THE

PLAYS

OF

SHAKSPEARE.

VOL. I.

When Learning's triumph o'er her barbarous foes
First rear'd the stage, immortal Shakspeare rose;
Each change of many-color'd life he drew,
Exhausted worlds, and then imagin'd new :
Existence saw him spurn her bounded reign,
And panting Time toil'd after him in vain.
His powerful strokes presiding Truth impress'd,
And unresisted Passion storm'd the breast.

JOHNSON.

A loose he gave to his unbounded soul,
And taught new lands to rise, new seas to roll;
Call'd into being scenes unknown before,
And, passing Nature's bounds, was something more.

CHURCHILL.

LONDON:

Printed by Maurice and Co., Howford Buildings,
Fenchurch Street.

LIFE

OF

WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE.

-

No feeling appears more universal, and natural to
the mind of man, than that which transfers an admi-
ration of works of genius into an inquiry respecting
the mind whence they emanated; and seldom has
curiosity been less gratified than in its researches
into the biography of the greatest genius ever known
in dramatic poetry. But little more than two cen-
turies have elapsed since the death of our author,
and almost as much is ascertained of the private life
of Homer, as can now be gleaned of WILLIAM
SHAKSPEARE, of whom little more can be learned,
save that he lived and died, and was buried in his
native town: yet his talents appear to have been
highly appreciated by his contemporaries, and still
more so by his immediate successors: and it might