less profoundly reflective than
_Hamlet_ and less passionately imaginative than _King Lear_ or
_Macbeth_; but no other of his masterpieces shows such perfect balance
of taste and judgment, or is so free from any jarring note. Hence,
through the histories and tragedies taken together, we see the same
growth in technical skill which we have already found in his comedies,
save that it took longer here because the poet was working in a more
difficult field. It would not be true to say that each play up to
_Othello_ is superior to its immediate predecessor in technique, still
less that it is so in absolute merit; but the general upward tendency
is there.

{101}

+The Four Periods+.--Such was Shakespeare's development in meter, in
taste, in conception of character, and in dramatic technique. In line
with this development, it has been customary to divide his literary
career into four periods and his plays into four corresponding groups.
These groups or periods are characterized partly by their different
degrees of maturity, but more by the difference in the character of the
plays during these intervals.

The First Period includes all plays which there is good reason for
dating before 1595. In this the great dramatist was serving his
literary apprenticeship, learning the difficult art of play writing,
and learning it by experiments and mistakes. In the course of his
experiments, he tried many different types, tragedies, histories,
comedies, and rewrote old plays either alone or with a more experienced
playwright to help him. Nearly all of this work is full of promise;
most of it is also full of faults. Here belong the early comedies
mentioned above--_Love's Labour's Lost_ and _The Two Gentlemen of
Verona_. Here is the crude but powerful _Richard III_, and _Romeo and
Juliet_, the early faults of which are redeemed by such a wealth of
youthful poetic fire.

The Second Period extends roughly from 1595 to 1600. The poet has
learned his profession now, is no longer a beginner but a master,
though hardly yet at the summit of his powers. Here are included three
chronicle plays, the two parts of _King Henry IV_ and _King Henry V_,
and six comedies. One of the earliest of these comedies was _The
Merchant of Venice_, already mentioned. Three others, a little
later,--_Much Ado, Twelfth {102} Night_, and _As You Like It_,--are
usually regarded as Shakespeare's crowning achievement in the world of
mirth and humor. In this