period. 
 
 the contemporary glorification of the great Henri Quatre of France^ 
 though they cannot save the phiy from its weakness as a drama, neces- 
 pitated by a battle (Agincourt) standing for its plot. It was succeeded by 
 a brilliant set of comedies, possibly for the newly-opend Globe theatre: — 
 Much Ado about Nothing (glittering with stars of wit and richest 
 humour : — what do not the names Benedick and Beatrice, Dogberry and 
 Verges mean to a Shakspere-reader's ear?- ); As You Like It with 
 its moral, ' Sweet are the uses of adversity,' its freshness of greenwood 
 life, wherein men ' fleet the time carelessly as they did in the golden 
 world ' ; and yet with its melancholy Jaques, who will not be com- 
 forted or glad, a prelude to the sadder time so close at hand. Twelfth 
 Night (with its pompous goose of a Malvollo, its sharp Maria, its 
 drunken Toby Belch and Andrew Aguecheek, its Viola with her 
 beautiful self-sacrificing love for the Duke). All's Well (the recast 
 of Love's Labours Wonne), with its unpleasant plot of a willing wife 
 (Helena, one of Shakspere's noblest ladies) hunting and catching he/ 
 unwilling husband, but with its inimitable braggart Parolles. 
 
 Here Shakspere's ' Sonnets ' should be read, and the tender sensi- 
 tive nature that producd them commund with. Over and over again 
 must they be read, till at least their main outlines are clear. The key 
 to them is No. cxliv. on * the man right fair,' who is the poet's ' better 
 angel,' and ' the worser spii-it a woman colour'd ill.' They clearly speak 
 of Shakspere's own loves and life, and interpret his plays. The later 
 * Sonnets ' are the best preparation for Hamlet. 
 
 Undoubtedly at this time a shadow of darkness fell iipon Shak- 
 spere. What causes brought it, we cannot certainly tell. Private 
 reasons the 'Sonnets' show. He was deserted by his mistress— 
 wrongly but madly lovd by him, in spite of the struggles of his better 
 nature — for his dearest friend ; and this for a time severd their friend- 
 ship, never to be restord again as it first Avas. Public reasons there 
 were: his great patron and friend Southampton' was declard traitor 
 and imprisond in 1601 ; was threatend with death, and in almost 
 
 Plays ' in Tl/e New Skakspere Soc.'s Trans., 1874 or -5. He argues ' that Sliakspere 
 was of the Essex party, against Burgbley and Cecil ; that in Henry VI. and Richard 
 11. he showd Elizabeth misled by Leicester, and then by Burghley(she herself said 
 she was Richard II.); that John was aimd at the many callers for foreign inter- 
 vention in her time, his wars were hers of 1585 ; Henry IV. showd how she us'd 
 and cast oif helpers, and picturd the Northern Eebellion in her reign (1569); 
 Henry V. told her how foreign war united a nation, and brought about religious 
 toleration at home (this was Essex's policy) ; Henry VIII. brought out the end of 
 the constantly falling state of the old nobility, (which Shakspere, in common with so 
 many Elizabethans, lamented,) and the consummation of the full power of the 
 Crown, two threads running through English history and Shakspere's Historical 
 Plays. Shakspere's changes of the Chronicles were not only for dramatic effect, 
 but to show the lessons he wisht them to teach on the political circumstances of 
 his time.' 
 
 ' This is Gervinus's suggestion. In the dedication to Lucrece, Shakspere says 
 to Southampton, ' The love I dedicate to your lordship is without end.'
 
 INTRODUCTION.— % 5. Shakspere's Fourth Period of Calm. xlv 
 
 daily danger of it till Elizabeth's own death in 1603 set him free 
 through King James: the rebellion and execution of Essex, South- 
 ampton's friend and the cause of his ruin, to whom Shakspere had two 
 years before alluded with pride in his Prologue to Henry V., Act v. 
 1. 30. At any rate, the times Avere out of joint. Shakspere was 
 stirrd to his inmost depths, and gave forth the grandest series of 
 Tragedies that the world has ever seen : Julius Ccesar, Hamlet (followd 
 by the tragi-comedy Measure for Measure), Othello, Macbeth, Lear, 
 Troilus and Ct^essida (see p. xxxv.), Antony and Cleopatra, Corio- 
 lanus, Tiinon ; showing what subjects were then kin to his frame of 
 mind ; how he felt, and struggld with, the stern realities of life ; how 
 he dwelt on the weakness and baseness of men, their treachery as friends 
 and subjects, their lawless lust and ungovernd jealousy as lovers, their 
 serpent-like ingratitude as children, their fickleness and disgustfulness 
 as the many-headed mob, fit only to be spit upon and curst : over all 
 he held the terrors of conscience and the avenging sword of fate. All 
 had 'judgment here.' ^..^ 
 
 But Shakspere could not end thus. After the darkness came light ; I 
 after the storm, calm; and in the closing series of his plays — three! 
 
