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Yet when I fpeak thus flightly of dramatick rules, I cannot but recollect how much wit and learning may be produced againft me; before fuch authorities I am afraid to ftand, not that I think the present queftion one of those that are to be decided by mere authority, but because it is to be fufpected, that these precepts have not been fo eafily received, but for better reasons than I have yet been able to find. The result of my enquiries, in which it would be ludicrous to boast of impartiality, is, that the unities of time and place are not effential to a juft drama, that though they may fometimes conduce to pleasure, they are always to be facrificed to the nobler beauties of variety and instruction; and that a play, written with nice obfervation of critical rules, is to be contemplated as an elaborate curiofity, as the product of fuperfluous and oftentatious art, by which is fhewn, rather what is poffible, than what is neceffary.

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He that, without diminution of any other excellence, fhall preserve all the unities unbroken, deserves the like applause with the architect, who shall difplay all the orders of architecture in a citadel, without any deduction from its ftrength; but the principal beauty of a citadel is to exclude the enemy; and the greatest graces of a play are to copy nature, and infruct life.

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Perhaps, what I have here not dogmatically but deliberately written, may recal the principles of the drama to a new examination. I am almoft frighted at my own temerity; and when I eftimate the fame and the ftrength of those that maintain the contrary

opinion,

opinion, am ready to fink down in reverential filence; as Æneas withdrew from the defence of Troy, when he faw Neptune shaking the wall, and Juno heading the befiegers.wa

Those whom my arguments, cannot perfuade to give their approbation to the judgment of Shakespeare, will eafily, if they confider the condition of his life, make fome allowance for his ignorance.

Every man's performances, to be rightly estimated, must be compared with the ftate of the age in which he lived, and with his own particular opportunities; and though to a reader a book be not worse or better for the circumftances of the author, yet as there is always a filent reference of human works to human abilities, and as the enquiry, how far man may extend his defigns, or how high he may rate his native force, is of far greater dignity than in what rank we fhall place any particular performance, curiofity is always busy to discover the inftruments, as well as to furvey the workmanship, to know how much is to be ascribed to original powers, and how much to cafual and adventitious help. The palaces of Peru or Mexico were certainly mean and incommodious habitations, if compared to the houses of European monarchs; yet who could forbear to view them with aftonishment, who remembered that they were built without the use of iron?

The English nation, in the time of Shakespeare, was yet struggling to emerge from barbarity. The philology of Italy had been tranfplanted hither in the

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reign of Henry, the Eighth; and the learned languages had been fuccefsfully cultivated by Lilly, Linacre, and More; by Pole, Cheke, and Gardiner; and afterwards by Smith, Clerk, Haddon, and Afcham. Greek was now taught to boys in the principal schools; and those who united elegance with learning, read, with great diligence, the Italian and Spanish poets. But literature was yet confined to profeffed scholars, or to men and women of high rank. The publick was grofs and dark; and to be able to read and write, was an accoinplifhment fill valued for its rarity.

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Nations, like individuals, have their infancy.A people newly awakened to literary curiofity, being yet unacquainted with the true ftate of things, knows not how to judge of that which is propofed as its refemblance. Whatever is remote from common appearances is always welcome to vulgar, as to childish credulity; and of a country unenlightened by learning, the whole people is the vulgar. The ftudy of those who then afpired to plebeian learning was laid out upon adventures, giants, dragons, and enchantments. The Death of Arthur was the favourite

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The mind, which has feafted on the luxurious wonders of fiction, has no tafte of the infipidity of truth. A play, which imitated only, the cominion occurrences of the world, would, upon the admirers of Palmerin and Guy of Warwick, have made little impreffion; he that wrote for fuch an audience was under the neceffity of looking round for ftrange

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events and fabulous transactions, and that incredibi lity, by which maturer knowledge is offended, was the chief recommendation of writings, to unfkilful curiofity.

Our author's plots are generally borrowed from novels; and it is reasonable to fuppofe, that he chose the most popular, fuch as were read by many, and related by more; for his audience could not have followed him through the intricacies of the drama, had they not held the thread of the story in their hands.

The ftories, which we now find only in remoter authors, were in his time acceffible and familiar. The fable of As you like it, which is fuppofed to be copied from Chaucer's Gamelyn, was a little pamphlet of thofe times; and old Mr. Cibber remembered the tale of Hamlet in plain English profe, which the criticks have now to feek in Saxo Grammaticus.

His English hiftories he took from English chronicles and English ballads; and as the ancient writers were made known to his countrymen by verfions, they fupplied him with new fubjects; he dilated fome of Plutarch's lives into plays, when they had been tranflated by North. i

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His plots, whether hiftorical or fabulous, are always crouded with incidents, by which the attention of a rude people was more eafily caught than by fentiment or argumentation; and fuch is the power of the marvellous, even over thofe who defpife it, that

every man finds his mind more strongly feized by the tragedies of Shakespeare than of any other writer; others please us by particular speeches, but he always makes us anxious for the event, and has perhaps excelled all but Homer in fecuring the first purpose of a writer, by exciting reftlefs and unquenchable curiofity, and compelling him that reads his work to read it through.

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The shows and buftle with which his plays abound have the fame original. As knowledge advances, pleasure paffes from the eye to the ear, but returns, as it declines, from the ear to the eye. Thofe to whom our author's labours were exhibited had more fkill in pomps or proceffions than in poetical language, and perhaps wanted fome vifible and difcriminated events, as comments on the dialogue. He knew how he should most please; and whether his practice is more agreeable to nature, or whether his example has prejudiced the nation, we ftill find that on our stage fomething must be done as well as faid, and inactive declamation is very coldly heard, however musical or elegant, paffionate or fublime. d-frustysnu

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Voltaire expreffes his wonder, that our author's extravagancies are endured by a nation, which has feen the tragedy of Cato. Let him be anfwered, that Addison speaks the language of poets, and Shakefpeare, of men. We find in Cato innumerable beauties which enamour us of its author, but we seen nothing that acquaints us with human fentiments for human actions; we place it with the faireft and the nobleft progeny which judgment propagates by conjunction

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