le. Goswin
Konig, in 1888, applying the metrical tests, fixed the order as
follows: _Hamlet_, _Troilus and Cressida_, _Measure for Measure_,
_Othello_, _Timon_, and _Lear_, and, in another group, _Macbeth_,
_Antony and Cleopatra_, and _Coriolanus_. These results are
confirmed by Bradley in his _Shakespearean Tragedy_.

Collin accepts this chronology. A careful study of the plays in
this order shows a striking community of ethical purpose between
the plays of each group. In the plays of the first group, the poet
assails with all his mighty wrath what to him seems the basest of
all wickedness, treachery. It is characteristic of these plays
that none of the villains attains the dignity of a great tragic
hero. They are without a virtue to redeem their faults.
Shakespeare's conception of the good and evil in these plays
approaches a medieval dualism. In the plays of the second group
the case is altered. There is no longer a crude dualism in the
interpretation of life. Shakespeare has entered into the soul of
Macbeth and Lady Macbeth, of Antony and Cleopatra, of Coriolanus,
and he has found underneath all that is weak and sinful and
diseased, a certain nobility and grandeur. He can feel with the
regicides in Macbeth; he no longer exposes and scourges; he
understands and sympathizes. The clouds of gloom and wrath have
cleared away, and Shakespeare has achieved a serenity and a fine
poise.

It follows, then, that the theory of a growing pessimism is
untenable. We must seek a new line of evolution.]

We need dwell but little on Collin's sketch of the "Vorgeschichte"
of _Hamlet_, for it contributes nothing that is new. _Hamlet_ was a
characteristic "revenge tragedy" like the "Spanish Tragedy" and a whole
host of others which had grown up in England under the influence, direct
and indirect, of Seneca. He points out in a very illuminating way how
admirably the "tragedy of blood" fitted the times. Nothing is more
characteristic of the renaissance than an intense joy in living. But
exactly as the appetite for mere existence became keen, the tragedy of
death gained in power. The most passionate joy instinctively calls up
the most terrible sorrow. There is a sort of morbid caution here--a
feeling that in the moment of happiness it is well to harden oneself
against the terrible reaction to come. Conversely, the contemplation of
suffer