century handwriting. Collier still maintained that the annotations were genuine, and controversy waxed warm. Competent authorities, however, could not be deluded, and unfortunately evidence had accumulated to confirm the impression that this really learned and ingenious scholar in not a few instances had yielded to the temptation to win for himself by fraudulent documents a spurious fame. It seemed to be the very wantonness of literary dishonesty.

The "New Shakspere Society," founded by Mr. Furnivall in 1874, applied itself with excellent results to the study of the peculiarities of Shakespeare's versification with a view to determining the chronology of the plays. It reprinted some of the early texts, and issued many interesting papers in illustration of Shakespeare. Indirectly it led to the most important service rendered in recent years to the student-the publication of facsimile reproductions of the early quartos. The first Folio had previously been made generally accessible by Booth's accurate reprint and Staunton's photo-zincographed facsimile. Among other aids to scholarship of recent or comparatively recents years the chief are Concordance to the Plays, due to the loving industry of Mrs. Cowden Clarke (who with her husband, Charles Cowden Clarke, the friend of Keats, was also an editor of Shakespeare's works) and the Concordance to the Poems by the late Mrs. Furness; Schmidt's Shakespeare Lexicon, a monumental work; Hunter's Illustrations of the Life and Studies of Shakspeare (1845); W. Sidney Walker's Shakespeare's Versification (1854) and his Critical Examination of the Text of Shakespeare (1859); Professor Ward's solid and judicious History of English Dramatic Literature (1875); Mr. Fleay's Life and Work of Shakespeare (1886), in which the results of much research are united with ingenious, if not always trustworthy, conjecture; and Mr. Halliwell-Phillipps's Outlines of the Life of Shakespeare, a work which leaves little to be desired from a biographical point of view.

At the same time what has been called the "æsthetic" study of Shakespeare advanced from the point at which it had been left by Coleridge. No critic, indeed, could penetrate more subtly to Shakespeare's meanings than Coleridge did; but his work was fragmentary, a series of admirable but disconnected notes. It remained to attempt the great task of interpreting Shakespeare's work in its totality. To this German students have at least led the way. Around the name of Shakespeare a vast library of German criticism has accumulated, and of this library a considerable portion is neither laboriously dull nor extravagantly theoretical. In Elizabethan days several of Shakespeare's plays were performed in Germany by English companies travelling on the Continent, and adaptations or imitations of them were produced by German playwrights. But our great poet's name was first mentioned in a German book in 1682; and even as late as 1740 Bodmer seems to have known our "Saspar" (so he prints the name) only as the author of A Midsummer Night's Dream. An attempt to translate Julius Cæsar into rhymed Alexandrines was made in 1741 by C. W. Von Borck, a

