ON THE HISTORICAL PLAYS OF SHAKSPEARE. BY THE RIGHT HON. THOMAS PEREGRINE COURTENAY. IN TWO VOLUMES. VOL. I. LONDON: HENRY COLBURN, PUBLISHER, GREAT MARLBOROUGH STREET. PREFACE. THE greater part of the following Commentaries was published in the popular Miscellany* edited by Theodore Hook, whose approbation, as a man equally acute and amiable, is very gratifying to me this preface contains the substance of the observations with which I introduced my papers to the public. It was not without real diffidence that I attempted further comments upon Shakspeare. I do not affect to have discovered new beauties in that writer, nor can I boast of the power to place in a more striking light, those which have now for some ages delighted the readers of the English language. But it appeared * New Monthly Magazine, June 1838 to March 1839; under the title of Shakspeare's Historical Plays considered historically.' 460960 |