 tragedies, two comedies, and one history — inspird, I believe, by his I 
 
 renewd family-life at Stratford' — he speaks of reconciliation and peace, y^ ) 
 His Tragedies now, for the first time, end happily ; his Comedies have ' 
 a quite new fulness of meaning and love ; his History (though partly i 
 by Fletcher's mouth) speaks an injurd wife's forgiveness of deepest j 
 wrongs, and prophesies blessings. All the plays turn on broken family) 
 ties united, or their breach forgiven unavengd. With wife and daughters 
 again around him, the faultful past was rememberd only that the present 
 union might be closer. In Pericles (see p. xxx.) the bereavd king 
 finds once more his lost daughter, whose supposd death had made liim 
 dumb; then both are united to the wife-and-mother whose seeming 
 corpse had been committed to the waves ; and the rush of joy at their 
 at-onement sweeps away all thought of vengeance on their enemies. 
 Again, in The Tempest — wherein Shakspere 'treads on the confines of 
 other worlds' — wherein his new type of Stratford maiden is idealizd 
 into Miranda, ' so delicately refind, all but ethereal, in her virgin inno- 
 cence' (Mrs. Jameson), — his lesson is still of the breaking of family; 
 ties — brother and brother — repented of and forgiven : — / 
 
 Tho rarer action is 
 In virtue than in vengeance: they, being penitent, 
 Tho sole drift of my purpose doth extend 
 Not a frouue further.— V. i. 27-30; Fol. p. 16, col. 2. 
 
 • Unless Thomas Greene, tha Town Clerk of Stratford, was living at New 
 Place with his 'cos^n Shakspere' or his family, Shakspere cannot well have retired 
 thither till after September 1C09, as Greene then said a G. Brown might stay
 
 xlvi INTRODUCTION.— % 5. Shakspere's Fourth Period of Calm. 
 
 In bis next play, Ci/mbeline, he again proclaims to the repentant sinner 
 his Fourth Period message, 
 
 The power that I have on you is to spare you ; 
 The malice towards you, to forgive you .... 
 Pardon's the word for all. 
 
 While, as regards family life, he makes the true wife Imogen — * the 
 most perfect ' Imogen — wrongly and hastily mistrusted, rise from de- 
 sertion and seeming death, to forgive and clasp to her ever-loving heart 
 tlie husband who had doubted her : no Desdemona end for her.* 
 
 ( Reiterating his lesson, Shakspere gives us again, in his last complete play, 
 the delightsome Winter s Tale, the noble wife, Hermione, calm in her 
 dignity, saintlike in her patience, forgiving her basely jealous and vin- 
 dictive husband, while he unites them again — as in Pericles — with their 
 lost daughter Perdita, sweet with the fragrance of her Stratford flowers 
 of spring, artless and beautiful, tender and noble-naturd, as Shakspere 
 
 k^lone could make her. In his fragments, completed by other smaller 
 men, the teaching is still the same. In T/ie Two Noble Kinsmen, he 
 shows us the forsworn brother (Arcite) dying repentant, recommending 
 his brother (Palamon) to Emelye, his first love. In Henry VIII., 
 Katharine the divorced, pious, affectionate, simple, magnanimous, — in 
 one sense, ' the triumph of Shakespeare's genius and his wisdom' (Mrs. 
 Jameson, pp. 379, 384) — forgives her ruffian husband 'all, and prays 
 God to do so likewise' : — 
 
 tell him, in death I blest him. 
 For so I will. Mine eyes grow dimme : Farewell. — Fol. p. 226.* 
 
 longer in his house, 'the rather because 1 perceyved I might stay another yere at 
 New Place.' By June 21, 1611, Thomas Greene is probably in his new house, as 
 an order was made that the town is ' to repare the churchyard wall at Mr. Greene's 
 dwelling place.' — Halli well's Hist, of New Place. 
 
 ' Note, too, how, in Cymbcline, Shakspere contrasts the evils of court life with 
 the simplicity and innocence of country life, life then around him, as I contend. 
 
 ^ Note that in Henry VRL, Cymheline, and Winter s Tale (group b) the for- 
 giveness is mainly by women, in Pericles and The Tempest (group a), by men, 
 while in four of these plays you have the additional link of lost children restored 
 to their parents. Contrast this link with that of fun from mistaken identity in 
 the first three First-Period Plays, L. L. Lost, Errors, Dream. Between this first 
 group, and the second or Passion one, of Borneo ^ Juliet, Venus, and Lucrece, the 
 Two Gentlemen serves as a link. The Second Period Plays fall into a. a Life-Plea 
 group, John, and The Merchant ; b. the Shrew ; c. the Three Comedies of Falstaff, 
 with the Trilogy of Henry IV., V. ; d. the three Sunny or Sweet-Time Comedies, 
 Much Ado, As You Like It, Twelfth Night; e. the Darkening Comedy, All's Well. 
 The Third Period Plays fall into five groups: a. the Unfit-Nature, or Under- 
 BurJen-Failing group, Julius Ccesar, Hamlet, Meas. for Meas. ; b. the Tempter- 
 Yielding group, Othello, Macbeth; c. the fir.-t Ingratitude and Cursing Play, Lear; 
 d. the Lust or False-Love group, Troilus, Antony ^ Cleopatra; e. the second 
 Ingratitude and Cursing group, Coriolanus, Timon.
 
