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The Plays of W. Shakespeare, 2; Accurately Printed From the Text of the Connected Copies Left by the Late
The Plays of W Shakespeare 2 Accurately Printed From the Text of the Connected Copies Left by the Late Author:William Shakespeare General Books publication date: 2009 Original publication date: 1856 Original Publisher: Logman and Co. Notes: This is a black and white OCR reprint of the original. It has no illustrations and there may be typos or missing text. When you buy the General Books edition of this book you get free trial access to Million-Books.com where you can ... more »select from more than a million books for free. Excerpt: " that if he had been read, admired, studied, and imi- " tated, in the same degree as he is now, the enthusiasm " of some one or other of his admirers in the last age " would have induced him to make some inquiries con- " cerning the history of his theatrical career, and the " anecdotes of his private life ." His admirers, however, if he had admirers in that age, possessed no portion of such enthusiasm. That curiosity, which in our days has raised biography to the rank of an independent study, was scarcely known, and where known, was confined principally to the publick ' transactions of eminent characters, principally divines, of whom a few brief notices were prefixed to their works; but we are not sure that any of these are of an older date than 1616. And if, in addition to the circumstances already stated, we consider how little is known of the personal history of Shakspeare's contemporaries, we may easily resolve the question, why, of all men who have ever claimed admiration by genius, wisdom, or valour, who have eminently contributed to enlarge the taste, promote the happiness, or increase the reputation of their country, we know the least of Shakspeare; and why, of the few particulars which seem entitled to credit, when simply related, and in which there is no manifest violation of probability or promise of importance, there is scarcely one which has not swelled into a controversy. After a careful examination of all that modern research has discovered, we know not how to trust our curiosity beyond the limits of those barren dates which afford no personal history...« less