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the place of nature to another, and imitation, always deviating a little, becomes at laft capricious and cafual. Shakespeare, whether life or nature be his fubject, fhews plainly, that he has feen with his own eyes; he gives the image which he receives, not weakened or distorted by the intervention of any other mind; the ignorant feel his reprefentations to be juft, and the learned fee that they are complete.

Perhaps it would not be eafy to find any author, except Homer, who invented fo much as Shakespeare, who fo much advanced the ftudies which he culti

vated, or effufed fo much novelty upon his age or country. The form, the characters, the language, and the fhows of the English drama are his. He feems, fays Dennis, to have been the very original of our English tragical harmony, that is, the harmony of blank verfe, diverfified often by diffyllable and triffyllable terminations. For the diverfity diftinguishes it from heroick harmony, and by bringing it nearer to common ufe makes it more proper to gain attention, and more fit for action and dialogue. Such verfe we make when we are writing profe; we make fuch verfe in common converfation.

I know not whether this praife is rigorously juft. The diffyllable termination, which the critick rightly appropriates to the drama, is to be found, though, I think, not in Gorboduc, which is confeffedly before our author; yet in Hieronymo, of which the date is not certain, but which there is reafon to believe at leaft as old as his carlieft plays. This however is cer

It appears from the induction of Ben Jonfon's Bartholomew Fair to have been acted before the year 1590.

STEEVENS,

tain, that he is the first who taught either tragedy or comedy to please, there being no theatrical piece of any older writer, of which the name is known, except to antiquaries and collectors of books, which are fought because they are fcarce, and would not have been scarce, had they been much efteemed.

To him we muft afcribe the praife, unless Spenfer may divide it with him, of having firft difcovered to how much smoothnefs and harmony the English language could be foftened. He has fpeeches, perhaps fometimes scenes, which have all the delicacy of Rowe, without his effeminacy. He endeavours indeed commonly to strike by the force and vigour of his dialogue, but he never executes his purpose better, than when he tries to footh by foftness.

Yet it must be at last confeffed, that as we owe every thing to him, he owes fomething to us; that, if much of his praife is paid by perception and judgment, much is likewife given by cuftom and veneration. We fix our eyes upon his graces, and turn them from his deformities, and endure in him what we should in another loath or defpife. If we endured without praifing, respect for the father of our drama might excufe us; but I have feen, in the book of fome modern critick, a collection of anomalies, which fhew that he has corrupted language by every mode of depravation, but which his admirer has accumulated as a monument of honour.

He has scenes of undoubted and perpetual excellence, but perhaps not one play, which, if it were [C 4]

now

now exhibited as the work of a contemporary writer, would be heard to the conclufion. I am indeed far from thinking, that his works were wrought to his own ideas of perfection; when they were fuch as would fatisfy the audience, they fatisfied the writer. It is feldom that authors, though more ftudious of fame than Shakespeare, rife much above the standard of their own age; to add a little to what is beft will always be fufficient for present praise, and those who find themfelves exalted into fame, are willing to credit their encomiafts, and to spare the labour of contending with themfelves.

It does not appear, that Shakespeare thought his works worthy of pofterity, that he levied any ideal. tribute upon future times, or had any further profpect, than of prefent popularity and prefent profit, When his plays had been acted, his hope was at an end; he folicited no addition of honour from the reader. He therefore made no fcruple to repeat the fame jefts in many dialogues, or to entangle different plots by the fame knot of perplexity, which may be at leaft forgiven him, by thofe who recollect, that of Congreve's four comedies, two are concluded by a marriage in a mask, by a deception, which perhaps never happened, and which, whether likely or not, he did not invent.

So careless was this great poet of future fame, that, though he retired to cafe and plenty, while he was yet little declined into the vale of years, before he could be difgufted with fatigue, or difabled by infirmity, he made no collection of his works, nor defired to

refcue

rescue those that had been already published from the depravations that obfcured them, or fecure to the reft a better destiny, by giving them to the world in their genuine state.

Of the plays which bear the name of Shakespeare in the late editions, the greater part were not published till about seven years after his death, and the few which appeared in his life are apparently thrust into the world without the care of the author, and therefore probably without his knowledge.

Of all the publishers, clandeftine or profeffed, their negligence and unskilfulness has by the late revisers been fufficiently fhewn. The faults of all are indeed numerous and grofs, and have not only corrupted many paffages perhaps beyond recovery, but have brought others into fufpicion, which are only obfcured by obfolete phrafeology, or by the writer's unfkilfulness and affectation. To alter is more easy than to explain, and temerity is a more common quality than diligence. Those who faw that they muft employ conjecture to a certain degree, were willing to indulge it a little further. Had the author published his own works, we should have fat quietly down to disentangle his intricacies, and clear his obfcurities; but now we tear what we cannot loofe, and eject what we happen not to understand.

The faults are more than could have happened, without the concurrence of many causes. The ftyle" of Shakespeare was in itself ungrammatical, perplexed, and obfcure; his works were transcribed for the

players

players by thofe who may be fuppofed to have feldom understood them; they were tranfmitted by copiers equally unfkilful, who ftill multiplied errors; they were perhaps fometimes mutilated by the actors, for the fake of shortening the fpeeches; and were at last printed without correction of the prefs.

In this ftate they remained, not as Dr. Warburton fuppofes, because they were unregarded, but because the editor's art was not yet applied to modern languages, and our ancestors were accustomed to fo much negligence of English printers, that they could very patiently endure it. At laft an edition was undertaken by Rowe; not becaufe a poet was to be published by a poet, for Rowe seems to have thought very little on correction or explanation, but that our author's works might appear like thofe of his fraternity, with the appendages of a life and recommendatory preface. Rowe has been clamorously blamed for not performing what he did not undertake, and it is time that juftice be done him, by confeffing, that though he feems to have had no thought of corruption beyond the printer's errors, yet he has made many emendations, if they were not made before, which bis fucceffors have received without acknowledgment, and which, if they had produced them, would have filled pages and pages with cenfures of the ftupidity by which the faults were committed, with difplays of the abfurdities which they involved, with oftentatious expofitions of the new reading, and felf-congratulations on the happinets of difcovering

it.

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