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Prussian minister of state, and seventeen years later an equally unhappy travesty of Romeo and Juliet was published at Basle. It was Lessing who first taught his countrymen to honour Shakespeare aright; opposing himself to the tyranny of French models on the stage, he maintained that judged even by the standards of antiquity Shakespeare, whom Voltaire had styled "le Corneille de Londres, grand fou d'ailleurs," was a higher dramatic poet than the Corneille of Paris. In 1762 appeared the first volume of Wieland's translation of twenty-two plays by Shakespeare, on which the later complete translation by Eschenburg (1775-77) was based. Garrick's acting of Hamlet was described to German readers by Lichenberg, and the manager of the Hamburg theatre, Schröder—a player of great eminence-put several of Shakespeare's tragedies upon the boards. shared in that enthusiasm for our great dramatist which was extravagantly expressed by his younger contemporaries of the days of the Sturm und Drang. Goethe as a youth prepared an oration in Shakespeare's honour; in manhood he illuminated the tragedy of Hamlet by his admirable criticism introduced into Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship; in his elder years he declared that had he been born an Englishman, with Shakespeare's masterpieces in their full might before him, they would have overpowered his imagination, and he would not have known where to turn to find an opening for his creative instinct. Schiller adapted the tragedy of Macbeth, Goethe that of Romeo and Juliet, to the German stage. Two valuable gifts to lovers of Shakespeare came from the Romantic school-Schlegel's and Tieck's incomparable translation of the plays; and the criticism of Schlegel on dramatic art and literature, first offered in 1808 to a Viennese audience in the form of lectures. In later years three important commentaries on the complete works of Shakespeare have appeared in Germany —that of Ulrici, which errs in German fashion by reading into the dramas abstract ideas of the critic's own theoretical mind; that of Gervinus, which is thoughtful and sensible, but somewhat laboriously moralizing; and the lectures of Kreyssig, which seem to me to exhibit German Shakespearian criticism at its best. The "William Shakespeare" of Karl Elze is a work of solid erudition, and for the German student a mine of information. Since 1865 the German Shakespeare-Gesellschaft has published annually a volume of studies, and among these the scholarly articles by Delius deserve a special word of commendation. In Cotta's Morgenblatt of 1864, the year of the tercentenary of Shakespeare's birth, and in the early numbers of 1865 appeared a series of "Shakespeare Studies by a Realist" which attracted the attention of a wide circle of readers; the articles were brilliant in style, and it was refreshing in the midst of Teutonic enthusiasm and Teutonic earnestness to hear the voice of a critical Mephistopheles who denied the supremacy of the English dramatist. The loyal adherents of Shakespeare directed each his lance against this unknown and profane Paynim, who before long was discovered to bear the name of Rümelin. His attack rather stimulated than checked the "Shakespeare-mania;" there is yet no diminution of

the seemingly inexhaustible stream of German studies of our poet; it is still in Germany, as when Goethe wrote, "Shakespeare und Kein Ende."

In France Voltaire called public attention to the genius of Shakespeare, whom, however, he represented as an intoxicated barbarian, "without the smallest spark of good taste or the least knowledge of the rules." When in 1762 the French Academy thanked Voltaire for his adaptation of Julius Cæsar they confessed that they were unable to obtain a copy of his English original. Ducis adapted several of Shakespeare's plays-Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet, Lear, Macbeth, and Othello-to the French stage. Hamlet in Ducis' version lives at the close of the play; with the story of the lovers of Verona the adapter entangles that of Dante's Ugolino. The versions, however, did much to make Shakespeare better known. The first French translation of all Shakespeare's plays was that of Letourneur (1776–82). The tone of his author was in some places altered to suit the taste of the age; but his enthusiasm for the English dramatist was evident. The ardent eulogy of Shakespeare by Diderot is characteristic of that great writer, who was in so many ways an initiator in criticism. Madame de Stael declared that while Shakespeare is the type of the English, or rather the Northern genius, the beauties of all countries and of all times may be found in his pages. In later years Guizot contributed to French literature a sober study of Shakespeare, and Victor Hugo a rhapsody of praise. Victor Hugo's son, François-Victor Hugo, executed an admirable translation of Shakespeare, and prefixed to each of the plays and poems an interesting essay. The best fruits of recent Shakespearian scholarship in France, besides Hugo's translation and that of M. Montégut, are the critical studies of M. Mézières, and M. Paul Stapfer whose work on "Shakespeare and Classical Antiquity" has been translated into English.1

Among recent English studies Lady Martin's essays on "Some of Shakespeare's Female Characters" have an interest as the critical interpretations of one who was a distinguished interpreter of Shakespeare on the stage; they may be read with advantage in connection with the earlier criticism of Mrs. Jameson in her Characteristics of Women (1832). A series of thoughtful essays by W. W. Lloyd was contributed to the 1856 edition of Singer's Shakespeare, and has since been separately published. Hudson's "Shakespeare; his Life, Art and Characters," a thoughtful and sympathetic piece of work, has achieved a deserved popularity on both sides of the Atlantic. Mr. Swinburne's "A Study of Shakespeare" (1880), written with ardour and insight, characterizes the three periods of the poet's development, the lyric and fantastic period, the comic and historic, and the tragic and romantic. Mr. Richard Moulton, aiming at a popular illustration of the principles of so-called "scientific criticism," has published some excellent essays on "Shakespeare as a Dramatic Artist" (1885).

