e grandeur, the moral majesty of some of
Shakespeare's characters, so far beyond what the noblest among ourselves
can imitate, and at first thought we attribute it to the genius of the
poet who has outstripped nature in his creations, but we are
misunderstanding the power and the meaning of poetry in attributing
creativeness to it in any such sense. Shakespeare created but only as
the spirit of nature created around him, working in him as it worked
abroad in those among whom he lived. The men whom he draws were such
men as he saw and knew; the words they utter were such as he heard in
the ordinary conversations in which he joined.... At a thousand unnamed
English firesides he found the living originals for his Prince Hals, his
Orlandos, his Antonios, his Portias, his Isabellas. The closer personal
acquaintance which we can form with the English of the age of Elizabeth,
the more we are satisfied that Shakespeare's great poetry is no more
than the rhythmic echo of the life which he depicts."

As this book is intended as a precursor to one shortly to be published
dealing with the sonnets and the plays of the Sonnet period, the only
plays here critically considered are _King John_ and _The Comedy of
Errors_, which I shall argue are the only plays--now extant--written by
Shakespeare before the inception of his intimacy with the Earl of
Southampton, which I date, upon good evidence, in the autumn of 1591. In
the former we have probably the best example of the manner in which
Elizabethan playwrights dramatised contemporary affairs. In this
instance Shakespeare worked from an older play which had been composed
with the same intention with which he rewrote it, and as the old play
had passed the censor and been for years upon the public boards, he was
enabled to develop his intention more openly than even he dared to do in
later years, when, owing to the influence of Lord Burghley and his son,
Sir Robert Cecil, the enforcement of the statutes against the
representation of matters of State upon the stage became increasingly
stringent.

Though the political phases of Shakespeare's dramas become more veiled
as the years pass, I unhesitatingly affirm that there is not a single
play composed between the end of 1591 and the conclusion of his dramatic
career that does not, in some manner, intentionally reflect either the
social, literary, or political affairs of his day.

In order that the reader may approach a consideration of the re