likening of Shakespeare to a ship, beaten and storm-tossed, but yet
     entering harbour with sails full-set, to anchor in peace.

Such, in fact, is the general opinion of modern writers upon Shakespeare; after a happy youth and a gloomy middle age he reached at last—­it is the universal opinion—­a state of quiet serenity in which he died.  Professor Dowden’s book on ‘Shakespeare’s Mind and Art’ gives the most popular expression to this view, a view which is also held by Mr. Ten Brink, by Sir I. Gollancz, and, to a great extent, by Dr. Brandes.  Professor Dowden, indeed, has gone so far as to label this final period with the appellation of ‘On the Heights,’ in opposition to the preceding one, which, he says, was passed ‘In the Depths.’  Sir Sidney Lee, too, seems to find, in the Plays at least, if not in Shakespeare’s mind, the orthodox succession of gaiety, of tragedy, and of the serenity of meditative romance.

Now it is clear that the most important part of this version of Shakespeare’s mental history is the end of it.  That he did eventually attain to a state of calm content, that he did, in fact, die happy—­it is this that gives colour and interest to the whole theory.  For some reason or another, the end of a man’s life seems naturally to afford the light by which the rest of it should be read; last thoughts do appear in some strange way to be really best and truest; and this is particularly the case when they fit in nicely with the rest of the story, and are, perhaps, just what one likes to think oneself.  If it be true that Shakespeare, to quote Professor Dowden, ’did at last attain to the serene self-possession which he had sought with such persistent effort’; that, in the words of Dr. Furnivall, ’forgiven and forgiving, full of the highest wisdom and peace, at one with family and friends and foes, in harmony with Avon’s flow and Stratford’s level meads, Shakespeare closed his life on earth’—­we have obtained a piece of knowledge which is both interesting and pleasant.  But if it be not true, if, on the contrary, it can be shown that something very different was actually the case, then will it not follow that we must not only reverse our judgment as to this particular point, but also readjust our view of the whole drift and bearing of Shakespeare’s ‘inner life’?

The group of works which has given rise to this theory of ultimate serenity was probably entirely composed after Shakespeare’s final retirement from London, and his establishment at New Place.  It consists of three plays—­Cymbeline, The Winter’s Tale, and The Tempest—­and three fragments—­the Shakespearean parts of Pericles, Henry VIII., and The Two Noble Kinsmen.  All these plays and portions of plays form a distinct group; they resemble each other in a multitude of ways, and they differ in a multitude of ways from nearly all Shakespeare’s previous work.