Page:The Plays of William Shakspeare (1778).djvu/287

[ 271 ] by which he roe from mediocrity to the ummit of excellence; from artles and unintereting dialogues, to thoe unparalleled compoitions, which have rendered him the delight and wonder of ucceSS undefinedive ages.

The materials for acertaining the order in which his plays were written, are indeed o few, that, it is to be feared, nothing very deciive can be produced on this ubject. no doubt that this obervation would be found true in every intance, were but editions extant from which we might learn the exact time when every piece was compoed, and whether writ for the town or the court.”—From the following lines it appears, that Dryden alo thought that our author's mot imperfect plays were his earliet dramatick compoitions:

The plays which Shakpeare produced before the year 1600, are known, and are about eighteen in number. The ret of his dramas, we may conclude, were compoed between that year and the time of his retiring to the country. It is incumbent on thoe, who differ in opinion from the great authorities abovementioned, who think with Rowe, that “we are not to look for his beginning in his leat perfect works,” it is incumbent, I ay, on thoe perons, to enumerate in the former clas, that is, among the plays produced before 1600, compoitions of equal merit with Othello, King Lear, Macbeth, the Tempet and Twelfth Night, which we have reaon to believe were all written in the latter period; and among his late performances, that is, among the plays which are uppoed to have appeared after the year 1600, to point out five pieces, as haty, indigeted, and unintereting, as the firt and third parts of K. Henry VI, Love's Labour Lot, the Comedy of Errors, and the Two Gentlemen of Verona, which, we know, were among his earlier works.