David Nichol Smith 
Shakespeare Criticism 
A Selection

Whilst the greatest effort has been made to ensure the quality of this text, due to the historical nature of this content, in some rare cases there may be minor issues with legibility. This little volume has thus many predecessors. It does not, however, as far as the editor is aware, follow directly in the tracks of any of them. While it claims to give the greatest pieces of Shakespeare criticism from his death till the middle of the nine teenth century, it also tries to represent the general movement in critical Opinion and method. Occa sionally an extract has been included mainly be cause the views it expresses were novel or important at the time of publication, or because it helps to place the work of subsequent critics in truer perspective.