Excerpt from Shakespeare's Plays: A Chapter of Stage History, an Essay on the Shakesperian Drama The title of this paper, I trust, fairly indicates the subject proposed. It does not treat of Shake speare personally; nor of his plays, described Simply with reference to himself. There is no attempt to Show how the plays became what they are; I simply take them as they stand, and try to show what has been done with them Since they came from the mind of the poet. I want to tell something of the condi tions under which they have been presented during a long series of years; for although Shakespeare is so much more to us than a mere writer of stage plays, I dare assert that now, as in his own day, the theatre is his proper and most natural home. He may be studied and dearly prized in all places but to know Shakespeare in his fulness, without the agency of the stage, is, to my mind, as impossible as to taste the magical charm of snowy peaks and glaciers only from poring over books of science at home. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.