SHAKESPEARE:

HIS

LIFE, ART, AND CHARACTERS.

WITH

AN HISTORICAL SKETCH OF THE ORIGIN AND GROWTH OF THE DRAMA IN ENGLAND.

FOURTH EDITION, REVISED

.

BY

THE REV. H.N. HUDSON, LL.D.

VOLUME I.

GINN AND COMPANY

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1872, by HENRY N. HUDSON,

In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.

TO

MR. JOSEPH BURNETT,
OF SOUTHBOROUGH, MASS.

Sir:

The Memories of a Friendship running, I believe, without interruption through a period of more than five-and-twenty years, prompt the inscribing of these volumes to you.

H.N. HUDSON.

BOSTON, January 1, 1872.

CONTENTS.

LIFE OF SHAKESPEARE

ORIGIN AND GROWTH OF THE DRAMA IN ENGLAND
MIRACLE-PLAYS
MORAL-PLAYS
COMEDY AND TRAGEDY

SHAKESPEARE'S CONTEMPORARIES

SHAKESPEARE'S ART
NATURE AND USE OF ART
PRINCIPLES OF ART
DRAMATIC COMPOSITION
CHARACTERIZATION
HUMOUR
STYLE
MORAL SPIRIT

SHAKESPEARE'S CHARACTERS
A MIDSUMMER-NIGHT'S DREAM
THE MERCHANT OF VENICE
THE MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR
MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING
AS YOU LIKE IT
TWELFTH NIGHT
ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL
MEASURE FOR MEASURE
THE TEMPEST
THE WINTER'S TALE
FOOTNOTES

[Illustration: Etched by Leopold Fluming after the Chandos painting.]

LIFE OF SHAKESPEARE.

Shakespeare,[1] by general suffrage, is the greatest name in literature. There can be no extravagance in saying, that to all who speak the English language his genius has made the world better worth living in, and life a nobler and diviner thing. And even among those who do not "speak the tongue that Shakespeare spake," large numbers are studying the English language mainly for the purpose of being at home with him. How he came to be what he was, and to do what he did, are questions that can never cease to be interesting, wherever his works are known, and men's powers of thought in any fair measure developed. But Providence has left a veil, or rather a cloud, about his history, so that these questions are not likely to be satisfactorily answered.

The first formal attempt at an account of Shakespeare's life was made by Nicholas Rowe, and the result thereof published in 1709, ninety-three years after the Poet's death. Rowe's account was avowedly made up, for the most