Ignorance or Learning of Shakspeare--Costume as observed by Shakspeare, and how far necessary, or may be dispensed with, in the Drama--Shakspeare the greatest drawer of Character--Vindication of the genuineness of his pathos--Play on Words--Moral Delicacy--Irony-Mixture of the Tragic and Comic--The part of the Fool or Clown--Shakspeare's Language and Versification. LECTURE XXIV. Criticisms on Shakspeare's Comedies. LECTURE XXV. Criticisms on Shakspeare's Tragedies. LECTURE XXVI. Criticisms on Shakspeare's Historical Dramas. LECTURE XXVII. Two Periods of the English Theatre: the first the most important--The first Conformation of the Stage, and its Advantages--State of the Histrionic Art in Shakspeare's Time--Antiquities of Dramatic Literature-- Lilly, Marlow, Heywood--Ben Jonson; Criticism of his Works--Masques-- Beaumont and Fletcher--General Characterization of these Poets, and Remarks on some of their Pieces--Massinger and other Contemporaries of Charles I. LECTURE XXVIII. Closing of the Stage by the Puritans--Revival of the Stage under Charles II.--Depravity of Taste and Morals--Dryden, Otway, and others-- Characterization of the Comic Poets from Wycherley and Congreve to the Middle of the Eighteenth Century--Tragedies of the same Period--Rowe-- Addison's _Cato_--Later Pieces--Familiar Tragedy: Lillo--Garrick-- Latest State. LECTURE XXIX. Spanish Theatre--Its three Periods: Cervantes, Lope de Vega, Calderon-- Spirit of the Spanish Poetry in general--Influence of the National History on it--Form, and various Species of the Spanish Drama--Decline since the beginning of the Eighteenth Century. LECTURE XXX. Origin of the German Theatre--Hans Sachs--Gryphius--The Age of Gottsched-- Wretched Imitation of the French--Lessing, Goethe, and Schiller--Review of their Works--Their Influence on Chivalrous Dramas, Affecting Dramas, and Family Pictures--Prospect for Futurity. PREFACE OF THE TRANSLATOR.