of Shakspere." The book speaks of the oneand-thirty years' space of Elizabeth's reign, and thus puts the date of the writing a year earlier than the printing. But we here look in vain for some other illustrious names besides that of Shakspere. Malone has not told us that the name of Edmund Spenser is not found in Puttenham; nor, what is still more uncandid, that not one of Shakspere's early dramatic contemporaries is mentioned -neither Marlowe, nor Greene, nor Peele, nor Kyd, nor Lyly. The author evidently derives his knowledge of "poets and poesy from a much earlier period than that in which he publishes. He does not mention Spenser by name, but he does "that other gentleman who wrote the late 'Shepherd's Calendar.' The 'Shepherd's Calendar' of Spenser was published in the year 1579. Malone goes on to argue that the omission of Shakspere's name, or any notice of his works, in Sir John Harrington's 'Apology of Poetry,' printed in 1591, in which "he takes occasion to speak of the theatre, and mentions some of the celebrated dramas of that time," is a proof that none of Shakspere's dramatic compositions had then appeared. The "celebrated dramas" which Harrington mentions are Latin plays, and an old London comedy called 'Play of the Cards.' Does he mention 'Tamburlaine,' or 'Faustus,' or 'The Massacre of Paris,' or 'The Jew of Malta?' As he does not, it may be assumed with equal justice that none of Marlowe's compositions had appeared in 1591; and yet we know that he died in 1593. So of Lyly's 'Galathea,'' Alexander and Campaspe,' 'Endymion,' &c. So of Greene's 'Orlando Furioso,''Friar Bacon,' 'James IV.' So of the 'Jeronimo' of Kyd. The truth is, that Harrington in his notice of celebrated dramas was even more antiquated than Puttenham; and his evidence, therefore, in this matter is utterly worthless. But Malone has given his crowning proof that Shakspere had not written before 1591, in the following words :—“ Sir Philip Sidney, in his 'Defence of Poesie,' speaks at some length of the low state of dramatic literature at the time he composed this treatise, but has not the slightest allusion to Shakspere, whose plays, had they then appeared, would doubtless have rescued the English stage from the contempt which is thrown upon it by the accomplished writer, and to which it was justly exposed by the wretched compositions of those who preceded our poet. 'The Defence of Poesie' was not published till 1595, but must have been written some years before." There is one slight objection to this argument: Sir Philip Sidney was killed at the battle of Zutphen, in the year 1586; and it is tolerably well ascertained that 'The Defence of Poesie' was written in the year 1581. If the indirect evidence that Shakspere had not acquired any reputation in 1591 thus breaks down, we may venture to inquire whether the same authority has not been equally unsuccessful in rejecting the belief, which was implicitly adopted by Dryden and Rowe, that the reputation of Shakspere as a comic poet was distinctly recognised by Spenser in his 'Thalia,' in 1591 *. What, then, is the theory which we build upon the various circumstances we have brought together, and which we oppose to the prevailing theory in England as to the dates of Shakspere's works? We ask that the author of twenty plays, existing in 1600, which completely changed the face of the dramatic literature of England, should be supposed to have begun to write a little earlier than the age of twenty-seven; that we should assign some few of those plays to a period antecedent to 1590. We have reason to believe that, up to the close of the sixteenth century, Shakspere was busied as an actor as well as an author. It is something too much to expect, then, even from the fertility of his genius, occupied as he was, that he should have produced twenty plays in nine years; and it is still more unreasonable to believe that the consciousness of power which he must have possessed should not have prompted him to enter the lists with other dramatists (whose highest productions may, without exaggeration, be stated as every way inferior to his lowest), *This poem of Thalia' is noticed in The Life and Writings of Shakspere,' in Knight's Cabinet' and One Volume editions of Shakspere. until he had gone through a probation of six or seven years' acquaintance with the stage as an humble actor. We cannot reconcile it to probability that he who ceased to be an actor when he was forty should have been contented to have been only an actor till he was twenty-seven. We cling to the belief that Shakspere, by commencing his career as a dramatic writer some four or five years earlier than is generally maintained, may claim, in common with his less illustrious early contemporaries, the praise of being one of the great founders of our dramatic literature, instead of being the mere follower and improver of Marlowe, and Greene, and Peele, and Kyd. Macbeth. Timon of Athens (probably revision of an earlier play). FOURTH PERIOD, 1608 to 1616. From his 44th year to his death. Cymbeline (probably revision of an earlier play). A Winter's Tale. Pericles (probably revision of an earlier play). The Tempest. Troilus and Cressida. Henry VIII. Antony and Cleopatra. There is another view in which the chro Our belief, then, as to the periods of the original production of Shakspere's Plays, shapes itself into something like the follow-nological order of Shakspere's plays may be ing arrangement : regarded: and we think that it presents a key to the workings of his genius, in con FIRST PERIOD, 1585 to 1593. From his 21st nexion with that desire which men of the year to his 29th. • highest genius only entertain, when a constant succession of new productions is demanded of them by the popular appetitenamely, to generalize their works by certain principles of art, producing novel combinations; which principles impart to groups of them belonging to the same period a corresponding identity. In Shakspere this is to be regarded more especially with reference to the nature of the dramatic action. We put down these groups, rather as materials for thought in the reader, than as a decided expression of our own conviction; because all such circumstances and relations must be modified by other facts of which we have an incomplete knowledge. 1. The testimony which assigns the play Part I.;' nor to the first three editions of to Shakspere, wholly or in part. 