BOHN'S STANDARD LIBRARY.

HAZLITT'S

AGE OF ELIZABETH, AND CHARACTERS OF

SHAKESPEAR'S PLAYS,

ON

THE LITERATURE OF THE
AGE OF EINZABETH,

THE

AND

BY

CHARACTERS,OF SHAKESPEAR'S PLAYS

WILLIAM HAZLITT,

Author of "Table Talk," "Lectures on the English Poets," "The
English Comic Writers," &c., &c.

LONDON: GEORGE BELL AND SONS, YORK STREET,

COVENT GARDEN.

1878.

11443

1878

ADVERTISEMENT

TO

THE ORIGINAL EDITION.

By the "AGE OF ELIZABETH (as it relates to the history of our Literature) I would be understood to mean the time from the Reformation to the end of Charles I., including the writers of a certain School or style of Poetry or Prose, who flourished together or immediately succeeded one another within this period. I have, in the following pages, said little of two of the greatest writers of that age, Shakspeare and Spenser, because I had treated of them separately in former publications.*

* Characters of Shakspeare's Plays, 1817, and Lectures on the English Poets, 1818-ED.