The First Period includes all plays which there is good reason for dating before 1595. In this the great dramatist was serving his literary apprenticeship, learning the difficult art of play writing, and learning it by experiments and mistakes. In the course of his experiments, he tried many different types, tragedies, histories, comedies, and rewrote old plays either alone or with a more experienced playwright to help him. Nearly all of this work is full of promise; most of it is also full of faults. Here belong the early comedies mentioned above--_Love's Labour's Lost_ and _The Two Gentlemen of Verona_. Here is the crude but powerful _Richard III_, and _Romeo and Juliet_, the early faults of which are redeemed by such a wealth of youthful poetic fire. The Second Period extends roughly from 1595 to 1600. The poet has learned his profession now, is no longer a beginner but a master, though hardly yet at the summit of his powers. Here are included three chronicle plays, the two parts of _King Henry IV_ and _King Henry V_, and six comedies. One of the earliest of these comedies was _The Merchant of Venice_, already mentioned. Three others, a little later,--_Much Ado, Twelfth {102} Night_, and _As You Like It_,--are usually regarded as Shakespeare's crowning achievement in the world of mirth and humor. In this group of plays, whether history or comedy, the author is depicting chiefly the cheerful, energetic side of life. The Third Period really begins about 1599, for this and the second overlap; and it continues to about 1608. In the plays of this group the poet becomes interested in a wholly new set of themes. The aspects of life which he interprets are no longer bright and cheerful, but stern and sad. Here come the great tragedies, several of which we have mentioned above--_Julius Caesar, Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth, Antony and Cleopatra_. Shakespeare is now at the height of his power, for his greatest masterpieces are included in the above list. Mixed in with this wealth of splendid tragedy (though inferior to it in merit), there are also three comedies. But even the comedies share in the somber gloom which absorbed the poet's attention during this period. The comedies before 1600 had been full of sunshine, brimming with kindly, good-natured mirth, overflowing with the genial laughter which makes us love the very men at whom we are laughing. But the three comedies of this Third Period are bitter and sarcastic in their wit, making us despise the people who furnish us fun, and leaving an unpleasant taste in the mouth after the laugh is over. Some have assumed that the dark tinge of this period was due to an unknown sorrow in the poet's own life, but there seems to be no need of any such assumption. We may become interested in reading cheerful books one year and sad ones the next without being more cheerful or {103} more sad in one year than in the other; and what is true of the reader might