 INTRODUCTION.— % 5. Shalspere's Fourth Period. xlvii 
 
 ^And thus, forgiven and forgiving,* full of the highest wisdom and of 
 / peace, at one with family, and friends, and foes, in harmony with Avon's 
 flow &nd Stratford's level meads, Shakspere closd his life on earth.'* 
 
 ( 
 
 ' It is certain, I think, that in his latest plays, of the Fourth Period, Shak- 
 spere was also teacliing himself the lesson of forgiveness for the wrongs and 
 disappointments he had sufferd, and which were reflected in the Tragedies of his 
 Third Period. See on this my friend Prof. Dowden's forthcoming ' Mind and Art 
 of Shakspere' (H. S. King & Co.), with its fine and right likening of Shakspere 
 to a ship, beaten and storm-tost, but yet entering harbour with sails full-set, to 
 anchor in peace. I quote it from the MS. of his Lectures : — 
 
 ' There are lovers of Shakspere so jealous of his honour that they are unable 
 to suppose that any grave moral flaw could have impaired the perfection of his 
 life and manhood. To me Shakspere appears to have been a man who, by strenuous 
 effort and with the aid of the good powers of the world, saved himself, — so as by 
 fire. Before Shakspere zealots demand our attention to ingenious theories to 
 establish the immaculateness of Shakspere's life, let them show that his writings 
 never offend. "When they have shown that Shakspere's poetry possesses the proud 
 virginity of Milton's poetry, they may then go on to show that Shakspere's youth 
 was devoted to an ideal of moral purity and elevation like the youth of Milton. 
 I certainly should not infer from Shakspere's writings that he held himself with 
 virginal strength and pride remote from the blameful pleasures of the world. 
 What I do not find anywhere in the plays of Shakspere is a single cold-blooded, 
 hard or selfish line — all is warm, sensitive, vital, radiant with delight, or a-thrill 
 with pain. And what I dare to affirm of Shakspere's life is, that whatever its 
 sins may have been, they were not hard, selfish, deliberate, cold-blooded sins. 
 The eiTors of his heart originated in his sensitiveness, in his imagination (not at 
 first strictly trained to fidelity to the fact), in his quick sense of existence, and in 
 the self-abandoning devotion of his heart. There are some noble lines by Chapman 
 in which he pictures to himself the life of great energy, enthusiasms and passions, 
 which for ever stands upon the edge of utmost danger, and yet for ever remains in 
 absolute secm-ity: — 
 
 Give me a spirit that on life's rough sea 
 Loves to have his sails filled with a lusty wind 
 Even till his sail-yards tremble, his masts crack, 
 Ami his rapt ship runs on her side so low 
 That she drinks water, and her keel ploughs air; 
 There is no danger to the man that knows 
 What life and death is ; there's not any law 
 Exceeds his knowledge ; neither is it lawful 
 That he should stoop to any other law. 
 
 Such a master-spirit pressing forward under strained canvas was Shakspere. 
 If the ship dipped and drank water, she rose again ; and at length we see her 
 ■within view of her haven, sailing under a large, calm wind, not without tokens of 
 stress of weather, but if battered, yet unbroken, by the waves. It is to dull 
 lethargic lives that a moral accident is fatal, because they are tending no whither, 
 and lack energy and momentum to right themselves again. To say anything 
 against decent lethargic vices and timid virtues, anything to the advantage of the 
 strenuous life of bold action and eager emotion which necessarily incurs risks 
 and sometimes suffers, is, I am aware, " dangerous." Well, then, be it so ; it is 
 dangerous.' 
 
 ^ In his History of New VJace, Mr. Halliwell has suggested a more probable 
 cause for Shakspere's death than the no doubt groundless tx-aditional one (after 
 1662) of the drinking bout with Drayton and Ben Jonson, namely, that the
 
 xlviii INTRODUCTION.— % 5. Shakspere to he read Chronologically, 
 
 Now all that I have written on the succession of Shakspere's works 
 in relation to the man Shakspere is liable to the objector's ' Pooh ! all 
 stuff! Shakspere wrote comedies and tragedies for his company just 
 as the Burbages told him to. His comedies were produc'd for some 
 leading comic actor, and his tragedies for his friend and partner Richard 
 Burbage, the great tragedian. Neither reflected his own feelings, except 
 professionally, any more than Macbeth's or Othello's did Burbage's 
 when he acted them.' Take it so, if you will ; but still, I say, Do 
 follow the course of Shakspere's mind ; still do commune with the 
 creations of his brain as they flowd from it ; still note his wondrous 
 growth in that sensibility and intensity, far beyond all other men's, 
 that enabld him to throw himself into all the varid figures of his 
 plays with ever-increasing power and skill ; still watch his greatening 
 of wisdom and knowledge of life, his dazzling wit and ever-flowing 
 
 ''' humour ; still gaze at, and glory in, his dream of, nay, his breathing 
 and living Fair Women, who enchant even Taine, and win the reverence 
 
 \ of Gervinus and all true-so uld men — beside whom Dante's Beatrice 
 alone is fit to stand : — and then ask yourself whether the choice of 
 Shakspere's series of subjects was fixt by othei-s' orders, or chance, 
 or by his own frame of mind, his own mood ; whether his young plays 
 of love and fun, of patriotism and war,' of humour and wit, showd his 
 own early manhood or not, his time of successful struggle, and happy 
 enjoyment of its fruits ; whether the dark questionings of ' Hamlet,' 
 the mingling with lawlessness, treachery, hatred, revenge, had nothing 
 to do with his own later inner life, with that ^ hell of time^ which he 
 tells us he passt through during his quarrel with his friend ^ ; whether 
 the reconciliation and peace of his latest plays were independent of his J 
 new quiet home-Ufe at Stratford with its peace. I am content to abide 
 by your answer. Depend on it that what our greatest Victorian poetess, 
 Mrs. Barrett Browning, though a lyrist, said of her own poetry, is true, 
 to a great extent, of Shakspere in his dramas, ' They have my heart 
 and life in them ; they are not empty shells.' The feelings were in his 
 soul ; he put them into words ; and that is why the world is at his i'eet. 
 
 pigsties and nuisances which the Corporation books show to have existed in Chapel 
 Lane, which ran the whole length of New Place, bred the fever of which Shakspere 
 is said to have died. 
 
