appreciative or impressionistic or philosophical. At the
present day there is assuredly no need of elaborate argu-
ment to prove that the man who would understand Shake-
speare must have some knowledge of the centuries preced-
ing. The dangers of taking a purely modern point of view
have often been stressed with striking results, as in the criti-
cism of Hamlet.

It happens, however, that the so-called gloomy comedies,
All's Well that Ends Well, Measure for Measure, and
Troilus and Cressida, which are singularly well adapted to
this method of approach, have, with the exceptions of por-
tions of Troilus, been very little so treated, and never, I
think, as a group. They present very great difficulties, and
critics are still far from agreement in regard to their proper
interpretation. Their relation to Shakespeare's other plays,
and to literary and social changes in his day, is still imper-
fectly understood. Both plot and characterization are
greatly illuminated by study of mediæval analogues and cus-
toms. Such study carries us on, with Cymbeline and the
Winter's Tale, into the era of the Dramatic Romances. Per-
haps the attempt to solve the definite problems presented by
this group of plays will have a concreteness and an interest
which a more extended treatment of Shakespeare's work as
a whole might lack.

The Notes have been reduced as much as possible. I see
no need of repeating easily accessible information. The
bibliography of Shakespeare is now so large that it is impos-
sible to give credit for every borrowed idea, or indeed to be
sure that ideas which one thinks original may not lurk some-
where in print. I have, of course, relegated to the Notes dis-
cussions of matters too specialized for the main text, but
such discussions, which might be almost indefinitely extended,
have been sternly subordinated. Portions of Chapters II

-viii-