Produced by Steve Harris, Charles Franks and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team. CHARACTERS OF SHAKESPEARE'S PLAYS By WILLIAM HAZLITT With an Introduction by SIR ARTHUR QUILLER-COUCH INTRODUCTION The book here included among The World's Classics made its first appearance as an octavo volume of xxiv + 352 pages, with the title-page: Characters of Shakespeare's Plays, By William Hazlitt. London: Printed by C. H. Reynell, 21 Piccadilly, 1817. William Hazlitt (1778-1830) came of an Irish Protestant stock, and of a branch of it transplanted in the reign of George I from the county of Antrim to Tipperary. His father migrated, at nineteen, to the University of Glasgow (where he was contemporary with Adam Smith), graduated in 1761 or thereabouts, embraced the principles of the Unitarians, joined their ministry, and crossed over to England; being successively pastor at Wisbech in Cambridgeshire, at Marshfield in Gloucestershire, and at Maidstone. At Wisbech he married Grace Loftus, the daughter of a neighbouring farmer. Of the many children granted to them but three survived infancy. William, the youngest of these, was born in Mitre Lane, Maidstone, on April 10, 1778. From Maidstone the family moved in 1780 to Bandon, Co. Cork; and from Bandon in 1783 to America, where Mr. Hazlitt preached before the new Assembly of the States-General of New Jersey, lectured at Philadelphia on the Evidences of Christianity, founded the First Unitarian Church at Boston, and declined a proffered diploma of D.D. In 1786-7 he returned to England and took up his abode at Wem, in Shropshire. His elder son, John, was now old enough to choose a vocation, and chose that of a miniature-painter. The second child, Peggy, had begun to paint also, amateurishly in oils. William, aged eight--a child out of whose recollection all memories of Bandon and of America (save the taste of barberries) soon faded--took his education at home and at a local school. His father designed him for the Unitarian ministry.