 Mr. Halliwell gives several extracts from the books, as ' 1605: the Chamber- 
 laines shall gyve warning to Henry Smyth to plucke downe his pigges cote which 
 is built nere the chappie wall, and the house of office ( = privy) there.'-— 2Vew Place, 
 p. 29. 
 
 ' They had, and naturally, their leaven of pathos and tragedy, as I have shown 
 above. 
 
 * For if you were by my unkindness shaken, 
 
 As I by yours, you have passt a hell of time. 
 
 Sonnet 120, 1. 6.
 
 INTEODUCTION.-l 5, Order of SJudsjjere'^ Flays. 
 
 xl 
 
 IX 
 
 Trial Table of the Order of Shakspere's Plays. 
 
 [Tills, like all other tablr s, must Le lookt on as merely tentative, and open to 
 modification for any good reasons. But if only it comes near the truth, then 
 reading the plays in its order will the sooner enable the student to find out its 
 mistakes. (M. stands for ' mentioned by Francis Meres in his PaUadis Tamia, 
 1598.') In his introductory Essays to Shakespeare's Dramatische WerJce (Ger- 
 man Shakespeare Society) Prof. Hertzberg dates Titus 1587-9, Love's Labours 
 Lost 1592, Comedy of Errors about New Year's Day 1591, Two Gentlemen 1592, 
 AlTs Well 1603, Troilus and Cressida 1603, and Cymheline 1611. Mr. Grant 
 White dates Richard IL 1595, Bichard III. 1593-4.] 
 
 
 Supposd Date 
 
 Earliest 
 AUuision 
 
 Date of Tublica- 
 tiun 
 
 First Period. 
 
 
 
 
 Titus Andronicus toucht up . 
 
 (?) 1588 
 
 1-594 M 
 
 [(?)1594] 1600 
 
 Love's Labours Lost 
 
 1588-9 
 
 1598 M 
 
 1598 (amended) 
 
 [Loves Labours Wonne . 
 
 ] 
 
 1598 M 
 
 
 Comedy of Errors .... 
 
 1589-91 
 
 1594 M 
 
 1623 
 
 Midsummer Night's Dream (? 2 dates) 
 
 1590-1 
 
 1,598 M 
 
 1600 
 
 Two Gentlemen of Verona 
 
 1.590-2 
 
 1598 M 
 
 1623 
 
 (?) 1 Henry VI. toucht up . 
 
 (?) 1590-2 
 
 
 1623 
 
 Romeo and Juliet .... 
 
 1591-3 
 
 1595 M 
 
 1.597 
 
 Venus and Adonis .... 
 
 1592-3 
 
 
 1-593 
 
 Lucrece ..... 
 
 1593-4 
 
 1594 
 
 1594 
 
 (?) A Lover's Complaint (? not 
 
 
 
 
 Shakspere's) .... 
 
 
 
 
 Richard II 
 
 (?) 1.593-4 
 
 ?1595M 
 
 15S7 
 
 2 & 3 Henry VI. recast . 
 
 (?) 1592-4 
 
 
 1623 
 
 Richard III 
 
 1594 
 
 ?1595M 
 
 1597 
 
 Second Period. 
 
 
 
 
 John . 
 
 1595 
 
 1598M 
 
 1623 
 
 Merchant of Venice , 
 
 1596 
 
 1598 M 
 
 16001- 
 
 Taming of the Shrew, part . 
 
 (?) 1596-7 
 
 
 1623 ' 
 
 1 Henry IV 
 
 1596-7::: 
 
 1598 M 
 
 1598 
 
 2 Henry IV 
 
 1 597-8 j 
 
 1598 M 
 
 1600 
 
 Merry Wives .... 
 
 1-598-9 
 
 1602 
 
 1602 
 
 Henry V 
 
 1599t 
 
 1599 
 
 1600 
 
 Much Ado 
 
 1599-1600J 
 
 1600 
 
 1600 
 
 As you Like it ... . 
 
 1600| 
 
 1600 
 
 1623§ 
 
 Twelfth Night .... 
 
 160U 
 
 1602 
 
 1623 
 
 All's Well (?L,'s L. Wonne recast). 
 
 1601-2 
 
 
 1623 
 
 Sonnets ..... 
 
 (?) 1592-1608 
 
 1598 M 
 
 1609 
 
 Third Period. 
 
 
 
 
 Julius Csesar 
 
 1601 
 
 1601 
 
 1623 
 
 Hamlet. 
 
 1602-3]: 
 
 (?) 
 
 1603* 
 
 Measure for Measure 
 
 (?) 1603 
 
 
 1623 
 
 Othello 
 
 (?) 1604 
 
 1610 
 
 1622 
 
 * Enterd 1 year before at Stationers' Hall. 
 
 t Enterd 2 years before at Stationers' Hall. 
 
 \ May be lookt-on as fairly certain. 
 
 § Enterd in the Stationers' Registers in 1600. 
 
 > ' The Taming of a Shrew' was publisht in 1604.
 
 lNTEODUCTION.—% 6. Heljps to reading Shahpere. 
 
 Trial Table of the Ordir 
 
 of ShaJcspcre's Plays — continu'd. 
 
