Excerpt from Shakespeare's Comedy of the Two Gentlemen of Verona: Edited, With Notes Johnson, and has been rejected by all succeeding critics. On the contrary, as Verplanck remarks, The play is full of undeniable marks of the author in its strong resemblance in taste and style to his earlier plays and poems, as well as in the indications it gives Of his future power of original humour and vivid delineation of char acter. It, indeed, has the characteristics of a young author who had already acquired a ready and familiar mastery of poetic diction and varied versification, and who had studied nature with a poet's eyes for the play abounds in brief passages of great beauty and melody. There are here, too, as in his other early dramas, out lines of thought and touches of character, sometimes faintly or imperfectly sketched, to which he afterwards returned in his maturer years, and wrought them out into his most striking scenes and impressive passages. Thus, Julia and Silvia are, both of them, evidently early studies of female love and loveliness, from the un practised prentice hand of the same great artist who was afterwards to portray with matchless delicacy and truth the deeper affections, the nobler intellects, and the varied imaginative genius of Viola, of Rosalind, and of Imogen. Indeed, as a drama of character, however inferior to his own after-creations, it is, when compared with the works of his predecessors and con temporaries, superior alike in taste and in originality. As Mr. Hallam justly observes, 'it was probably the first English comedy in which characters are drawn ideal and yet true;' although, when contrasted with. 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.