Lastly, in Shakspeare the heterogeneous is united, as it is in nature. You must not suppose a pressure or passion always acting on or in the character;--passion in Shakspeare is that by which the individual is distinguished from others, not that which makes a different kind of him. Shakspeare followed the main march of the human affections. He entered into no analysis of the passions or faiths of men, but assured himself that such and such passions and faiths were grounded in our common nature, and not in the mere accidents of ignorance or disease. This is an important consideration, and constitutes our Shakspeare the morning star, the guide and the pioneer, of true philosophy. [Footnote 1: For the most part communicated by Mr. Justice Coleridge. Ed.] [Footnote 2: Æsch. Eumen. v. 230-239. 'Notandum est, scenam jam Athenas translatam sic institui, ut primo Orestes solus conspiciatur in templo Minerva: supplex ejus simulacrum venerans; paulo post autem eum consequantur Eumenides, &c.' Schiitz's note. The recessions of the chorus were termed 'peravaoraneu'. There is another instance in the Ajax, v. 814. Ed.] ORDER OF SHAKSPEARE'S PLAYS. Various attempts have been made to arrange the plays of Shakspeare, each according to its priority in time, by proofs derived from external documents. How unsuccessful these attempts have been might easily be shown, not only from the widely different results arrived at by men, all deeply versed in the black-letter books, old plays, pamphlets, manuscript records and catalogues of that age, but also from the fallacious and unsatisfactory nature of the facts and assumptions on which the evidence rests. In that age, when the press was chiefly occupied with controversial or practical divinity,--when the law, the church and the state engrossed all honour and respectability,--when a degree of disgrace, 'levior quædam infamiæ macula', was attached to the publication of poetry, and even to have sported with the Muse, as a private relaxation, was supposed to be--a venial fault, indeed, yet--something beneath the gravity of a wise man,--when the professed poets were so poor, that the very expenses of the press demanded the liberality of some wealthy individual, so that two thirds of Spenser's poetic works, and those most highly praised by his learned admirers and friends, remained for many years in manuscript, and in manuscript perished,--when the amateurs of the stage were comparatively few, and therefore for the greater part more or less known to each other,--when we know that the plays of Shakspeare, both during and after his life, were the property of the stage, and published by the players, doubtless according to their notions of acceptability with the visitants of the theatre,--in such an age, and under such circumstances, can an allusion or reference to any drama or poem in the publication of a contemporary be received as conclusive evidence, that such drama or poem had at that