CHARACTERS OF SHAKESPEARE'S PLAYS

By WILLIAM HAZLITT

With an Introduction by SIR ARTHUR QUILLER-COUCH




INTRODUCTION


The book here included among The World's Classics made its first
appearance as an octavo volume of xxiv + 352 pages, with the title-
page:

Characters of Shakespeare's Plays, By William Hazlitt. London:
Printed by C. H. Reynell, 21 Piccadilly, 1817.

William Hazlitt (1778-1830) came of an Irish Protestant stock, and
of a branch of it transplanted in the reign of George I from the
county of Antrim to Tipperary. His father migrated, at nineteen, to
the University of Glasgow (where he was contemporary with Adam
Smith), graduated in 1761 or thereabouts, embraced the principles of
the Unitarians, joined their ministry, and crossed over to England;
being successively pastor at Wisbech in Cambridgeshire, at
Marshfield in Gloucestershire, and at Maidstone. At Wisbech he
married Grace Loftus, the daughter of a neighbouring farmer. Of the
many children granted to them but three survived infancy. William,
the youngest of these, was born in Mitre Lane, Maidstone, on April