turns coward or traitor at the appearance of a ghost, at the gibber of
witches, at the whisper of conscience, at the taunts of his wife. In
_King Lear_ a monarch of high disposition drags himself and others
down to destruction, not at the stern command of fate, but at the mere
suggestion of foolishness. In _Othello_ love, faith, duty, the
fidelity of a brave man, the loyalty of a pure woman,--all are blasted,
wrecked, dishonored by a mere breath of suspicion blown by a villain.

[Sidenote: LAST DRAMAS]

In his final period, of leisurely experiment (_cir._ 1610-1616),
Shakespeare seems to have recovered in Stratford the cheerfulness that he
had lost in London. He did little work during this period, but that little
is of rare charm and sweetness. He no longer portrayed human life as a
comedy of errors or a tragedy of weakness but as a glowing romance, as if
the mellow autumn of his own life had tinged all the world with its own
golden hues. With the exception of _As You Like It_ (written in the
second period), in which brotherhood is pictured as the end of life, and
love as its unfailing guide, it is doubtful if any of the earlier plays
leaves such a wholesome impression as _The Winter's Tale_ or _The
Tempest_, which were probably the last of the poet's works.

Following is a list of Shakespeare's thirty-four plays (or thirty-seven,
counting the different parts of _Henry IV_ and _Henry VI_)
arranged according to the periods in which they were probably written. The
dates are approximate, not exact, and the chronological order is open to
question:

FIRST PERIOD, EARLY EXPERIMENT (1590-1595). _Titus Andronicus_,
_Henry VI_, _Love's Labor's Lost_, _Comedy of Errors_,