one. Within each period the so-called Comedies, Histories, and Tragedies
are respectively grouped together; and for this reason, as well as for
others, the order within each period does not profess to be
chronological (_e.g._ it is not implied that the _Comedy of Errors_
preceded _1 Henry VI._ or _Titus Andronicus_). Where Shakespeare's
authorship of any considerable part of a play is questioned, widely or
by specially good authority, the name of the play is printed in italics.

_First Period_ (to 1595?).--Comedy of Errors, Love's Labour's Lost, Two
Gentlemen of Verona, Midsummer-Night's Dream; _1 Henry VI._, _2 Henry
VI._, _3 Henry VI._, Richard III., Richard II.; _Titus Andronicus_,
Romeo and Juliet.

_Second Period_ (to 1602?).--Merchant of Venice, All's Well (better in
Third Period?), _Taming of the Shrew_, Much Ado, As You Like it, Merry
Wives, Twelfth Night; King John, 1 Henry IV., 2 Henry IV., Henry V.;
Julius Caesar, Hamlet.

_Third Period_ (to 1608?).--Troilus and Cressida, Measure for Measure;
Othello, King Lear, _Timon of Athens_, Macbeth, Antony and Cleopatra,
Coriolanus.

_Fourth Period._--_Pericles_, Cymbeline, Winter's Tale, Tempest, _Two
Noble Kinsmen_, _Henry VIII._]

[Footnote 26: The reader will observe that this 'tragic period' would
not exactly coincide with the 'Third Period' of the division given in
the last note. For _Julius Caesar_ and _Hamlet_ fall in the Second
Period, not the Third; and I may add that, as _Pericles_ was entered at
Stationers' Hall in 1608 and published in 1609, it ought strictly to be