Southampton was an enthusiastic lover of the drama; spent much time at the theatre, and no doubt frequently mingled with Shakespeare's friends there. He might meet sometimes with Spenser and Bacon, with Raleigh and Pembroke, with Ben Jonson, Selden, Carew, and Massinger. With some of these and Shakespeare he may have adjourned to that famous club at the Mermaid, in Cornhill, where Fuller says there were many wit-combats between Shakespeare and Jonson; and of which Beaumont writes,

"What things have we seen

Done at the Mermaid! heard words that have been
So nimble, and so full of subtle flame,
As if that every one from whom they came
Had meant to put his whole soul in a jest.
We left an air behind us, which alone
Was able to make the two next companies
Right witty, tho' but downright fools."

Shake

Nor did that "merrie companie" confine itself to the Mermaid. speare has himself immortalized the Boar's Head in Eastcheap, and the Garter at Windsor; and Herrick asks affectionately of Jonson,

"Ah, Ben!
Say how or when
Shall we thy guests
Meet at those lyric feasts
Made at the Sun,

The Dog, the Triple Tun!
Where we such clusters had

As made us nobly wild, not mad;

And yet each verse of thine

Outdid the meat, outdid the frolic wine!"

He had also his annual, if not more frequent, visits to Stratford, round which all his early associations centred, and where his family lived. His father did not die till 1601, and his mother survived for seven years later, having reached the ripe age of seventy. His brother Gilbert had grown into manhood; his sister Joan was passing through her teens; Richard was at school; and Edmond, his youngest brother, was still so young as to be a playmate for his daughter Susannah. Anne Hathaway watched over his two girls and his son Hamnet till the sad year 1596, when the dark shadow crossed their threshold, and the boy was taken from them on the 11th August. Shakespeare no doubt attended the funeral with a saddened heart: but in general his visits must have been occasions of great happiness to himself and his relatives. He was rising in the world; he had gained a handsome independence; his name was becoming famous. Rumors had reached Stratford that he was beloved by great nobles, and that the Queen herself had smiled upon him. Sentiments of wonder and admiration would mingle with the affection of his old friends, in him, however, they would find no change,-no lofty airs, no paltry affectation, -the same simplicity, the same gentle earnestness. How should the yassing breath of popular applause excite any complacent vanity in one who was too great to be conscious of effort, too full of immortality to be dependent on the "ignorant present!"

Some striking historical events happened during Shakespeafe's residence in London. There were, or had been immediately before, religious wars in France and the Netherlands, conquests in the West Indies; discoveries in most quarters of the globe; Drake's voyage round the world; a firmer establishment of English dominion in Ireland; and the overthrow of the ancient form of faith, and of the youthful Queen who was at its head, in Scotland He witnessed the cruelties which attended the execution of Babington and his 13 fellow-conspirators. He heard the proclamation of the sentence of death against Mary Queen of Scots; and he must have shuddered over the details of the remorseless execution at Fotheringham on the 8th of February, 1587. He beheld the gorgeous pageant at the public funeral of Sir Philip Sydney, the brightest star of English chivalry. He mingled in all the excitement of the threatened invasion of the land by Philip of Spain. He saw the camp formed at Tilbury, and the thousands of citizens who flocked to it as volunteers in aid of the regular army; for neither then nor ever did Great Britain acquiesce in the possibility of a foreign invader taking possession of one acre of her soil. The news of the approach of the mighty armament sounded in his ears; but the God of battles fought on the side of England, and the foe was scattered to the winds Was our Shakespeare in St. Paul's when Elizabeth gave thanks on her bended knees, surrounded by Raleigh, and Hawkins, and Frobisher, and Drake, and Howard of Effingham? By and by, he perhaps followed the body of Elizabeth herself, covered with purple velvet, and borne in a chariot," to her last resting-place in Westminster Abbey. And in other lands, agitated with their own events, Tasso was during the same period weaving his epic song; Cervantes was composing his deathless story; Lope de Vega was filling the stage of Spain with his romantic dramas; and Galileo was fathoming the scheme of the universe. It is somewhat marvellous that to not one of these great contemporary incidents is there any direct allusion in the writings of Shakespeare. The explanation must be, that he so entirely threw himself into the scenes and characters he selected for his own themes, that his mind, intensifying itself upon them, shut out for the time all that was foreign to them.

