_The Lectures on the Dramatic Literature of the Age of Elizabeth; Delivered at the Surrey Institution_, _By William Hazlitt_, were published in 8vo (8¾ × 5¼), in the year of their delivery, 1820, and they were reviewed in the same year in _The Edinburgh Review_. A second edition was published in 1821, of which the present issue is a reprint. The half-title reads simply ‘Hazlitt’s Lectures,’ and the imprint is ‘London: John Warren, Old Bond-Street, MDCCCXXI.’ An ‘Erratum,’ behind the Advertisement, ‘Page 18, l. 20, _for_ “wildnesses,” _read_ wildernesses,’ has been corrected in the present text. CONTENTS LECTURE I. PAGE Introductory.—General view of the Subject 175 LECTURE II. On the Dramatic Writers contemporary with Shakespear, Lyly, 192 Marlow, Heywood, Middleton, and Rowley LECTURE III. On Marston, Chapman, Deckar, and Webster 223 LECTURE IV. On Beaumont and Fletcher, Ben Jonson, Ford, and Massinger 248 LECTURE V. On single Plays, Poems, &c., the Four P’s, the Return from 274 Parnassus, Gammer Gurton’s Needle, and other Works LECTURE VI. On Miscellaneous Poems, F. Beaumont, P. Fletcher, Drayton, Daniel, 295 &c., Sir P. Sidney’s Arcadia, and Sonnets LECTURE VII. Character of Lord Bacon’s Work—compared as to style with Sir 326 Thomas Brown and Jeremy Taylor LECTURE VIII. On the Spirit of Ancient and Modern Literature—on the German 345 Drama, contrasted with that of the Age of Elizabeth ADVERTISEMENT By the Age of Elizabeth (as it relates to the History of our Literature) I would be understood to mean the time from the Reformation, to the end of Charles I. including the Writers of a certain School or style of Poetry or Prose, who flourished together or immediately succeeded one another within this period. I have, in the following pages, said little of two of the greatest Writers of that Age, Shakespear and Spenser, because I had treated of them separately in former Publications. LECTURES ON THE AGE OF ELIZABETH, &c. LECTURE I.—INTRODUCTORY GENERAL VIEW OF THE SUBJECT