Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher. Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Comedy of Errors. Romeo and Juliet.

      In the second class I reckon—

	Midsummer Night's Dream.
	As You Like It.
	Tempest.
	Twelfth Night.

      In the third, as indicating a greater energy—not merely of poetry, but of all the world of thought, yet still with some of the growing pains, and the awkwardness of growth—I place—

	Troilus and Cressida.
	Cymbeline.
	Merchant of Venice.
	Much Ado about Nothing.
	Taming of the Shrew.

      In the fourth, I place the plays containing the greatest characters—

	Macbeth.
	Lear.
	Hamlet.
	Othello.

      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.

      [pg 080]

      CLASSIFICATION ATTEMPTED, 1819.

      I think Shakespeare'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 Shakespeare'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 Shakespeare'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 Shakespeare'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.

      SECOND EPOCH.

	Richard II.
	King John.
	Henry VI.—rifacimento only.
	Richard III.

      [pg 081]

      THIRD EPOCH.

	Henry IV.
	Henry V.
	Merry Wives of Windsor.
	Henry VIII.—a sort of historical masque, or show play.

      FOURTH EPOCH

      gives all the graces and facilities of a genius in full possession and habitual exercise of power, and peculiarly of the feminine, the lady's character.

	Tempest.
	As You Like It
	Merchant of Venice.
	Twelfth Night.

      And, finally, at its very point of culmination—

	Lear.
	Hamlet.
	Macbeth.
	Othello.

      LAST EPOCH.

      when the energies of intellect in the cycle of genius were, though in a rich and more potentiated form, becoming predominant over passion and creative self-manifestation—

	Measure for Measure,
	Timon of Athens.
	Coriolanus.
	Julius Cæsar.
	Antony and Cleopatra.
	Troilus and Cressida.

      Merciful, wonder-making Heaven! what a man was this Shakespeare! Myriad-minded, indeed, he was.

      [pg 083]