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The Comedy of Errors is confeffedly taken from the Menæchmi of Plautus; from the only play of Plautus which was then in English. What can be more probable, than that he who copied that, would have copied more; but that thofe which were not tranflated were inacceffible?

Whether he knew the modern languages is uncertain. That his plays have fome French scenes proves but little; he might eafily procure them to be written, and probably, even though he had known the language in the common degree, he could not have written it without affiftance. In the story of Romeo and Juliet he is obferved to have followed the English tranflation, where it deviates from the Italian; but this on the other part proves nothing against his knowledge of the original. He was to copy, not what he knew himself, but what was known to his audience.

It is most likely that he had learned Latin fufficiently to make him acquainted with conftruction, but that he never advanced to an eafy perufal of the Roman authors. Concerning his skill in modern languages, I can find no fufficient ground of determination; but as no imitations of French or Italian authors have been discovered, though the Italian, poetry was then high in efteem, I am inclined to believe, that he read little more than English, and chose for his fables only fuch tales as he found tranflated.

That much knowledge is scattered over his works is very juftly observed by Pope, but it is often fuch VOL. I. [C]

know

knowledge as books did not fupply. He that will understand Shakespeare, muft not be content to study him in the clofet, he must look for his meaning fometimes among the fports of the field, and fometimes among the manufactures of the shop.

There is however proof enough that he was a very 'diligent reader, nor was our language then fo indigent of books, but that he might very liberally indulge his curiofity without excurfion into foreign literature. Many of the Roman authors were tranflated, and fome of the Greek; the Reformation had filled the kingdom with theological learning; moft of the topicks of human difquifition had found English writers; and poetry had been cultivated, not only with diligence, but fuccefs. This was a ftock of knowledge fufficient for a mind so capable of appropriating and improving it.

But the greater part of his excellence was the product of his own genius. He found the English stage in a ftate of the utmost rudeness; no effays either in tragedy or comedy had appeared, from which it could be discovered to what degree of delight either one or other might be carried. Neither character nor dialogue were yet underflood. Shakespeare may be truly faid to have introduced them both amongst us, and in fome of his happier fcenes to have carried them both to the utmoft height.

By what gradations of improvement he proceeded, is not eafily known; for the chronology of his works is yet unfettled. Rowe is of opinion, that perhaps

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we are not to look for his beginning, like thofe of other writers, in his leaft perfect works; art had fo little, and nature fo large a fhare in what he did, that for ought I know, fays he, the performances of his youth, as they were the most vigorous, were the beft. But the power of nature is only the power of ufing to any certain purpose the materials which diligence procures, or opportunity fupplies. Nature gives no man knowledge, and when images are collected by ftudy and experience, can only affift in combining or applying them. Shakespeare, however favoured by nature, could impart only what he had learned; and as he muft increase his ideas, like other mortals, by gradual acquifition, he, like them, grew wifer as he grew older, could difplay life better, as he knew it more, and inftruct with more efficacy, as he was himself more amply instructed.

There is a vigilance of obfervation and accuracy of distinction which books and precepts cannot confer; from this almost all original and native excellence proceeds. Shakespeare must have looked upon mankind with perfpicacity, in the highest degree curious and attentive. Other writers borrow their characters from preceding writers, and diverfify them only by the accidental appendages of prefent manners; the dress is a little varied, but the body is the fame. Our author had both matter and form to provide; for, except the characters of Chaucer, to whom I think he is not much indebted, there were no writers in English, and perhaps not many in other modern languages, which fhewed life in its native colours.

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The contest about the original benevolence or malignity of man had not yet commenced. Speculation had not yet attempted to analyfe the mind, to trace the paffions to their fources, to unfold the feminal principles of vice and virtue, or found the depths of the heart for the motives of action. All thofe enquiries, which from that time that human nature became the fashionable ftudy, have been made fometimes with nice difcernment, but often with idle fubtilty, were yet unattempted. The tales, with which the infancy of learning was fatisfied, exhibited only the fuperficial appearances of action, related the events, but omitted the causes, and were formed for fuch as delighted in wonders rather than in truth. Mankind was not then to be ftudied in the clofet; he that would know the world, was under the neceffity of gleaning his own remarks, by mingling as he could in its bufinefs and amufements.

Boyle congratulated himself upon his high birth, because it favoured his curiofity, by facilitating his accefs. Shakespeare had no fuch advantage; he came to London a needy adventurer, and lived for a time by very mean employments. Many works of genius and learning have been performed in ftates of life that appear very little favourable to thought or to enquiry; fo many, that he who confiders them is inclined to think that he fees enterprize and perfeverance predominating over all external agency, and bidding help and hindrance vanith before them. The genius of Shakespeare was not to be depreffed by the weight of poverty, nor limited by the narrow converfation to which men in want are inevitably con

demned;

demned; the incumbrances of his fortune were fhaken from his mind, as dew-drops from a lion's

mane.

Though he had fo many difficulties to encounter, and fo little affiftance to furmount them, he has been able to obtain an exact knowledge of many modes of life, and many cafts of native difpofitions; to vary them with great multiplicity; to mark them by nice diftinctions; and to fhew them in full view by proper combinations. In this part of his performances he had none to imitate, but has been himself imitated by all fucceeding writers; and it may be doubted, whether from all his fucceffors more maxims of theoretical knowledge, or more rules of practical prudence, can be collected, than he alone has given to his country.

Nor was his attention confined to the actions of men; he was an exact furveyor of the inanimate world; his defcriptions have always fome peculiarities, gathered by contemplating things as they really exift. It may be observed, that the oldeft poets of many nations preferve their reputation, and that the following generations of wit, after a fhort celebrity, fink into oblivion. The firft, whoever they be, must take their fentiments and defcriptions immediately from knowledge; the refemblance is therefore juft, their defcriptions are verified by every eye, and their fentiments acknowledged by every breaft. Those whom their fame invites to the fame ftudies, copy partly them, and partly nature, till the books of one age gain fuch authority, as to ftand in

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