PREFACE


These lectures are based on a selection from materials used in teaching
at Liverpool, Glasgow, and Oxford; and I have for the most part
preserved the lecture form. The point of view taken in them is explained
in the Introduction. I should, of course, wish them to be read in their
order, and a knowledge of the first two is assumed in the remainder; but
readers who may prefer to enter at once on the discussion of the several
plays can do so by beginning at page 89.

Any one who writes on Shakespeare must owe much to his predecessors.
Where I was conscious of a particular obligation, I have acknowledged
it; but most of my reading of Shakespearean criticism was done many
years ago, and I can only hope that I have not often reproduced as my
own what belongs to another.

Many of the Notes will be of interest only to scholars, who may find, I
hope, something new in them.

I have quoted, as a rule, from the Globe edition, and have referred
always to its numeration of acts, scenes, and lines.

_November, 1904._

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