e greater part more or less known to each
other,--when we know that the plays of Shakespeare, both during and after
his life, were the property of the stage, and published by the players,
doubtless according to their notions of acceptability with the visitants
of the theatre,--in such an age, and under such circumstances, can an
allusion or reference to any drama or poem in the publication of a
contemporary be received as conclusive evidence, that such drama or poem
had at that time been published? Or, further, can the priority of
publication itself prove anything in favour of actually prior composition?

We are tolerably certain, indeed, that the _Venus and Adonis_, and the
_Rape of Lucrece_, were his two earliest poems, and though not printed
until 1593, in the twenty-ninth year of his age, yet there can be little
doubt that they had remained by him in manuscript many years. For Mr.
Malone has made it highly probable that he had commenced as a writer for
the stage in 1591, when he was twenty-seven years old, and Shakespeare
himself assures us that the _Venus and Adonis_ was the first heir of his
invention.

Baffled, then, in the attempt to derive any satisfaction from outward
documents, we may easily stand excused if we turn our researches towards
the internal evidences furnished by the writings themselves, with no other
positive _data_ than the known facts that the _Venus and Adonis_ was
printed in 1593, the _Rape of Lucrece_ in 1594, and that the _Romeo and
Juliet_ had appeared in 1595,--and with no other presumptions than that the
poems, his very first productions, were written many years earlier--(for
who can believe that Shakespeare could have remained to his twenty-ninth
or thirtieth year without attempting poetic composition of any kind?),--and
that between these and _Romeo and Juliet_ there had intervened one or two
other dramas, or the chief materials, at least of them, although they may
very possibly have appeared after the success of the _Romeo and Juliet_,
and some other circumstances, had given the poet an authority with the
proprietors, and created a prepossession in his favour with the theatrical
audiences.

CLASSIFICATION ATTEMPTED, 1802.

FIRST EPOCH.

The London Prodigal.
Cromwell.
Henry VI., three parts, first edition.
The old King John.
Edward III.
The old Taming of the Shrew.
Pericles.

All these are transition works, _Uebergangswerke_; not his,