 
 Suppose! Date 
 
 Earliest 
 Allusion 
 
 Date of Publica- 
 tion 
 
 Macbeth .... 
 
 
 lG05-6t 
 
 1610 
 
 1623 
 
 Lear 
 
 
 100,0-61 
 
 1606 
 
 1608* 
 
 Troihis and Cressida 
 
 
 (?) 1606-7 
 
 1609 
 
 1609 
 
 Antony and Cleopatra 
 
 
 1606-7 
 
 1608 (?) 
 
 1623 
 
 Coriolanus .... 
 
 
 (?) 1607-8 
 
 
 1623 
 
 Timon, part .... 
 
 
 1607-8 
 
 
 1623 
 
 FoTJRTH Period, 
 
 
 
 
 
 Pericles, part . 
 
 
 1608t 
 
 1608 
 
 1609* 
 
 Tempest .... 
 
 
 (?) 1610 
 
 ?161-t 
 
 1623 
 
 Cymbelino .... 
 
 
 1610-12 
 
 
 1623 
 
 AVinter's Tale 
 
 
 (?) 1611 
 
 1611 
 
 1623 
 
 Two Noble Kinsmen, part 
 
 
 (?) 1612 
 
 
 1634 
 
 Henry VIII., part . 
 
 
 1613+ 
 
 1613(?) 
 
 1623 
 
 * Enterd 1 year before at Stationers' Hall, 
 \ May be lookt-on as fairly certain. 
 
 § 6. Now of a few helps to reading Shakspere. 1. As to Text : have 
 the ' Globe ' edition (Macmillan, 3s. 6c?.) because its lines are num- 
 berd, and for sound text ; but do not ruin your eyes by reading it. 
 For reading, get a small 8vo. clear-type edition like Singer's, with notea 
 — a cheap re-issue, in half-crown volumes, is just coming out (G. Bell 
 and Sons). Get (if you can afford it) Mr. Furness's admirable Variorum 
 edition of Romeo and Juliet and Macbeth (15s. each, A. K. Smith) ; 
 Hamlet is preparing; (the other plays will slowly follow); and, 
 for their notes, Messrs. Clark and Wright's little Clarendon-Press edition 
 of plays at Is. or Is. 6fZ. each (their 8vo. Cambridge edition with most 
 valuable full collations, is out of print); and Craik's Julius Ccesar. 
 
 2. Glossaries, &c. : Mrs. Cowden's Clarke's ' Concordance ' to the 
 Plays (25s.), and Mrs. H. H. Furness's to the Minor Poems (15s.); 
 Dr. Schmidt's most useful ' Shakespeare-Lexicon' (vol. i., A to L, 13s. Gd. 
 Williams and Norgate), which well arranges the passages under their 
 senses, and the parts of speech of the head-word; Dyce's ' Glossary ' (last 
 vol. of his Shakspere), andNares's 'Glossary' (2 vols., 24s., A. R. Smith). 
 
 3. Grammar and Metre : Dr. Abbott's ' Shakespearian Grammar ' 
 (Macmillan, 6s.) indispensable ; but with some misscansions that will 
 ' absolutely sear ' you, as Mr. Ellis says, and over some of which you will 
 groan, as we did in concert at the Philological Society when Professor 
 Mayor read them (see his Paper in ' Phil. Soc. Trans.,' 1874, now in 
 the press. Dr. Abbott, I need not say, ridicules our scannings). W. 
 Sidney Walker's three volumes of Shakspere Text-criticism (15s., A. R. 
 Smith) are excellent, ^ C. Bathurst's capital little half-crown volume 
 
 • Dr. Ingleby describes his just publibht Still Lion as ' indications of a
 
 INTRODUCTION.— % 6. Helps to reading Shakspcre. li 
 
 on the end-stopt and iinstopt line, — ' Changes in Shakespeare's Versi- 
 fication at different Periods of his Life' (J. W. Parker and Son) 
 — is unkickily out of print. 4. Pronunciation : Mr. A. J. Ellis's 
 ' Early English Pronunciation with Special Keference to Chaucer 
 and Shakespeare ' (three Parts, 30s., Asher and Co. ; or Part iii. 
 only, the Shakespeare Part [p. 917-96], 10s.). 5. Commentaries : 
 Gervinus's (14s., Smith, Elder & Co.)'; Mrs. Jameson's 'Character- 
 istics of Women,' that is, Shakspei-e's Women — an enthusiastic and 
 beautiful book (5s., Eoutledge) ; Prof. Dowden's excellent ' Mind 
 and Art of Shakspere ' (12s., H. S. King and Co.); S. T. Coleridge's 
 ' Shakespeare Lectures,' &c. (3s. 6fZ., Howell) ; Watkiss Lloyd's 
 'Critical Essays on the Plays' (2s. Gd., Bell); my Introduction to the 
 'Leopold Shakspere' (Cassell & Co., 10s. Gd.) ; T. P. Courtenaj^'s 
 matter-of-fact ' Commentaries on the Historical Plays' (2 vols., Colburn, 
 1840). Then, if you can afford more books, buy Hudson's ' Shake- 
 speare, his Life, Art, and Characters' (of his twenty-five greatest 
 plays) (2 vols., 12s., Sampson Low); ' Ulrici' (7s., Bell); Schlegel's 
 'Dramatic Art' (3s. Gd.), and Hazlitt's thin 'Characters of Shake- 
 speare's Plays' (2s., G. Bell and Sons) ; Mr. John E. Wise's charming 
 little book on 'Shakespeare; his Birthplace and its Neighbourhood' 
 (3s. Gd., Smith, Elder and Co.) ; Mr. Roach Smith's ' Ptural Life of 
 Shakespeare ' (3s. Gd., George Bell and Sons). Buy a copy of Booth's 
 admirable Reprint of the First Folio of 1623 (12s. Gd., Glaisher, 265, 
 High Ilolborn ; with the Quarto of * Much Adoe,' for Is.). For the 
 facts of Shakspere's Life, chronologically arrangd, Mr. S. Neil's ' Shake- 
 speare : a Critical Biography ' (Houlstou and Wright, Is. Gd.) is a 
 fair book. On the ' Sonnets,' get the best book, Armitage Brown's 
 (?6s., A. R. Smith); for the allegorical view of them, the late Mr. R. 
 Simpson's 'Philosophy of Shakespeare's Sonnets' (3s. Gd., Triibner). 
 ■ — Of course, subscribe a guinea a year to the New Shakspere Society 
 (Hon. Sec, A. G. Snelgrove, Esq., London Hospital, E ), read its 
 Papers, and work its Texts, specially the parallel ones. 
 
