AN
A T T E M P T
TO ASCERTAIN THE
O R D E R
IN WHICH THE
P L A Y S attributed to S H A K S P E A R E
were Written.
Primuſque per avia campi
Uſque procul, (necdum totas lux moverat umbras)
Neſcio quid viſu dubium, incertumque moveri,
Corporaque ire videt.Statius.
Trattando l’ombre come coſa ſalda.Dante.
EVERY circumſtance that relates to thoſe perſons whoſe writings we admire, intereſts our curioſity. The time and place of their birth, their education and gradual attainments, the dates of their productions and the reception they ſeverally met with, their habits of life, their private friendſhips, and even their external form, are all points, which, how little ſoever they may have been adverted to by their contemporaries, ſtrongly engage the attention of poſterity. Not ſatisfied with receiving the aggregated wiſdom of ages as a free gift, we viſit the manſions where our inſtructors are ſaid to have reſided, we contemplate with pleaſure the trees under whoſe ſhade they once repoſed, and wiſh to ſee and to converſe with thoſe ſages, whoſe labours have added ſtrength to virtue, and efficacy to truth.
Shakſpeare above all writers, ſince the days of Homer has excited this curioſity in the higheſt degree; as perhaps no poet of any nation was ever more idolized by his countrymen. An ardent deſire to underſtand and explain his works, has, to the honour of the preſent age, ſo much encreaſed within theſe laſt thirty years, that more has been
