Gentlemen of Verona_ and _Richard III_, the latter of which shows
the influence and, possibly, the collaboration of Marlowe.

[Sidenote: SECOND PERIOD]

In the second period (_cir_. 1595-1600) Shakespeare constructed his
plots with better skill, showed a greater mastery of blank verse, created
some original characters, and especially did he give free rein to his
romantic imagination. All doubt and experiment vanished in the confident
enthusiasm of this period, as if Shakespeare felt within himself the coming
of the sunrise in _Romeo and Juliet_:

Night's candles are burnt out, and jocund day
Stands tiptoe on the misty mountain tops.

Though some of his later plays are more carefully finished, in none of them
are we so completely under the sway of poetry and romance as in these early
works, written when Shakespeare first felt the thrill of mastery in his
art.

In _Midsummer Nights Dream_, for example, the practical affairs of
life seem to smother its poetic dreams; but note how the dream abides with
us after the play is over. The spell of the enchanted forest is broken when
the crowd invades its solitude; the witchery of moonlight fades into the
light of common day; and then comes Theseus with his dogs to drive not the
foxes but the fairies out of the landscape. As Chesterton points out, this
masterful man, who has seen no fairies, proceeds to arrange matters in a
practical way, with a wedding, a feast and a pantomime, as if these were
the chief things of life. So, he thinks, the drama is ended; but after he
and his noisy followers have departed to slumber, lo! enter once more Puck,