were comparatively few, and therefore for the greater part more or less known to each other,when we know that the plays of Shakspeare, both during and after his life, were the property of the stage, and published by the players, doubtless according to their notions of acceptability with the visitants of the theatre,—in such an age, and under such circumstances, can an allusion or reference to any drama or poem in the publication of a contemporary be received as conclusive evidence, that such drama or poem had at that time been published? Or, further, can the priority of publication itself prove any thing in favour of actually prior composition? We are tolerably certain, indeed, that the Venus and Adonis, and the Rape of Lucrece, were his two earliest poems, and though not printed until 1593, in the twenty-ninth year of his age, yet there can be little doubt that they had remained by him in manuscript many years. For Mr. Malone has made it highly probable, that he had commenced a writer for the stage in 1591, when he was twenty seven years old, and Shakspeare himself assures us that the Venus and Adonis was the first heir of his invention.* Baffled, then, in the attempt to derive any satisfaction from outward documents, we may easily • But if the first heir of my invention prove deformed, I shall be sorry it had so noble a godfather, &c. Dedication of the V. and A. to Lord Southampton. stand excused if we turn our researches towards the internal evidences furnished by the writings themselves, with no other positive data than the known facts, that the Venus and Adonis was printed in 1593, the Rape of Lucrece in 1594, and that the Romeo and Juliet had appeared in 1595,—and with no other presumptions than that the poems, his very first productions, were written many years earlier, (for who can believe that Shakspeare could have remained to his twenty-ninth or thirtieth year without attempting poetic composition of any kind?)—and that between these and Romeo and Juliet there had intervened one or two other dramas, or the chief materials, at least, of them, although they may very possibly have appeared after the success of the Romeo and Juliet and some other circumstances had given the poet an authority with the proprietors, and created a prepossession in his favour with the theatrical audiences. CLASSIFICATION ATTEMPTED, 1802. The London Prodigal. Cromwell. Henry VI., three parts, first edition. The old King John. Edward III. The old Taming of the Shrew. Pericles. All these are transition-works, Uebergangswerke ; not his, yet of him. Second Epoch. All's Well That Ends Well;-but afterwards The Two Gentlemen of Verona; a sketch. Third Epoch rises into the full, although youthful, Shakspeare; it was the negative period of his perfection. Love's Labour's Lost. Twelfth Night. As You Like It. Midsummer Night's Dream. Richard II. Henry IV. and V. Henry VIII.; Gelegenheitsgedicht. Romeo and Juliet, as at present. Merchant of Venice. Fourth Epoch. Much Ado About Nothing. Merry Wives of Windsor; first edition. Henry VI.; rifacimento. Fifth Epoch. The period of beauty was now past; and that of devórns and grandeur succeeds. Lear. Macbeth. Hamlet. Timon of Athens; an after vibration of Hamlet. Troilus and Cressida; Uebergang in die Ironie. The Roman Plays. King John, as at present. Merry Wives of Windsor. Zumgearbeitet. Taming of the Shrew. Measure for Measure. Othello. Tempest. Winter's Tale. Cymbeline. CLASSIFICATION ATTEMPTED, 1810. Shakspeare's earliest dramas I take to be, Love's Labour's Lost. All's Well That Ends Well. Romeo and Juliet. In the second class I reckon Midsummer Night's Dream. As You Like It. Tempest. Twelfth Night. In the third, as indicating a greater energy-not merely of poetry, but-of all the world of thought, yet still with some of the growing pains, and the awkwardness of growth, I place Troilus and Cressida. Cymbeline. Merchant of Venice. Much Ado About Nothing. Taming of the Shrew. In the fourth, I place the plays containing the greatest characters; Macbeth. Othello. And lastly, the historic dramas, in order to be able to show my reasons for rejecting some whole plays, and very many scenes in others. CLASSIFICATION ATTEMPTED, 1819. I think Shakspeare's earliest dramatic attempt perhaps even prior in conception to the Venus and Adonis, and planned before he left Stratford-was Love's Labour's Lost. Shortly afterwards I suppose Pericles and certain scenes in Jeronymo to have been produced; and in the same epoch, I place the Winter's Tale and Cymbeline, differing from the Pericles by the entire rifacimento of it, when Shakspeare's celebrity as poet, and his interest, |