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The order in which Shakespeare's plays were written, and the precise dates at which they successively appeared, have given rise to much ingenious discussion. His ability as a dramatist gradually matured itself: he did not start up, full-armed, at once. The satirical writer, Greene, in his book entitled A Groatsworth of Witte bought with a Million of Repentnce, which was published in 1592, falls foul of some of Shakespeare's carlier attempts, and says maliciously," There is an upstart crowe beautified with our feathers, that with, his tiger's heart wrapped in a player's hide'" (a parody of a line in the Third Part of "King Henry the Sixth ")"supposes he is as well able to bombaste out a blank verse as the best of you; and being an absolute Joannes factotum, is in his own conceit the only Shake-scene in a countrey." 29 We are entitled to conclude from this passage that Shakespeare had written for the stage before the year 1592, and that he had most probably altered and adapted some of the earlier dramas. Drake is of opinion that Shakespeare's first entire play was "Pericles" and that it was written in 1590. Malone, on the

other hand, influenced partly by the fact that in the first edition of Shakespeare's collected plays "Pericles" is not included, omits it altogether from his enumeration, and puts at the head of his list the First, Second, and Third Parts of "King Henry the Sixth," assigning the First to the year 1589, when Shakespeare was twenty-five, and the Second and Third to 1591. Knight, in his turn, thinks "Titus Andronicus was the first play; which he believes, in opposition to Coleridge and some other writers, to have been written by Shakespeare. De Quincey names the Two Gentlemen of Verona as the earliest, and calls it the "least characteristically marked of all his plays, and, with the exception of 'Love's Labour's Lost,' the least interesting." Gervinus comes probably pretty near the mark when he says that the seven pieces which lie at the outside of Shakespeare's career are, "Titus Andronicus,” Pericles," the Three Parts of King Henry the Sixth," the "Comedy of Errors," and the "Taming of the Shrew.'

99.66

In the original folio editions no chronological order is attempted, the plays being simply divided into three classes, under the respective names of Comedies, Histories, and Tragedies. The edition of 1623, and the two editions which followed, include "Titus Andronicus;" and of all the thirty-seven plays now attributed to Shakespeare, they omit "Pericles alone. That play, however, is now commonly ranked as his with less hesitation than the drama which contains the revolting parts of Aaron and Tamora. The horror which is accumulated upon horror in "Titus Andronicus" exceeds all bounds; yet it was not out of keeping with the immature and sensational dramatic tastes of the period immediately preceding Shakespeare. The most probable theory is, that Shakespeare was requested to work the piece up from a version already existing, and that he threw in numerous passages which even Coleridge admits could have been written by no one else. Horror is an element of the tragic; but the horror which consists in presenting to the eyes of the spectators the mutilation of limbs, the cutting of throats, and the eating of the baked flesh of murdered enemies, smells too much of the shambles. Shakespeare, it may be supposed, performed reluctantly the task assigned to him, and felt strongly what he makes one of the characters express,

"Twill vex thy soul to hear what I shall speak;
For I must talk of murders, rapes, and massacres,
Acts of black night, abominable deeds,
Complots of mischief, treason, villanies,
Ruthful to hear, yet piteously performed."

It has been clearly ascertained that in his "Henry the Sixth," which is the feeblest of all his historical dramas, Shakespeare did little more than revise and dress up two earlier pieces, which have recently been published in the Transactions of the Shakespeare Society, under the editorship of Mr. Halliwell. "Pericles," on the other hand, though an early production, is entirely Shakespearian. It is a long romance, dramatized upon a principle to which Shakespeare always adhered,-that a play admits of as much progressive action, lapse of time, and change of locality, as an epic narrative. The liberties which are taken both with time and place are so great that the ancient poet Gower (from whose Confessio

Amantium the incidents of the play are borrowed) has to be introduced at the commencement of each act, to inform the reader of a variety of events supposed to have occurred, but which are not represented in the play. This was going to the very verge of dramatic license, and was indicative of a hand still somewhat inexperienced; yet how fresh, and vigorous, and full of poetry many of the scenes are, and how well the interest is sustained throughout!

If Shakespeare did not know the full strength of his wing till he had made some lower flights, it was not long ere

"None that beheld him but, like lesser lights,

Did vail their crowns to his supremacy, ,

Between 1589 and 1613 he poured out upon the astonished world the following works:

"The Comedy of

COMEDIES.- "The Two Gentlemen of Verona ;" Errors; 99 "The Taming of the Shrew; "Love's Labour's Lost "All's Well that Ends Well "Midsummer Night's Dream; "Much Ado about Nothing;' Merry Wives of Windsor;" "Twelfth Night."

ure;

let ;" 66

Othello

"" "Lear;

Cymbeline;"

