faculty and supreme intellectual capacity. To the former we owe his marvellous works; to the latter his equally marvellous fund of knowledge. Shakespeare's Productive Period may be said to have lasted about twenty years—in other words, from circa 1591–circa 1611, and falls naturally into four great epochs or divisions. These are :— CHRONOLOGY OF THE PLAYS. I. THE EPOCH OF HIS EARLY WORK, 1591-1593. When his touch was still to some extent uncertain, and his art was still susceptible to influence from such powerful writers as Marlowe and Lyly. II. THE EPOCH OF HIS MATURING ART-THE PERIOD OF THE GREAT "COMEDIE S AND THE The Merchant of Venice, 1594. King John, 1594. Midsummer Night's Dream, 1594-1595. All's Well that Ends Well, 1595. The Taming of the Shrew, 1595. 66 HISTORIES," 1594-1601 Henry IV., 1597. Merry Wives of Windsor, 1599. As You Like It, 1600. III. THE EPOCH OF HIS MATURE ART-THE PERIOD OF THE GREAT PROBLEM PLAYS, 1602-1609. IV. THE EPOCH OF REPOSEFUL CONTEMPLATION, 1610-1611. Cymbeline, 1610. The Tempest, 1611. The Winter's Tale, 1611. Plays completed by Others after his Retirement. Henry VIII., 1612. Such is a sketch of the development of Shakespeare's genius as furnished to us by the internal evidence of the works themselves. Let us now proceed to the examination of that play to which our study is more especially to be devoted in this volume. The Play. Probable Date of Composition.-As You Like It, “the sweetest and happiest of all Shakespeare's comedies," and not r the less sweet and happy for the stream of "most humorous sadness " which runs through it, was probably written in the year 1600. It is not mentioned by Meres in his list of Shakespeare's Plays extant in 1598 (Palladis Tamia, entered Stationers' Hall, September 1598), and it contains a quotation from Marlowe's Hero and Leander, which was published in 1598, four years after that poet's death. As You Like It is one of four plays 2 entered in the registers of the Stationers' Company on the 4th of August of what was presumably the year 1600; that is to say, though the year itself is not written against their entry, it stands against the entry immediately preceding it, May 29, 1600; and, though against all four plays are added the words "to be staied," the other three plays were duly published shortly afterwards. As You Like It, for what reason we cannot now determine, was “staied" indefinitely, and was apparently not published till the first folio edition appeared in 1623, when Shakespeare had been dead for seven years. Contemporary Allusions.-Several passages in the play have been pointed out as bits of internal evidence helping to fix the date of its actual composition. Among these may be mentioned the allusion to those half-pence that were in circulation between 1582-3 and 1601 (III. ii. 363); the reference-if it be onc-to the "Alabaster Diana" put up in West Cheap, according to Stow, in 1596, and already "decayed" in 1603 1 Shakespeare: his Mind and Art, by Edward Dowden, 9th edit., 1889. 2 As You Like It, Henry V., Every Man in His Humour, Much Aao about Nothing. (IV. i. 155); the passage supposed to refer to the statute against witchcraft passed early in James the First's reign (V. ii. 77-8); and the passages thought to have some reference to the Act passed in 1571, and re-enacted in 1596, to restrain the Abuses of Players (IV. i. 188-9). In all such calculations it must be remembered that a play-especially a Comedy-might well receive such additions of contemporary allusion after it was produced upon the stage. Signs of Haste.-There are, however, signs of haste about the composition of this play, and especially towards the end of it, which point, not only to its having been written shortly before it was registered, and registered almost before it was completed, but also to its not having been thoroughly revised between that date and the date of its publication in 1623. Among such signs of haste may perhaps be mentioned the fact that so large a portion of the play is in prose, and also the fact that two of the dramatis personæ are named Oliver and two Jaques. The second Oliver may well have been introduced to admit the popular quotation, "O sweet Oliver!" but there is no such reason for the introduction of a second Jaques ; and he does, in fact, while remaining Jaques among the dramatis persona, figure in the play itself as "second brother." In the first folio edition, also, there is a confusion (rectified in later editions) between Celia and Rosalind; for Rosalind, instead of Celia, is made to claim Duke Frederick as facher (I. ii. 80-1), and Celia, instead of Rosalind, is at first called the taller of the two women (I. ii. 274). Orlando's exclamation, "But heavenly Rosalind" (I. ii. 291), has been criticised as premature, in as much as Rosalind's name has not been mentioned in his presence, and as he has just proved himself ignorant of her identity by asking which of the two ladies is Duke Frederick's daughter. Then there is the oversight-so terrible to classical erudition-about Juno's swans (I. iii. 74), with the apparent incongruity about Touchstone at first the "roynish clown," and later the motleyminded gentleman, swift and sententious, and accustomed to Court life. But the chief signs of haste in the composition are to be seen in the finishing up of the play, which may be said to attain its highest point in the passages between Rosalind and |