time been published? Or, further, can the priority of publication itself prove any thing in favour of actually prior composition. We are tolerably certain, indeed, that the Venus and Adonis, and the Rape of Lucrece, were his two earliest poems, and though not printed until 1593, in the twenty ninth year of his age, yet there can be little doubt that they had remained by him in manuscript many years. For Mr. Malone has made it highly probable, that he had commenced a writer for the stage in 1591, when he was twenty seven years old, and Shakspeare himself assures us that the Venus and Adonis was the first heir of his invention.[1] Baffled, then, in the attempt to derive any satisfaction from outward documents, we may easily stand excused if we turn our researches towards the internal evidences furnished by the writings themselves, with no other positive 'data' than the known facts, that the Venus and Adonis was printed in 1593, the Rape of Lucrece in 1594, and that the Romeo and Juliet had appeared in 1595,--and with no other presumptions than that the poems, his very first productions, were written many years earlier,--(for who can believe that Shakspeare could have remained to his twenty-ninth or thirtieth year without attempting poetic composition of any kind?)--and that between these and Romeo and Juliet there had intervened one or two other dramas, or the chief materials, at least, of them, although they may very possibly have appeared after the success of the Romeo and Juliet and some other circumstances had given the poet an authority with the proprietors, and created a prepossession in his favour with the theatrical audiences. [Footnote 1: But if the first heir of my invention prove deformed, I shall be sorry it had so noble a godfather, &c. Dedication of the V. and A. to Lord Southampton.] CLASSIFICATION ATTEMPTED, 1802. First Epoch. The London Prodigal. Cromwell. Henry VI., three parts, first edition. The old King John. Edward III. The old Taming of the Shrew. Pericles. All these are transition-works, 'Uebergangs-werke'; not his, yet of him. Second Epoch. All's Well That Ends Well;--but afterwards worked up afresh, (umgearbeitet) especially Parolles. The Two Gentlemen of Verona; a sketch. Romeo and Juliet; first draft of it. Third Epoch rises into the full, although youthful, Shakspeare; it was the negative period of his perfection. Love's Labour's Lost. Twelfth Night. As You Like It. Midsummer Night's Dream. Richard II. Henry IV. and V. Henry VIII.; 'Gelegenheitsgedicht'. Romeo and Juliet, as at present. Merchant of Venice. Fourth Epoch. Much Ado About Nothing. Merry Wives of Windsor; first edition. Henry VI.; 'rifacimento'. Fifth Epoch. The period of beauty was now past; and that of [GREEK (transliterated): deinotaes] and grandeur succeeds.