at best of isolated 'points,' has been now discovered and reduced to a
coherent law. It is no longer possible to suppose that _The Tempest_ was
written before _Romeo and 'Juliet_; that _Henry VI._ was produced in
succession to _Henry V._; or that _Antony and Cleopatra_ followed close
upon the heels of _Julius Caesar_. Such theories were sent to limbo for
ever, when a study of those plays of whose date we have external
evidence revealed the fact that, as Shakespeare's life advanced, a
corresponding development took place in the metrical structure of his
verse. The establishment of metrical tests, by which the approximate
position and date of any play can be readily ascertained, at once
followed; chaos gave way to order; and, for the first time, critics
became able to judge, not only of the individual works, but of the whole
succession of the works of Shakespeare.

Upon this firm foundation modern writers have been only too eager to
build. It was apparent that the Plays, arranged in chronological order,
showed something more than a mere development in the technique of
verse--a development, that is to say, in the general treatment of
characters and subjects, and in the sort of feelings which those
characters and subjects were intended to arouse; and from this it was
easy to draw conclusions as to the development of the mind of
Shakespeare itself. Such conclusions have, in fact, been constantly
drawn. But it must be noted that they all rest upon the tacit
assumption, that the character of any given drama is, in fact, a true
index to the state of mind of the dramatist composing it. The validity
of this assumption has never been proved; it has never been shown, for
instance, why we should suppose a writer of farces to be habitually
merry; or whether we are really justified in concluding, from the fact
that Shakespeare wrote nothing but tragedies for six years, that, during
that period, more than at any other, he was deeply absorbed in the awful