oduced by the press.

The chronology of this play does not prove it not to be Shakespeare's.
If it had been written twenty-five years in 1614, it might have been
written when Shakespeare was twenty-five years old. When he left
Warwickshire I know not; but at the age of twenty-five it was rather too
late to fly for deer-stealing.

Ravenscroft, who in the reign of Charles II. revised this play, and
restored it to the stage, tells us, in his preface, from a theatrical
tradition, I suppose, which in his time might be of sufficient
authority, that this play was touched, in different parts, by
Shakespeare, but written by some other poet. I do not find Shakespeare's
touches very discernible.

TROILUS AND CRESSIDA.

This play is more correctly written than most of Shakespeare's
compositions, but it is not one of those in which either the extent of
his views or elevation of his fancy is fully displayed. As the story
abounded with materials, he has exerted little invention; but he has
diversified his characters with great variety, and preserved them with
great exactness. His vicious characters sometimes disgust, but cannot
corrupt, for both Cressida and Pandarus are detested and contemned. The
comick characters seem to have been the favourites of the writer; they
are of the superficial kind, and exhibit more of manners than nature;
but they are copiously filled, and powerfully impressed.

Shakespeare has in his story followed, for the greater part, the old
book of Caxton, which was then very popular; but the character of
Thersites, of which it makes no mention, is a proof that this play was
written after Chapman had published his version of Homer[15].

CYMBELINE.

This play has many just sentiments, some natural dialogues, and some
pleasing scenes, but they are obtained at the expense of much
incongruity. To remark the folly of the fiction, the absurdity of the
conduct, the confusion of the names and manners of different times, and
the impossibility of the events in any system of life, were to waste
criticism upon unresisting imbecility, upon faults too evident for
detection, and too gross for aggravation.

KING LEAR.

The tragedy of Lear is deservedly celebrated among the dramas of
Shakespeare. There is, perhaps, no play which keeps the attention so
strongly fixed; which so much agitates our passions, and interests our
curiosity. The artful involutions of distinct interests, the striking
oppositions of contrary