'Romeo and Juliet ;' nor to 'Henry V.' These 2. The testimony which fixes the period of similar facts, therefore, leave the testimony its original production. The direct testimony of the first kind is unimpeachable: Francis Meres, a contemporary of Shakspere-a man intimately acquainted with the literary history of his day -not writing even in the later period of Shakspere's life, but as early as 1598-compares, for tragedy, the excellence of Shakspere among the English, with Seneca among the Latins, and says, witness, "for tragedy, 'his Richard II.,' 'Richard III.,' 'Henry IV.,' | 'King John,' 'Titus Andronicus,' and his 'Romeo and Juliet.'" The indirect testimony is nearly as important. The play is printed in the first folio edition of the poet's collected worksan edition published within seven years after his death by his intimate friends and "fellows;" and that edition contains an entire scene not found in either of the previous quarto editions which have come down to us. That edition does not contain a single other play upon which a doubt of the authorship has been raised; for even those who deny the entire authorship of 'Henry VI.' to Shakspere have no doubt as to the partial authorship. of Hemings and Condell unimpeached. We now come to the second point-the testimony which fixes the date of the original production of 'Titus Andronicus.' There are two modes of viewing this portion of the evidence; and we first present it with the interpretation which deduces from it that the tragedy was not written by Shakspere. Ben Jonson, in the Induction to his 'Bartholomew Fair,' first acted in 1614, says“He that will swear 'Jeronimo,' or 'Andronicus,' are the best plays yet, shall pass unexcepted at here, as a man whose judgment shows it is constant, and hath stood still these five-and-twenty or thirty years. Though it be an ignorance, it is a virtuous and staid ignorance; and, next to truth, a confirmed error does well." Percy offers the following comment upon this passage, in his 'Reliques of Ancient Poetry:'—" There is reason to conclude that this play was rather improved by Shakespeare with a few fine touches of his pen, than originally written by him: for, not to mention that the style is less figurative than his others generally are, this tragedy is mentioned with discredit in the Induction to Ben Jonson's 'Bartholomew Against this testimony of the editors of Fair,' in 1614, as one that had been then exthe first folio, that Shakspere was the author hibited 'five-and-twenty or thirty years;' of 'Titus Andronicus,' there is only one fact which, if we take the lowest number, throws to be opposed-that his name is not on the it back to the year 1589, at which time title-page of either of the quarto editions, Shakespeare was but 25: an earlier date than although those editions show us that it was can be found for any other of his pieces." acted by the company to which Shakspere | With the views we entertain as to the com mencement of Shakspere's career as a dra- | sider that it possesses an importance much matic author, the proof against his authorship of Titus Andronicus,' thus brought forward by Percy, is to us amongst the most convincing reasons for not hastily adopting the opinion that he was not its author. The external evidence of the authorship, and the external evidence of the date of the authorship, entirely coincide: each supports the other. The continuation of the argument derived from the early date of the play naturally runs into the internal evidence of its authenticity. The fact of its early date is indisputable; and here, for the present, we leave it. higher than belongs to the proof, or disproof, from the internal evidence, that this painful tragedy was written by Shakspere. The question is not an isolated one. It requires to be treated with a constant reference to the state of the early English drama,—the probable tendencies of the poet's own mind at the period of his first dramatic productions,-the circumstances amidst which he was placed with reference to his audiences,— the struggle which he must have undergone to reconcile the contending principles of the practical and the ideal, the popular and the true, the tentative process by which he We can scarcely subscribe to Mr. Hallam's must have advanced to his immeasurable strong opinion, given with reference to this superiority over every contemporary. It is question of the authorship of 'Titus An- easy to place 'Titus Andronicus' by the side dronicus,' that, "in criticism of all kinds, we of ‘Hamlet,' and to say,—the one is a low must acquire a dogged habit of resisting work of art, the other a work of the highest testimony, when res ipsa per se vociferatur to art. It is easy to say that the versification the contrary."* The res ipsa may be looked of 'Titus Andronicus' is not the versification upon through very different media by dif- of 'A Midsummer Night's Dream.' It is ferent minds: testimony, when it is clear, and easy to say that Titus raves and denounces free from the suspicion of an interested bias, without moving terror or pity; but that Lear although it appear to militate against con- tears up the whole heart, and lays bare all clusions that, however strong, are not in- the hidden springs of thought and passion fallible, because they depend upon very nice that elevate madness into sublimity. But analysis and comparison, must be received, this, we venture to think, is not just criticism. more or less, and cannot be doggedly resisted. We may be tempted, perhaps, to refine too Mr. Hallam says, ""Titus Andronicus' is now, much in rejecting all such sweeping comby common consent, denied to be, in any parisons; but what we have first to trace is sense, a production of Shakspeare." Who relation, and not likeness:-if we find likeare the interpreters of the common con- ness in a single “trick or line,” we may insent?" Theobald, Johnson, Farmer, Stee-deed add it to the evidence of relation. But vens, Malone, M. Mason. These critics are wholly of one school; and we admit that they represent the common consent" of their own school of English literature upon this point-till within a few years the only school. But there is another school of criticism, which maintains that 'Titus Andronicus' is in every sense a production of Shakspere. The German critics, from W. Schlegel to Ulrici, agree to reject the "common consent" of the English critics. The subject, therefore, cannot be hastily dismissed; the external testimony cannot be doggedly resisted. But, in entering upon the examination of this question with the best care we can bestow, we con*Literature of Europe,' vol. ii. p. 385. 66 relation may be established even out of dissimilarity. No one who has deeply contemplated the progress of the great intellects of the world, and has traced the doubts, and fears, and throes, and desperate plunges of genius, can hesitate to believe that excellence in art is to be attained by the same process through which we may hope to reach excellence in morals-by contest, and purification, until habitual confidence and repose succeed to convulsive exertions and distracting aims. He that would rank amongst the heroes must have fought the good fight. Energy of all kinds has to work out its own subjection to principles, without which it can never become power. In the course of this struggle |