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      The Life and Death of King John.

      Edition. Only in the folio, 1623.

      Date. Anterior to 1598, as it is in Meres's list.

      Origin. It was founded on a play called "The First and Second Part of the Troublesome Reign of King John of England," published in 1591.

      The Life and Death of King Richard II.

      Editions. 4to, 1597; 4to, 1598; 4to, 1608; 4to, 1615; in the folio, 1623.

      Date. The exact date cannot be ascertained; but from the style I should be inclined to regard it as one of Shakespeare's earliest plays.

      Origin. Hollinshed's Chronicle, and an older play on the same subject.

       The First Part of King Henry IV.

      Editions. 4to, 1598; 4to, 1599; 4to, 1604; 4to, 1608; 4to, 1613; in the folio, 1623.

      Date. All we can say is, that it was anterior to 1598, and was most probably written in 1597.

      Origin. Hollinshed's Chronicle, and an anonymous play called "The Famous Victories of Henry V." The comic scenes are entirely Shakespeare's own, both in this and the two succeeding plays.

      The Second Part of King Henry IV.

      Editions. 4to, 1600; in the folio, 1623.

      Date. Apparently in one of the years between 1597 and 1600. As has been already observed, it could hardly have been in existence when Meres wrote, or he would not have placed Titus Andronicus in his list. It is an objection that before 1597 Shakespeare had changed the name Oldcastle to Falstaff in the First Part, while in the 4to edition of this play a speech (I. 2) has the prefix Old. instead of Fal. But surely that may have been a slip of the copyist's memory, in consequence of Oldcastle having been the original title.

      Origin. The same as of the First Part.

      The Life of King Henry V.

      Editions. 4to, 1600; 4to, 1602; 4to, 1608; in the folio, 1623.

      Date. As in the chorus to Act V. there is an evident allusion to the expedition of the Earl of Essex to Ireland, whither he went in April 1599, and whence he returned in the following September, it would seem to be clear that the play was acted in the interval between those two months. The insertion of this passage seems to be inexplicable on any other hypothesis. This also proves that the choruses formed a part of the original play, though they are not to be found in the 4to editions, which, it is well known, are scandalously imperfect.

      Origin. The same as that of the two preceding plays.

       The Life and Death of King Richard III.

      Editions. 4to, 1597; 4to, 1598; 4to, 1602; 4to, 1605; in the folio, 1623.

      Date. Anterior, of course, to 1597. I incline to regard it as posterior to King John and to Richard II.; for it has no stanzas and no riming passages. It is also very free from quibbles and plays upon words, except in the unfortunate soliloquy of Richard in the last act—a wonderful instance of want of taste, and even of judgment. The same may be said of the scenes between Richard and Lady Anne and the Queen.

      Origin. Hollinshed, and probably More.

      The Life of King Henry VIII.

      Edition. Only in the folio, 1623.

      Date. The following memorandum is in the Stationers' Registers:—"12 Feb. 1604[-5]. Nath. Butter. Yf he get good allowance for the Interlude of K. Henry the 8th, before he begin to print it, &c." This has been supposed to be the present play; but the style militates against this supposition. I offer the following proof, which has never, that I am aware of, been observed. In his early plays Shakespeare very rarely puts the preposition or conjunction at the end of one line and the noun or verb at the beginning of the next; in his succeeding ones he does so more frequently, and in his latest he is rather profuse of the practice. Now this construction is as frequent in Henry VIII. as in Coriolanus, Cymbeline, The Winter's Tale, and his other later ones, whence it might seem that it should be referred to the same epoch. We are told, indeed, that in 1613 the Globe Theatre was set on fire and burned down by the discharge of chambers in a new play called "Henry VIII.;" but it is hardly possible that it could be this play, as Shakespeare had retired before that year.

      Origin. Hollinshed's Chronicle.

TRAGEDIES.

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      Romeo and Juliet.

      Editions. 4to, 1597; 4to, 1599; 4to, 1609; in the folio, 1623. There is also an undated 4to issued by Smethwick, the publisher of that of 1609, in which many typographical errors are corrected.

      Date. In Act I. Sc. 2, the Nurse says, "'Tis since the earthquake now eleven years;" and, as Tyrwhitt justly observed, this could only have been the earthquake which was felt in England on the 6th of April 1580. It was quite in Shakespeare's way to make the allusion; and this would give 1591 as the year in which this play was first performed. This, then, may be the true date, though I greatly doubt of it; I should rather say, entirely reject it; for it surely can hardly be anterior to the first two comedies. The play, as appears from the 4to, 1597, was little more than a sketch of that which appeared, "corrected, augmented, and amended," in 1599.

      Origin. The remote original is the tale of Pyramus and Thisbe in Ovid's Metamorphoses, from which an Italian writer named Luigi da Porto made a tale, printed in 1535. A tale formed from this was given by Bandello in 1554; and in 1562 a poem of Romeus and Juliet, by Arthur Brookes, taken from Bandello's, or rather from the version of it in Belleforest's Histoires Tragiques, was published in London; in 1567 the same tale, also from Bandello, appeared in Painter's Palace of Pleasure. Shakespeare chiefly followed Brooke; but he had also read the Palace of Pleasure, and probably Bandello's tale in the original.

      Hamlet.

      Editions. 4to, 1603; 4to, 1604; 4to, 1611; 4to undated (probably in 1607); in the folio, 1623.

      Date. On the 26th of July 1602, an entry was made in the Stationers' Registers of "A Booke, The Revenge of Hamlett, prince of Denmarke, as yt was latelie acted, by the Lord Chambelayn his servantes." There can be little doubt that this was the present play. The text of the 4to, 1603, is in such a mangled, wretched condition, that it has not unreasonably been conjectured that it was formed from notes made during the representation. As in this the Polonius and Reynaldo of the present play are called Corambis and Montano, it is probable that the play received much addition and alteration; for the 4to, 1604, gives it "enlarged to almost as much again as it was, according to the true and perfect coppie." This play being so popular, it is not unlikely that the author may have frequently retouched it. It is very remarkable that it is by many degrees the most faulty of his plays, abounding, we may say, in incongruities, contradictions, and improbabilities.

      Origin. Apparently a novel called The Hystorie of Hamblet, translated from Belleforest. There seems also to have been an older play on the subject.

      Othello.

      Editions. 4to, 1622; in the folio, 1623. There is also a 4to, 1630; but it is of little value, as it was evidently made not from a MS., but from the two preceding editions with some

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