CLASSIFICATION OF SHAKSPEARE'S DRAMAS. It is with the most unfeigned diffidence-diffidence arising from a veneration which no words can express-that we approach the difficult but delightful task of examining the writings of Shakspeare. From the number, no less than the excellence, of the dramatic portion of these works, it will be absolutely necessary to employ some method of classifying them into groups. This would possess the advantage of conciseness in the treatment, as well as of assisting the memory of the reader. The most valuable principle of classification would be one based upon the chronological order of production, because such a method would give us a chart of the intellectual and artistic development of Shakspeare's mind, enabling us to trace the course of that majestic river from its first sparkling but irregular sources to the full flow of its calm and mighty current; but this mode, as has already been pointed out, though it has exercised the ingenuity and research of many laborious and acute investigators, has furnished no results which can be depended upon a fact evidenced by the extreme discrepancy among the various systems of chronological arrangeinent which have hitherto been given to the world. Upon the order of pieces as given in the first folio edition, published in 1623 by Hemings and Condell, Shakspeare's friends and "fellows," it is evident no reliance can be placed. Independently of the many contradictions and impossibilities involved in the adoption of their order as the true order of composition-impossibilities which are obvious on a superficial examination-the extreme negligence of the printing of that edition, in evincing a total absence of care in the editing and correction for the press, leads us inevitably to the conclusion that, in spite of the assurances of the editors as to its having been based upon the "papers" of their immortal colleague, the publication must be regarded as little better than a hasty speculation, carelessly entered into for the purpose of snatching a momentary and not very honorable profit, without much regard to the literary reputation of the great poet. Another mode of classifying Shakspeare's dramas is founded on the principle of ranging them respectively under the heads of Tragedies, Comedies, and Histories or Historical Plays, without attempting to enter into the question of the order of their production; and this system has at all events the advantage of clearness, as well as that of dividing them into manageable groups, easily retained in the memory. This is the principle upon which are based most of the editions of the dramas. But this method is in some measure open to objection. Though some of the pieces (such as Othello, Lear, Hamlet) are distinctly tragedies, in the ordinary sense of that word, -a sense common to the critical nomenclature both of the Classical and Romantic types of the drama, -and though others (as As You Like It, the Merry Wives of Windsor, the Taming of the Shrew, or Twelfth Night) are as evidently comedies, there exists a considerable number of the plays which, from their tone and incidents, might be ranged equally under both heads. Nay, in all the pieces of Shakspeare we find such a mixture of the tragic and comic elements as would withdraw them equally from the strongly marked boundaries appropriated, as in the French theater for instance, respectively to Tragedy and Comedy; and where Thalia and Melpomene are never permitted to intrude upon each other's domains. Indeed, as has been said some pages back, it is precisely this mixture of tragedy and comedy in the same piece, the same character, the same scene, and in even the same phrase, which constitutes the peculiar distinguishing trait of the noble romantic drama of England in the Shakspearian Age; and not only its distinguishing trait, but also, in the opinion of the English. reader, as well as of the most profound art-critics of Germany, its peculiar excellence and title of superiority, as a picture of life and nature, over the national Drama of every other country. SOURCES OF HIS DRAMATIC CREATIONS. There remains a third mode of classification, which we may adopt as not devoid either of convenience or of philosophic truth; and this is based upon the sources from which Shakspeare drew the materials for his dramatic creations. If we follow the classification according to the three heads we have just been alluding to, we shall find that the thirty-seven plays composing the collection will range themselves as follows: Eleven tragedies, two tragi-comedies, ten historical plays, and fourteen comedies. But the classification according to sources will give some what different results. The sources in question | John and terminating with Henry VIII., embrace will naturally divide themselves first into the two great genera-History and Fiction, Wahrheit und Dichtung; while the former of these two genera will naturally subdivide into different classes or degrees of historical authenticity, ranging from vague and half-poetical legend to the comparatively firm ground of recent historical events. Again, the legendary category may be referred to the different countries from whose chronicles the events were materials possessing various shades of authenticity, from what may be called the semi-legendary to a degree of precision as great as could be expected in the then state of historical literature. For these pieces Shakspeare mainly drew his materials from the old annalist Hollinshed; and, both in their form and peculiar excellencies