William Shakespeare as a sign that his acting career was nearing its end. The First Folio of 1623, however, lists Shakespeare as one of "the Principal Actors in all these Plays", some of which were first staged after "Volpone", although we cannot know for certain which roles he played. In 1610, John Davies of Hereford wrote that "good Will" played "kingly" roles. In 1709, Rowe passed down a tradition that Shakespeare played the ghost of Hamlet's father. Later traditions maintain that he also played Adam in "As You Like It", and the Chorus in "Henry V", though scholars doubt the sources of
Characters of Shakespear's Plays including that of A.C. Bradley, G. Wilson Knight, and C.L. Barber. Hazlitt, concludes, Kinnaird, was too often misunderstood and dismissed as no more than a "character" critic. But his contribution to Shakespeare studies was much broader and deeper than that, and, despite problems with some of Hazlitt's own theories, "Characters of Shakespear's Plays" was a "seminal" work. By this time, a revival of interest in Hazlitt was well under way. Only a few years later, in 1983, in his study of Hazlitt as critic, David Bromwich considers at length some issues involving "Characters of Shakespear's Plays". Against some allegations to