1 On Shakespeare in France see Lacroix's "Histoire de l'Influence de Shakespeare sur le Théâtre français" (1856).

Two annotated editions of the Sonnets have recently been published, the later, that edited by Mr. Tyler, containing the results of an ingenious endeavour to identify the persons of the "Dark Lady" and "Mr. W. H." A considerable critical literature has been called into existence by Mr. Irving's presentations of Shakespeare's plays, and the great actor has himself made some interesting contributions to Shakespearian criticism. From him and from the first of living actresses, Miss Ellen Terry, our generation has learnt that though Shakespeare's plays can be studied with admirable results in the closet, they live their highest, fullest, and most exquisite life upon the stage.

NOTE ON THE EARLY EDITIONS OF SHAKESPEARE.

FOLIOS.

The First Folio was published in 1623,"printed by Isaac Jaggard and Edward Blount." It contains thirty-six plays (Pericles not being included in the Folios until 1664), arranged as Comedies, Histories, and Tragedies. Shakespeare's fellowactors, John Heminge and Henry Condell, dedicate the volume to the brothers William, Earl of Pembroke [William Herbert], and Philip, Earl of Montgomery. In their address to the readers they profess to give for the first time the true text, and it is implied that they printed from Shakespeare's manuscripts. As a fact, the text abounds with errors, and in many instances they evidently print from the Quartos. In some cases the Folio gives a better text than the corresponding Quarto. It is the sole original authority for seventeen plays. The First Folio was reprinted by Upcott in 1807, and with great accuracy by Lionel Booth (1862-64). It has been reproduced with the aid of photographic processes by Staunton, and in a reduced form (under the superintendence of Halliwell-Phillipps) by Chatto and Windus.

The Second Folio, 1632.-Lowndes's statement that a copy exists with the date 1631 has not been verified. The printer was Thomas Cotes, and the property was vested in five booksellers. It is a reprint from the First Folio, with some errors corrected, some faultily altered to other erroneous readings, and many new errors added.

The Third Folio, "printed for Philip Chetwinde." There are two issues, 1663 and 1664.

The copies dated 1664 add "seven plays never before printed in Folio," viz.: Pericles, Prince of

Tyre; The London Prodigal; The History of Thomas Lord Cromwell; Sir John Oldcastle, Lord Cobham; The Puritan Widow; A Yorkshire Tragedy. These plays seem to have been selected because either the name of Shakespeare or the initials W. S. appear on the title-pages of the Quartos.

The Fourth Folio, 1685, includes the seven plays added in 1664.

QUARTOS.

In the following table the Quarto editions of the Poems and Plays are arranged in the order of the dates at which the first edition of each appeared. An asterisk points out the particular Quarto from which the text in the First Folio is printed.

Venus and Adonis, 1593, 1594, 1596, 1599, 1600,

1602, 1602, 1617, 1620, 1627 (at Edinburgh), 1630? (title-page lost), 1636.

Lucrece, 1594, 1598, 1600, 1607, 1616, 1624, 1632 (?), 1655.

Romeo and Juliet, 1597 (pirated and imperfect),

1599, *1609? (without date), 1637. King Richard II., 1597, 1598, 1608, *1615, 1634. King Richard III., 1597, 1598, 1602, 1605, 1612, 1622, 1629, 1634.

King Henry IV. Part I., 1598, 1599, 1604, 1608, *1613, 1622, 1632, 1639.

Love's Labour's Lost, *1598 (with Shakespeare's name on title, for the first time on any play), 1631.

The Passionate Pilgrim, 1599, 1612 (called third edition on title-page, but only two extant).

TEXT OF SHAKESPEARE'S WILL.

There are several erasures and interlineations in this document which render it difficult to convey to the reader's mind an exact idea of the original; but if he will carefully bear in mind that, in the following transcript, all words inserted in square brackets are those which have been erased, and that all the italics represent interlineations, he will be able to derive a tolerably clear impression of this valuable record.