“Virtue is like a rich stone, best plain set.” “A man’s nature runs either to herbs or weeds; therefore, let him seasonably water the one, and destroy the other.” “A crowd is not company, and faces are but a gallery of pictures, and talk but a tinkling cymbal, when there is no love.” No man could say wiser things in pithier words; and we may well say of his thoughts, in the words of Tennyson, that they are-- “Jewels, five words long, That on the stretched forefinger of all time Sparkle for ever.” 5. WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE (+1564-1616+) has been already treated of in the chapter on the sixteenth century. But it may be noted here that his first two periods-- as they are called-- fall within the sixteenth, and his last two periods within the seventeenth century. His first period lies between 1591 and 1596; and to it are ascribed his early poems, his play of +Richard II.+, and some other historical plays. His second period, which stretches from 1596 to 1601 holds the Sonnets, the +Merchant of Venice+, the +Merry Wives of Windsor+, and a few historical dramas. But his third and fourth periods were richer in production, and in greater productions. The third period, which belongs to the years 1601 to 1608, produced the play of +Julius Cæsar+, the great tragedies of +Hamlet+, +Othello+, +Lear+, +Macbeth+, and some others. To the fourth period, which lies between 1608 and 1613, belong the calmer and wiser dramas,-- +Winter’s Tale+, +The Tempest+, and +Henry VIII+. Three years after-- in 1616-- he died.