this class of dramas, though not perhaps invented by Shakspeare, was certainly carried by him to a wonderful degree of perfection. borrowed; thus Hamlet is taken from the Danish chronicler Saxo-Grammaticus; Macbeth, Lear and Cymbeline refer respectively to the legends, more or less fabulous, of Scottish and British history; while Coriolanus, Julius Cæsar, and Antony and Cleopatra are derived from the annals of ancient Rome. Many of the historical dramas of Shakspeare are intended to depict the events of the more recent and consequently more reliable details of the history of his own country; and these, beginning with King These pieces are not tragedies or comedies in the strict sense of the word, but they are grand panoramas of national glory or national distress, embracing often a very considerable space of time, even a whole reign, and retracing-with apparent irregularity in their plan, but with an astonishing unity of general feeling and sentiment-great epochs in the life of the nation. Examples of such will be found in Richard II., Richard III., the two unequaled dramas on the reign of Henry IV., and the glorious chant of patriotic triumph embodied in Henry V., in which Shakspeare has completed the type of the Hero-King. To such pieces is applied the particular designation of "Histories"; and of such histories Shakspeare, though not the inventor, was certainly the most prolific author. PIECES DERIVED FROM FICTION. The second general category, that of pieces derived from fiction, need not detain us long. The materials for this, the largest class of his dramas, Shakspeare derived from the Italian novelists and their imitators, who supplied the chief element of light literature in the sixteenth century. The most brilliant type of this species of writer was Boccaccio, whose Novelle, translated and copied into all the tongues of Europe, furnished a mass of excellent materials, from Chaucer down to Lafontaine. These short tales, which so long formed the predominant type of the literature of amusement in many countries, were in many instances derived from a still more ancient source-the fabliaux and piquant stories with which the narrative poets, the moralists, and theologians of the middle ages enlivened their compositions; but in the form which they ultimately attained in Boccaccio and his innumerable imitators they were most singularly adapted to furnish an appropriate canvas or groundwork upon which Shakspeare was to construct his humorous or pathetic actions. In the first place, these tales were, from the nature of the case, exceedingly short; they depended for their popularity rather upon amusing and surprising incidents than upon any development of character, which would have been impracticable within the narrow limits of a few pages. dramatizing such stories, therefore, the playwright enjoyed full liberty for the exercise of his peculiar talent of portraying human character, while at the same time he had ready prepared to his hand series of striking events which he could compress or expand as best suited his purpose; he was left free just where freedom was most essential to his particular form of art, and spared the necessity of invention precisely where the task of invention would be likely to embarrass him. It is susceptible of proof that in no one instance has Shakspeare taken the trouble of inventing the plot of a piece for himself; certainly from no want of genius, but simply from In his consummate knowledge of his art. He knew that he would act more profitably for his dramatic success by combining materials already prepared, and directing all his energies to that department in which he has never met an equal—the exhibition of human nature and human passion. How nobly he performed his task may be perceived by a simple comparison of the original novel or legend which he selected as the groundwork of his pieces, with such creations as Othello, the Tempest, or the Merchant of Venice. The number of Shakspeare's pieces derived from fiction amounts to eighteen; by far the majority of these are traceable, as already remarked, to the Italian novelists and their French or Spanish imitators. We are not, however, to infer that the great poet necessarily consulted the tales in the original language. From a careful examination of his works it seems to result that our great dramatist has rarely, if ever, made use, whether in the way of subjects for his plays or quotations introduced into the dialogue, of any ancient or foreign materials not then existing in English translations: and this important fact, while it does not necessarily lead to the monstrous conclusion of his having been a totally illiterate man, yet furnishes proof that Ben Jonson was neither an envious carper nor a malicious perverter of the truth when, in his exquisite tribute to the genius and virtues of his departed friend, he qualifies him as having "small Latin and less Greek." We may also remark that what Jonson, one of the most learned men of his day, may have expressed by small may have been in reality no inconsiderable tincture of scholarship. The following general classification may be found not altogether useless nor uninteresting: in it we have endeavored to combine, together with a rough indication of the class to which each piece belongs, the particular origin whence Shakspeare drew his materials: i. Legendary: I. HISTORY. Hamlet (Tragedy). The Chronicles of SaxoGrammaticus, and an older play. King Lear (Tragedy). Hollinshed, and older dramas. Cymbeline (Tragi-comedy). Hollinshed, and