CHARACTERS OF SHAKESPEARE'S PLAYS
By WILLIAM HAZLITT
With an Introduction by SIR ARTHUR QUILLER-COUCH
INTRODUCTION
The book here included among The World's Classics made its first
appearance as an octavo volume of xxiv + 352 pages, with the title-
page:
Characters of Shakespeare's Plays, By William Hazlitt. London:
Printed by C. H. Reynell, 21 Piccadilly, 1817.
William Hazlitt (1778-1830) came of an Irish Protestant stock, and
of a branch of it transplanted in the reign of George I from the
county of Antrim to Tipperary. His father migrated, at nineteen, to
the University of Glasgow (where he was contemporary with Adam