I have said that I consider as his, both the selection of the plot, and much of its arrangement. [Sidenote: He differs from his chief contemporaries and successors.] As to the Choice of the Subject, my position is, that in this particular, Shakspeare stands in unequivocal opposition to Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher, and those others, contemporary with him, or a little his juniors, with whom his name is generally associated. I can easily shew that this opposition to the newer school in the choice of stories exists in Shakspeare individually; and this would be enough for my purpose; but I will go a little farther than I am called on, because I conceive him to share that opposition with some other poets, and because views open to us from this circumstance, which are of some value for the right understanding of his characteristics. [Sidenote: He belongs to the old school.] I say then, that in the choice of subjects particularly, as well as in other features, Shakspeare belongs to a school older than that of Fletcher, and radically different from it. [Sidenote: Shakspere took old stories; new poets new ones.] The principle of the contrariety in the choice of subjects between the older and newer schools, is this: the older poets usually prefer stories with which their audience must have been previously familiar; the newer poets avoid such known subjects, and attempt to create an adventitious interest for their pieces, by appealing to the passion of curiosity, and feeding it with novelty of incident. [Sidenote: Early Plays founded on] The early writers may have adopted their rule of choice from a distrust in their own skill: but they are more likely to have been influenced by reflecting on the inexperience of their audience in theatrical exhibitions. [Sidenote: History and Tales of Chivalry.] By insisting on this quality in their plots, they hampered themselves much in the choice of them; and the subjects which offered themselves to the older among them, were mainly confined to two classes, history and the chivalrous tales, being the only two cycles of story with which, about the time of Shakspeare's birth, any general familiarity could be presumed. That such were the favourite themes of the infant English drama is abundantly clear, even from the lists of old lost dramas which have been preserved to us. [Sidenote: Classical fables and foreign novels.] By the time when Shakspeare stepped into [63:1]the arena, the zeal for translation had increased the stock of popular knowledge by the addition of the classical fables and the foreign modern novels; and his immediate precursors, some of whom were men of much learning, had especially availed themselves of the former class of plots. [Sidenote: Plots of Shakspere's successors.] If, passing over Shakspeare, we glance at the plots of Fletcher, Jonson, or others of the same period, we find, among a great diversity of means, a search for novelty universally set on foot.