old French romances. Macbeth (Tragedy). Hollinshed. Taming of the Shrew (Comedy). An old English piece of the same name. Love's Labor Lost (Comedy). Unknown; probably an Italian play. Two Gentlemen of Verona (Comedy). Exact origin unknown. Romeo and Juliet (Tragedy). Paynter's Palace of Pleasure. Merchant of Venice (Comedy). The Pecorone and the Gesta Romanorum. All's Well that Ends Well (Comedy). The Palace of Pleasure, translated from Boccaccio. Much Ado about Nothing (Comedy). An episode of the Orlando Furioso. As You Like It (Comedy). Lodge's Rosalynde, and the Coke's Tale of Gamelyn. Merry Wives of Windsor (Comedy). Exact origin unknown. Troilus and Cressida (Tragedy). Chaucer, and the Recuyell of Troye. Measure for Measure (Comedy). Cinthio's Hecatommithi, Dec. viii. Nov. 5. Winter's Tale (Comedy). Greene's tale of Dorastus and Fawnia. Timon of Athens (Tragedy). Plutarch, Lucian and Palace of Pleasure. Othello (Tragedy). Cinthio's Hecatommithi, Dec. viii. Nov. 7. Tempest (Comedy). Exact origin unknown; probably Italian. Twelfth Night (Comedy). A novel by Bandello, imitated by Belleforest. Pericles (Comedy). Twine's translation of the Gesta Romanorum. HIS TREATMENT OF THE HISTORICAL DRAMA. In the historical department of the above classification it will be seen that many plays were based upon preceding dramatic works treating of the same, or nearly the same subjects; and in some few cases we possess the more ancient pieces themselves, exhibiting different degrees of imperfection and barbarism. We thus are in a position to compare the changes introduced by the consummate art of Shakspeare into the rude draughts of his theatrical predecessors, and to appreciate the wise economy he showed in retaining what suited his purpose, as well as the skill he exhibited in modifying and altering what did not. In one or two examples we have more than one edition of the same play in its different stages toward complete perfection under the hand of Shakspeare, instances of which may be cited in the cases of Hamlet and Lear. A careful and minute collation of such various editions furnishes us with precious materials for the investigation of the most interesting and profitable problem that literary criticism can approach-the tracing of the different phases of elaboration through which every great work must pass. It is no mean privilege to be thus admitted, as it were, into the studio of the mighty painter, the laboratory of the mighty chemist to mark the touches, sometimes bold, sometimes almost imperceptible, in their delicacy, which transform the rugged sketch into the highlyfinished picture, the apparently insignificant opera ac tions by which the rude ore is transformed into the consummate jewel. It is like being admitted into the penetralia of nature herself. The first impression which strikes the reader when he makes quaintance with the Historical and Legendary category of Shakspeare's dramas, is the astonishing force and completeness with which the poet seized the general and salient peculiarities of the age and country which he undertook to reproduce. With the limited and imperfect scholarship that he probably possessed, this power is the more extraordinary, and shows that his vast mind must have proceeded in a manner eminently synthetic; the first made his characters true to general and universal humanity, and then gave them the peculiar distinguishing traits appropriate to their particular period and country. His Romans are true portraits of Romans, for example, because they are first true portraits of men. His great contemporary Jonson has shown a far more accurate and extensive knowledge of the details EDWIN BOOTH AS of Roman manners, ceremonies, and institutions; but his personages, admirable as they are, are entirely deficient in that intense human reality which Shakspeare never fails to communicate to his dramatis persona. The nature of the Historical Play, as it was understood by Shakspeare, admitted, and even required, the adoption of an extensive epoch as the subject, and a numerous crowd of agents as the material, of such pieces; and it is not too much to say that, in all the personages so introduced, from the most prominent down to the most obscure, the reader may detect, if he takes the necessary pains, that every one had, in the mind of the author, a separate and distinct individuality, equally true to universal and to particular nature. Nay, in comparing such subjects as are drawn from different periods in the history of his own or other nations, in ancient or modern times, we may remark the singular felicity with which this great creator has differentiated, so to say, various phases in the character, social or political, of a people: thus the Romans in Coriolanus are very different from the Romans in Julius Cæsar or Antony and Cleopatra, though equally true to general human nature and to the particular nature of the Roman people at the different epochs selected. The same extraordinary power of differentiating is equally perceptible in the English historical plays, as will plainly be seen on compar ing King John, for example, with Henry IV. or Henry V. HIS KNOWLEDGE OF HUMAN NATURE. This power of throwing himself into a given epoch is, in Shakspeare, carried to a degree which cannot be justly qualified as anything short of superhuman. It is true that in these plays we find instances of gross anachronism in detail; but these anachronisms never touch the essential truth of the delineation; they are mere external excrescences, which can be |