21 JUNE 1919, Page 21

Prominent Points in the Life and Writings of Shakespeare. Arranged

in Four Tables by William Poel, Founder and Director of the Elizabethan Stage Society. (Manchester : at the Uni- versity Press. London : Longinans. 2s. net.)—These tables originally appeared in the Bulletin of the John Rylands Library, and are now reprinted with corrections and additions. Tables I. and IL show what is proved and what is not proved about the poet's life and writings, the former being limited to the Eliza- bethan and the latter to the Jacobean period. The third table gives a list of the playhouses where, and a chronology of dates at which, the plays were acted. The fourth table gives an analysis of act and scene divisions in the 1623 Folio, in which such 'divisions appeared for the first time ; showing also the comparative length of the several plays and acts. The method of arrangement is throughout excellently calculated for easy reference," and' should Make the work extremely useful to all who embark on an accurate study of Shakespeare and his period. The first two tables will enable them, almost at a glance, to ascertain the exact weight of authority for each statement in any I ivre,phy of the poet, while the two later ones throw valuable light on the history of the production of his plays, and the form in which they originally appeared.