TRAGI-COMEDIES.- "Merchant of Venice; "Measure for Meas"Troilus and Cressida ; "Timon of Athens." HISTORICAL Plays.-First, Second, and Third Parts of "King Henry the Sixth; 66 King John; "Richard the Second ;' "" "Richard the Third;" First and Second Parts of King Henry the Fourth; King Henry the Fifth ;" King Henry the Eighth." ROMANTIC DRAMAS.- "Pericles; ,99 Like It ; "Winter's Tale ; " "The Tempest." TRAGEDIES.- "Titus Andronicus;" "Romeo and Juliet ; "Ham"Macbeth" and the Roman Trag edies," Coriolanus ; Julius Cæsar;" Antony and Cleopatra." The precise order in which these thirty-seven plays appeared is not, after all, of much consequence, and no two writers have exactly agreed regarding it. A collected edition of his works was not issued during his lifetime, but a good many of his plays were published separately. It has been ascertained that these came out in the following order; which, however, is no certain indication of the order in which they were written, since the title-page frequently bears that the piece had been acted for some time before it was printed:-Ist. "Titus Andronicus," 1594; 2d. Taming of the Shrew," 1594; 3d. "Richard the Third," 1594; 4th. Third Part of "King Henry the Sixth," 1595; 5th. "Romeo and Juliet," 1597; 6th." Love's Labour's Lost," 1598; 7th. "Henry the Fifth," 1599; 8th. First Part of "King Henry the Fourth," 1599; 9th, Second Part of "King Henry the Fourth," 1600; 10th. "The Merchant of Venice," 1600; IIth. "Midsummer Night's Dream," 1600; 12th. "Much Ado about Nothing," 1600; 13th. "Merry Wives of Windsor," 1602; 14th. "Hamlet," 1603; 15th. "King Lear," 1603; 16th. “ Pericles," 1609; and 17th. "Troilus and Cressida," 1609. It is not known that any of the remaining twenty plays appeared in print till seven years after his death. But such was the prestige which already attached to his name

that numerous attempts were made to impose upon the public spurious plays as his. The deception partially succeeded for a time; but almost all critics, with the single exception of Schlegel, have latterly given their verdict against the genuineness of any of these productions. The names of the most prominent were "Arden of Feversham; ""Edward the Third;" "Locrine;" "Lord Cromwell;' ""The Merry Devil of Edmonton; "Sir John Oldcastle ;" and "The Yorkshire Tragedy." Shakespeare may have had some slight hand in several of these, he may have sketched in a scene or a character; but that he was, in the proper sense, the author of any of them is no longer credited. There is better reason for believing that he took a less inconsiderable part in the composition of the Two Noble Kinsmen," though that play is commonly attributed to Fletcher, and was probably written mainly by him.

There are two ways in which the Shakespearian student may read his historical plays. He may take them either in the order in which they were written, with the view of tracing the development of the poet's style and manner; or he may peruse them in chronological sequence as illustrative of the successive periods with which they deal. In the first case they would be read in the following order: The Third Part of "King Henry the Sixth ;" The First and Second Parts; " King John ;" "King Richard the Second ;' "King Richard the Third:" The First and Second Parts of " King Henry the Fourth;" "King Henry the Fifth ;" and "King Henry the Eighth." In the order of history, on the other hand, "King John" comes first, his period being from 1199 to 1216; then "Richard the Second," 1377 to 1398; " Henry the Fourth," 1399 to 1413 Henry the Fifth," 1413 to 1422; Henry the Sixth," 1422 to 1461; "Richard the Third," 1483 to 1485; and "Henry the Eighth," 1509 to 1 1547.

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Shakespeare wrote on an average a play every six months for nearly twenty years. The variety is infinite; the multiplication of human portraiture is unparalleled. The gayest fancy, the broadest humor, the most piercing wit, alternate with the deepest pathos, the strongest passion, the truest philosophy. It was human life, not a stilted conventionality, not an academical rule, that Shakespeare cared for. He refused to be bound by the dogmas of a school; he felt that no other unity was essential if there was unity of impression,-harmony of general conception. The Attic severity of the Greek drama repelled him; he may have acknowledged the art that pervaded it, but he missed the free movement of actual existence. He saw that comedy and tragedy are blended indissolubly in man's life; that tears and laughter have one common source, and flow in the same channel. He recognized the truth that in our mundane condition the greatest moral lessons are taught in the midst of those conflicting emotions which shed upon surrounding objects alternate gloom and sunshine. The heart and the head alike confess that he was right. He has made it apparent to the whole world that Eschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides, Corneille, Racine, and Voltaire, great as they were, took a narrower and feebler view of the true scope and aim of the drama, "whose end, both at the first and now, was and is, to hold as 'twere the mirror up to nature, to show virtue her own feature, scorn her own image, and the very age and body of the time her form and purpose." Hence it was that SHAK. LIFE. IV.-3.