The Tempest 238 The Midsummer Night’s Dream 244 Romeo and Juliet 248 Lear 257 Richard II. 272 Henry IV. in Two Parts 277 Henry V. 285 Henry VI. in Three Parts 292 Richard III. 298 Henry VIII. 303 King John 306 Twelfth Night; or, What You Will 313 The Two Gentlemen of Verona 318 The Merchant of Venice 320 The Winter’s Tale 324 All’s Well that Ends Well 329 Love’s Labour’s Lost 332 Much Ado About Nothing 335 As You Like It 338 The Taming of the Shrew 341 Measure for Measure 345 The Merry Wives of Windsor 349 The Comedy of Errors 351 Doubtful Plays of Shakespear 353 Poems and Sonnets 357 PREFACE It is observed by Mr. Pope, that ‘If ever any author deserved the name of an _original_, it was Shakespear. Homer himself drew not his art so immediately from the fountains of nature; it proceeded through Ægyptian strainers and channels, and came to him not without some tincture of the learning, or some cast of the models, of those before him. The poetry of Shakespear was inspiration indeed: he is not so much an imitator, as an instrument of nature; and it is not so just to say that he speaks from her, as that she speaks through him.