 Get one or two likely friends to join you in your Shakspere work, 
 if you can, and fight out all your and their difficulties in common : 
 worry every line ; eschew the vice of wholesale emendation. Get up 
 a party of ten or twelve men and four or six women to read the plays 
 in succession at one another's houses, or elsewhere, once a fortnight, 
 and discuss each for half an hour after each reading. Do all you can 
 to further the study of Shakspere, chronologically and as a whole, 
 throughout the nation. 
 
 systematic Hermeneutic [science of interpretation] of Shakspere's text.' It is 
 strongly against plausible emendations, and is well worth careful study. 
 
 ' Prof. Dowden, who has been through all the German commentators, thinks 
 Kreyssig's VorUsungen iiher ShakcsjKare (a big book), and Shakespeare- Frag en 
 (a little book), the best popular introduction in German to Shakspere.
 
 lii INTRODUCTION.— % 6. A Visit to Siraiford-upon-Avon. 
 
 Lastly, go to Stratford-upon-Avon, and see the town where 
 Shakspere was born, and bred, and died; the country over which he 
 wauderd and playd when a boy, whose beauties and whose lore, as a 
 man, he put into his plays. Go either in spring, in April, * when the 
 greatest jioet was born in Nature's sweetest time,' and let Mr. Wise 
 ('Shakespeare: his Birthplace and its Neighbourhood,' p. 44, 58, &c.) 
 tell you how ' everything is full of beauty ' that you'll see ; or go in full 
 summer, as I did one afternoon in July this year. See first the little 
 low room where tradition says Shakspere was born, though his father 
 did not buy the house till eleven years after his birth ; ' look at the foun- 
 dations of ' New Place,' walk on the site of Shakspere's house, in the 
 garden whose soil he must often have trod, thinking of his boyhood and 
 haRty marriage, of London, with its trials and triumphs, and the wonders 
 he had created for its delight ; follow his bodj', past the school where he 
 learnt, to its grave in the Avon-side church ringd with elms ; see the 
 worn slab that covers his bones, with wife's and daughter's beside ; 
 look up at the bust which figiu-es the case of the brain and heart that 
 have so enricht the world, which shows you more truly than anything 
 else what Shakspere was like in the flesh ; try to see in those hazel 
 eyes, those death-drawn lips,^ those ruddy cheeks, the light, the mer- 
 riment, the tenderness, the wisdom, and love that once were theirs ; walk 
 by the full and quiet Avon's side, where the swan sails gently, by 
 which the cattle feed ; ask yourself what word sums up your feehngs 
 on these scenes: and answer, with me, 'Peace' ! 
 
 Next morning, walk up the Welcombe road, across the old common 
 lands whose enclosing Shakspere said ' he was not able to bear : ' 
 when up Rowley Bank, turn round ; see the town nestle under its cir- 
 cling hills, shut in on the left by its green wall of trees. The com is 
 golden beside you. Meon Hill meets the sky in your front; its shoulder 
 slants sharply to the spire of the church where Shakespeare's dust lies: 
 away on the right is Broadway, lit with the sun ; bolow it the ridge of 
 
 ' He may have rented it before ; but I expect that the former house, in Henley 
 Street, in which John Shakspere dwelt, would have a better claim to be ' the birth- 
 place,' if it were now known. 
 
 2 ' We may mention — on the authority of Mr. Butcher, the very courteous 
 clerk of Stratford Church, who saw the examination made — that two years ago 
 Mr. Story, the great American sculptor, when at Stratford, made a very careful 
 examination of Shakspere's bust from a raised scaffolding, and came to the con- 
 clusion that the face of the bust was modelled from a death-mask. The lower 
 part of the face was very death-like ; the upper lip was elongated and drawn up 
 from the lower one by the shrinking of the nostrils, the first part of the face to 
 • go ' after death ; the eyebrows were neither of the same length nor on the same 
 level ; the depth from the eye to the ear was extraordinary ; the cheeks were of 
 diiferent shapes, the left one being the more prominent at top. On the whole, 
 Mr. Story felt certain of the bust being made from a death-mask.' — F. J. F., iu 
 The Academ^i/, Aug. 22, 1874, p. 205, col. 3. The Academy, our 'leading literary 
 paper,' should be read for Shakspere news.
 
