§  7.  It  is  with  the  most  unfeigned  diffidence  —  diffidence  arising  from
a  veneration  which  no  words  can  express  — that  I  approach  the  difficult
but  delightful  task  of  examining  the  writings  of  Shakspeare.  From
the  number,  no  less  than  the  excellence,  of  the  dramatic  portion  of
these  works,  it  will  be  absolutely  necessary  to  employ  some  method
of  classifying  them  into  groups.  This  would  possess  the  advantage
of  conciseness  in  the  treatment,  as  well  as  of  assisting  the  memory  of
the  student.  The  most  valuable  principle  of  classification  would  be  one
based  upon  the  chronological  order  of  production,  because  such  a
method  would  give  us  a  chart  of  the  intellectual  and  artistic  develop-
ment of  Shakspeare's  mind,  enabling  us  to  trace  the  course  of  that  raa-
estic  river  from  its  first  sparkling  but  irregular  sources  to  the  full  flow
of  its  calm  and  mighty  current :  but  this  mode,  as  has  already  been
pointed  out,  though  it  has  exercised  the  ingenuity  and  research  of  many
laborious  and  acute  investigators,  has  furnished  no  results  which  can
be  depended  upon  —  a  fact  evidenced  by  the  extreme  discrepancy
among  the  various  systems  of  chronological  arrangement  vv"hich  have
hitherto  been  given  to  the  world.  Upon  the  order  of  the  pieces  as  given
in -the  first  folio  edition,  published  in  1623  by  Hemings  and  Condell,
Shakspeare's  friends  and  "  fellows,"  it  is  evident  no  reliance  can  be
placed.  Independently  of  the  many  contradictions  and  impossibilities
involved  in  the  adoption  of  their  order  as  the  true  order  of  composition

—  impossibilities  which  are  obvious  on  a  superficial  examination  —  the
extreme  negligence  of  the  printing  of  that  edition,  in  e^'incing  a  total


A.  D.  1564-1616.]  SBAKSPEARE.  139

absence  of  care  in  the  editing  and  correction  of  the  p.  ess,  leads  us
inevitably  to  the  conclusion  that,  in  spite  of  the  assurances  of  the  editors
as  to  its  having  been  based  upon  the  "papers"  of  their  immortal  col-
league, the  publicatiop  must  be  regarded  as  little  better  than  a  hasty
speculation,  carelessly  entered  into  for  the  purpose  of  snatching  a
momentary  and  not  very  honorable  profit,  -without  much  regard  to  the
literary  reputation  of  the  great  poet.
