In attempting this, it has been his aim to place Shakspeare in the fore-ground of the picture, and to throw around him, in groups more or less distinct and full, the various objects of his design; giving them prominency and light, according to their greater or smaller connection with the principal figure. More especially has it been his wish, to infuse throughout the whole plan, whether considered in respect to its entire scope, or to the parts of which it is composed, that degree of unity and integrity, of relative proportion and just bearing, without which neither harmony, simplicity, nor effect, can be expected, or produced. With a view, also, to distinctness and perspicuity of elucidation, the whole has been distributed into three parts or pictures, entitled,—"SHAKSPEARE IN STRATFORD;"—"SHAKSPEARE IN LONDON;"— "SHAKSPEARE IN RETIREMENT;"—which, though inseparably united, as forming but portions of the same story, and harmonized by the same means, have yet, both in subject and execution, a peculiar character to support. The _first_ represents our Poet in the days of his youth, on the banks of his native Avon, in the midst of rural imagery, occupations, and amusements; in the _second_, we behold him in the capital of his country, in the centre of rivalry and competition, in the active pursuit of reputation and glory; and in the _third_, we accompany the venerated bard to the shades of retirement, to the bosom of domestic peace, to the enjoyment of unsullied fame. It has, therefore, been the business of the author, in accordancy with his plan, to connect these delineations with their relative accompaniments; to incorporate, for instance, with the first, what he had to relate of the _country_, as it existed in the age of Shakspeare; its manners, customs, and characters; its festivals, diversions, and many of its superstitions; opening and closing the subject with the biography of the poet, and binding the intermediate parts, not only by a perpetual reference to his drama, but by their own constant and direct tendency towards the developement of the one object in view. With the _second_, which commences with Shakspeare's introduction to the stage as an actor, is combined the poetic, dramatic, and general literature of the times, together with an account of _metropolitan_ manners and diversions, and a full and continued criticism on the poems and plays of our bard. After a survey, therefore, of the Literary world, under the heads of Bibliography, Philology, Criticism, History, Romantic, and Miscellaneous Literature, follows a View of the Poetry of the same period, succeeded by a critique on the juvenile productions of Shakspeare, and including a biographical sketch of Lord Southampton, and a new hypothesis on the origin and object of the Sonnets.