And lastly, the historic dramas, in order to be able to show my reasons
for rejecting some whole plays, and very many scenes in others.




CLASSIFICATION ATTEMPTED, 1819.

I think Shakspeare's earliest dramatic attempt--perhaps even prior in
conception to the Venus and Adonis, and planned before he left
Stratford--was Love's Labour's Lost. Shortly afterwards I suppose
Pericles and certain scenes in Jeronymo to have been produced; and in
the same epoch, I place the Winter's Tale and Cymbeline, differing from
the Pericles by the entire 'rifacimento' of it, when Shakspeare's
celebrity as poet, and his interest, no less than his influence as
manager, enabled him to bring forward the laid-by labours of his youth.
The example of Titus Andronicus, which, as well as Jeronymo, was most
popular in Shakspeare's first epoch, had led the young dramatist to the
lawless mixture of dates and manners. In this same epoch I should place
the Comedy of Errors, remarkable as being the only specimen of poetical
farce in our language, that is, intentionally such; so that all the
distinct kinds of drama, which might be educed 'a priori', have their
representatives in Shakspeare's works. I say intentionally such; for
many of Beaumont and Fletcher's plays, and the greater part of Ben
Jonson's comedies are farce-plots. I add All's Well that Ends Well,
originally intended as the counterpart of Love's Labour's Lost, Taming
of the Shrew, Midsummer Night's Dream, Much Ado About Nothing, and Romeo
and Juliet.