fication of the popular hatred of the Jew. There is no humanity about him as there is about Shakespeare's Shylock. Even Dr. Faustus is not strongly individualized. Yet Faustus is after all a fine type of medieval rebel, pursuing the path of forbidden knowledge with unholy ardor. Mortimer, in Edward II, reminds us a little of Shakespeare's Hotspur. And Edward II reveals, in the end, a distinct personality, weak in many ways, it is true, but with the genuine dignity and strength of kingship behind all the folly and caprice. Marlowe's characters lack the delicate, refining touches of finished work; but they are colossal figures, grandly conceived and magnificently executed.

Marlowe's Blank Verse. Marlowe also did much for the development of blank verse. The schoolmen had employed lines of ten syllables without rime since the time Gorboduc was written, but their failure to produce varied and rhythmical verse was conspicuous. There was not the jingle of the recurring rime, but each line stood awkwardly in its place, stiff, monotonous, isolated. Marlowe made the thought flow on from line to line unimpeded; balanced phrase against phrase; built up periods as in prose; and by a variety of cadences gave to the verse a changing melody. Some of his later lines would not seem out of place in Shakespeare.

Periods of Shakespeare's Work. - Shakespeare carried on and developed the Marlowe tradition, adding to dignity and strength, delicacy and humor. The year 1600 divides Shakespeare's work almost exactly in the middle. For ten or twelve years before, and for ten or twelve years after 1600, he was closely connected with the London public theater both as playwright and actor. These two periods in turn divide themselves almost equally, making four welldefined periods in the development of Shakespeare's art as a dramatist. The first period was a time of apprenticeship

and experiment, when he was working out from under the influence of other men, and feeling his way along new lines of dramatic work. Romeo and Juliet and A Midsummer Night's Dream belong to this period. Professor Dowden characterizes this time by the catch phrase "In the Workshop." During the second period (1595-1601) Shakespeare was enlarging his experience of the world, delighting in its pageantry, analyzing its forces, formulating its laws, and learning to express himself with freedom of style and mastery of dramatic form. It is the great objective period of the poet's life. Professor Dowden characterizes it by the phrase "In the World." Here belong Henry V and Twelfth Night as typical plays. In the third period (1601-1608) Shakespeare was concerned with the deeper experiences of life, not the pageantry of the world without, but the problems of the world within. He wrestled with the problem of the inner life, the motives for conduct, the passions of the human heart. Professor Dowden calls this period "Out of the Depths." To it belong the great tragedies, of which Macbeth and Hamlet are examples. In the fourth period (1608-1612) the poet worked away from this dark and somber tragedy, from experiences of questioning and tumult and passion, into a serene philosophic calm. "On the Heights" is Professor Dowden's phrase for this period. Typical plays are The Tempest and Winter's Tale. "In the Workshop," "In the World," "Out of the Depths," "On the Heights"; apprenticeship, objective experience, subjective analysis, philosophic serenity this represents a bird's-eye view of Shakespeare's mental development. The following table classifies the poet's works according to the four periods:

First Period, Early Experiment. Venus and Adonis, Rape of Lucrece, 1594; Titus Andronicus, Henry VI (three parts), 1590-1591; Love's Labour's Lost, 1590; Comedy of

Errors, Two Gentlemen of Verona, 1591-1592; Richard III, 1593; Richard II, King John, 1594-1595; Sonnets, 15931598.

Second Period, Development. Romeo and Juliet, Midsummer Night's Dream, 1595; Merchant of Venice, Henry IV (first part), 1596; Henry IV (second part), Merry Wives of Windsor, 1597; Much Ado About Nothing, 1598; As You Like It, Henry V, 1599.

Third Period, Maturity and Gloom. Twelfth Night, 1600; Taming of the Shrew, Julius Cæsar, Hamlet, Troilus and Cressida, 1601-1602; All's Well That Ends Well, Measure for Measure, 1603; Othello, 1604; King Lear, 1605; Macbeth, 1606; Antony and Cleopatra, Timon of Athens, 1607.

Fourth Period, Philosophic Serenity. Coriolanus, Pericles, 1608; Cymbeline, 1609; Winter's Tale, 1610-1611; The Tempest, 1611; Henry VIII.

Shakespeare was not a genius who wrote as well at the beginning as at the end of his career. He had to learn his art just as other men do. He learned, however, through experiment and not by writing from models; for with the exception of some of Marlowe's work he had in the plays then in vogue in the public theaters only crude models to work from, and the classical plays of the schools were not adapted to the popular taste. His work was to develop dramatic types which were both successful stage plays and pieces of literary art. The principal Shakespearean types are history, comedy, and tragedy. All three existed in a crude form when he began to write for the stage. He developed each to a high degree of perfection.

The History Play, or, more strictly, the Chronicle History play, never shook off the older conventional form, even under Shakespeare's hand. The serious main plot and the comic underplot remained side by side without a connection