 INTRODUCTION— % 6. A Visit to Strafford-upon-Avon. lili 
 
 Koomer Hill, yellow for harvest on tlie right, passing leftwards into a 
 dark belt of trees to the church, their hollows filled with blue haze. In 
 this nest is Shakspere's town. After gazing your fill on the fair 
 scene before you, walk to the boat-place, paddle out for the best view 
 of the elm-franad church, then by its river-borderd side to the stream 
 below ; get a beautiful view of the tower through a vista of trees 
 beyond the low waterfall ; then pass by cattle half-knee deep in the 
 shallows, sluggishly -whisking their tails, happily chewing the cud ; go 
 under Wire-Brake bank, whose trees droop down to the river, whose 
 wood-pigeons greet you with coos ; past many groups of grey Avillows, 
 with showers of wild roses between ; feathery reeds rise beside you, 
 birds twitter about, the sky is blue overhead, your boat glides smoothly 
 down stream : you feci the sweet content with which Shakspere must have 
 lookt on the scene. Later, you wander to Shottery, to Ann liathaway's 
 cottage, where perchance in hot youth the poet made love. Then you ride 
 through Charlecote's tall-elmd park, and see the deer whose ancestors 
 he may have stolen ; on to "Warwick, with its castle rising grandly from 
 Avon bank ; back to Stratford, with a glorious view from the hill, on 
 your left in your homeward ride.^ Evening comes : you stroll again 
 by the riverside, through groups of townsfolk pleasant to see, in well-to- 
 do Sunday dress. From Cross-o'-th'-Hill you look at the fine view of 
 church and town, backt by the Welcombe Hills ; through Wire Brake ^ 
 and ripe corn, you walk to the bridge that brings you to the opposite 
 level bank of the stream. Then you lie down, chattmg of Shakspere 
 to your friend, while lovers in pairs pass lingering by, and the twilight 
 comes. Then again you say that the peace of the place was fit for 
 Shakspere's end, and that the memory of its quiet beauty will never 
 away from your mind. 
 
 Yes, Stratford will help you to understand Shakspere. 
 
 These pages aim at giving, shortly, to beginners, such parts of the 
 result of my last year's work at Shakspere — in scanty leisure — as I 
 wish some one had given me on my first start at him. Of their im- 
 maturity, beside the ripeness of Gervinus, and of their unworthiness 
 to appear before his book, I am only too painfully conscious. But as I 
 have gone among working-men and private friends, I have been askt 
 to put some of these things in print ; and for my haste in thus doing it 
 I willingly risk the blame of those who know far more than I do, being 
 
 ' If you can, get on to ruind Kenilworth, where Shakspere may have seen 
 Leicester's pageants before Elizabeth, in 1575 (see my edition of Captain Cox, 
 Ballad Society), to use in Midsummer Night's Bream, Heaven forbid that he 
 ehould have turnd the great mason Captain into Bottom ! 
 
 ^ The young Stratford folk call their Sund.iy-ovening stroll through this 
 wooded bank. ' Going to Chapel.' That their devotions iutercsted the attendants. 
 I can say.
 
 liv INTRODUCTION. 
 
 assurd that what I have written will be of use to others who know 
 somewhat less than myself. Work at Shakspere, serious intelligent 
 work, is what I want, from thousands of men and women who have 
 hitherto neglected him. If they will give me that, they may abuse as 
 they like, the mistakes they may find in these hints. 
 
 My thanks are due to my friends Professors Hertzberg, Wagner, 
 Seeley, and Dowden, ]\Ir. Spedding, Mr. Hales, Dr. Abbott, Mr. Halli- 
 well, Dr. Ingleby, Mr. Aldis Wright, Mr. Wheatley, Mr. Malleson, 
 &c. for their hints on this Introduction. 
 
 F. J. FUKNIVALL. 
 
 3 St. George's Squaee, N.W. 
 Sejpt. 16, 1874, and 
 April 8, 1877. 
 
 P.S. — Prof Ingram, of Trin. Coll., Dublin, has just (Nov. 8) sent 
 me his Paper on the weak- and light- endings in Shakspere. The 16 
 weak-endings are ' and, but (=L. sed, and-=exce2Jt), by, for, from, if 
 on, nor, or, than, that, to, with.' The 54 light-endings are ' am, are 
 art, be, been, but (=only), can, could, did^, do'^, does^, dost 2, ere, had'^ 
 has^, hast^, have 2, he, how 3, I, into, is, like, may, might, shall, shalt 
 she, should, since, so'*, such'*, they, thou, though, through, till, upon, was 
 we, were, what^, when'', where ^, which, while, whilst, who^, whom^ 
 why^, will, would, yet ( = tamen), you.' Here is an extract from hia 
 
 ' Except in the combination as if. 
 
 ^ Only when us'd as auxiliaries. 
 
 ^ When not directly interrogative. 
 
 * When followd immediately by as. Such also, when followd by a substan- 
 tive with an indefinite article, as ' Such a man.' 
 
 5 AVhen not directly interrogative. Prof. Ingram's Paper ■will appear in The 
 New Shakspere Society's Transactions, Part 2. He says : — 
 
 ' The weak-endings do not come in by slow degrees, but the poet seems to have 
 thrown himself at once into this new structure of verse; 28 examples occurring in 
 Antony and Cleopatra, whilst there are not more than two in any earlier play. . . . 
 
