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validated.   and this progress has been deemed sufficiently well
traceable in his plays to be used as an aid in seeking to
determine His style and its influence. their chronological
sequence. The general laws of this progress accord with those of
the natural advance of creative genius; artificiality gives way
to freedom, and freedom in its turn submits to a greater degree
of regularity and care. In versification as in diction the
earliest and the latest period of Shakespeare’s dramatic writing
are more easily recognizable than what lies between and may be
called the normal period, the plays belonging to which in form
most resemble one another, and are least affected by
distinguishable peculiarities—such as the rhymes and
intentionally euphuistic colouring of style which characterize
the earliest, or the feminine endings of the lines and the more
condensed manner of expression common to t