 ' As long as the light-endings remain very few, no conclusion with respect to 
 the order of the plays can be based on them. 
 
 ' But the very marked increase of their number in Macbeth, showing a strong 
 development of the same tendency which, further on, produced the large number 
 of weak-endings, seems to show that it was the latest of the plays preceding the 
 weak-ending period. . . . 
 
 ' An examination of the weak-endings in Henry VIII. strikingly confirms the 
 conclusions of Mr. Spedding respecting the two different systems of verse which 
 co-exist in that play. In the Shaksperian portion, as marked olf by him, there 
 are 45 light-endings against 6 in Fletcher's part, and 37 weak-endings against 1 
 in Fletcher's part. And these weak-endings occur in every Shaksperian scene. 
 The one weak-ending in Fletcher's portion occurs in a scene (iv. 1) which has not 
 been uniformly assigned to Fletcher, and which, it is curious to obserA-e, of all the 
 Shaksperian scenes in the play approaches, in the matter of the feminine ending, 
 nearest to Fletcher. . . . The date, also, which has been assigned by Mr. Spedding
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 Iv 
 
 table of tliGBe endings in the late plays, whose order alone they help 
 to settle : — 
 
 
 No. of 
 
 No. of 
 
 No. of 
 
 Percentage 
 
 Percentage 
 
 Percentage 
 
 
 light 
 
 weak 
 
 Verse lines 
 
 of light 
 
 of weak 
 
 of both 
 
 Macbeth 
 
 endings 
 
 endings 
 
 in play 
 
 endings 
 
 endings 
 
 together 
 
 21 
 
 2 
 
 
 
 
 
 Timon 
 
 15 
 
 V 
 
 1112 
 
 1-35 
 
 ? 
 
 9 
 
 Antony and Cleopatra . 
 
 71 
 
 28 
 
 2803 
 
 2-53 
 
 1-00 
 
 3-53 
 
 Coriolanus . , . . . 
 
 60 
 
 44 
 
 2563 
 
 2-34 
 
 1-71 
 
 4-05 
 
 Pericles (Shakspere part) 
 
 20 
 
 10 
 
 719 
 
 2-78 
 
 1 39 
 
 4-17 
 
 Tempest 
 
 42 
 
 25 
 
 1460 
 
 2-88 
 
 1-71 
 
 4-59 
 
 Cymbeline 
 
 78 
 
 52 
 
 2692 
 
 2-90 
 
 1-93 
 
 4-83 
 
 Winter's Tale . . . . 
 
 57 
 
 45 
 
 1825 
 
 3-12 
 
 2-47 
 
 5-59 
 
 Two Noble Kinsmen 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 (non-Fletcher part) . 
 
 50 
 
 34 
 
 1378 
 
 3-63 
 
 2-47 
 
 6-10 
 
 Henry VIII. (Sh's. part) 
 
 45 
 
 37 
 
 1146 
 
 3-93 
 
 3'23 
 
 7-16 
 
 to Shakspere's portion of Henry VIII. is confirmed by the Table, in opposition to 
 the views of Elze and others. It appears to be without doubt his latest work ; a 
 conclusion which quite falls in with what is known from an external source as to 
 the production in 1613 of a play which there is every reason to believe was the 
 same. 
 
 'With respect to The Two Noble Kinsmen, the -weak-ending test confirms what 
 has been otherwise shown by Mr. Hickson and others, namely, that here again 
 there are two different systems of verse. In Fletcher's part there are 3 light end- 
 ings to 50 in the other portion, and 1 weak-ending to 34. The weak-endings are 
 found in every non-Fletcherian scene but two. One is i. 4, in which there are, 
 exclusive of a song, but six lines in all. The other is iii. 3, which, curiously 
 enough, as Mr. Furnivall remarks, the stopt-line test would give to Fletcher. The 
 scene is one about which, notwithstanding what has been said by Mr. Hickson, 
 there is not much to mark the authorship. 
 
 ' The answer to the question — Who was the author of the non-Fletcherian 
 portion of this play ? — does not force itself on my mind with the same clear 
 evidence as the conviction that the non-Shaksperiau part of Henry VIII is' by 
 Fletcher. The choice of the story, in which the passion is, after all, of an artificial 
 kind, the toleration of the "trash" which abounds in the underplot, the faintness 
 (as I must persist in calling it) of the characterization, and, in general, the absence, 
 except in occasional flashes, of the splendid genius which shows itself all through 
 the last period of Shakspere, I have always found very perplexing. In reading 
 the (so-called) Shaksperian part of the play, I do not often feel myself in contact 
 with a mind of the first order. Still, it is certain that there is much in it that is 
 like Shakspere, and some things that are worthy of him at his best ; that the 
 manner, in general, is more that of Shakspere than of any other contemporary 
 dramatist; and that the system of verse is one which we do not find in any other, 
 whilst it is, in all essentials, that of Shakspere's last period. 1 cannot name any 
 one else who could have written this portion of the play. The weak-ending affoi'ds 
 a ready test of the correctness of Knight's notion that Chapman was the writer. 
 I have examined the play of Bussy cVAmbois, and do not find in it a single instance 
 of the weak-ending, and, turning rapidly over Chapman's whole works, I see no 
 evidence that he was ever at all given to it. If Shakspere be— as we seem forced 
 to believe— the author of the part of The Two Noble Kinsmen now usually at- 
 tributed to him, this will tako its place in the series of his works between tlio 
 Winter's Tale and Henry VIII.'
 
 |T
 
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