power to move, which conftitutes the perfection of dramatick poetry. This reafoning is fo fpecious, that it is received as true even by those who in daily experience feel it to be falfe. The interchanges of mingled fcenes feldom fail to produce the intended viciffitudes of paffion. Fiction cannot move fo much, but that the attention may be easily transferred; and though it must be allowed that pleasing melancholy be fometimes interrupted by unwelcome levity, yet let it be confidered likewife, that melancholy is often not pleasing, and that the difturbance of one man may be the relief of another; that different auditors have different habitudes; and that, upon the whole, all pleafure confifts in variety. The players, who in their edition divided our authour's works into comedies, hiftories, and tragedies, seem not to have diftinguished the three kinds, by any very exact or definite ideas. An action which ended happily to the principal perfons, however serious or diftrefsful through its intermediate incidents, in their opinion conftituted a comedy. This idea of a comedy continued long amongst us, and plays were written, which, by changing the catastrophe, were tragedies to-day and comedies to-morrow, Tragedy was not in thofe times a poem of more general dignity or elevation than comedy; it required only a calamitous conclufion, with which the common criticism of that age was fatisfied, whatever lighter pleasure it afforded in its progrefs. Hiftory Hiftory was a feries of actions, with no other than chronological fucceffion, independent of each other, and without any tendency to introduce or regulate the conclufion. It is not always very nicely diftinguished from tragedy. There is not much nearer approach to unity of action in the tragedy of Antony and Cleopatra, than in the hiftory of Richard the Second. But a hiftory might be continued through many plays; as it had no plan, it had no limits. Through all thefe denominations of the drama, Shakespeare's mode of compofition is the fame; an interchange of seriousness and merriment, by which the mind is foftened at one time, and exhilarated at another. But whatever be his purpose, whether to gladden or deprefs, or to conduct the ftory, without vehemence or emotion, through tracts of eafy and familiar dialogue, he never fails to attain his purpose; as he commands us, we laugh or mourn, or fit filent with quiet expectation, in tranquillity without indifference. When Shakespeare's plan is understood, moft of the criticisms of Rhymer and Voltaire vanish away. The play of Hamlet is opened, without impropriety, by two fentinels; Iago bellows at Brabantio's window, without injury to the fcheme of the play, though in terms which a modern audience would not 'eafily endure; the character of Polonius is feafonable and ufeful; and the Grave-diggers themfelves may be heard with applaufe. Shakespeare Shakespeare engaged in dramatick poetry with the world open before him; the rules of the ancients were yet known to few; the publick judgment was unformed; he had no example of fuch fame as might force him upon imitation, nor criticks of fuch authority as might restrain his extravagance: He therefore indulged his natural difpofition, and his difpofition, as Rhymer has remarked, led him to comedy. In tragedy he often writes with great appearance of toil and study, what is written at laft with little felicity; but in his comick fcenes, he feems to produce without labour, what no labour can improve. In tragedy he is always ftruggling after fome occafion to be comick, but in comedy he feems to repofe, or to luxuriate, as in a mode of thinking congenial to his nature. In his tragick scenes there is always fomething wanting, but his comedy often furpaffes expectation or defire. His comedy pleafes by the thoughts and the language, and his tragedy for the greater part by incident and action. His tragedy feems to be skill, his comedy to be instinct. The force of his comick fcenes has fuffered little diminution from the changes made by a century and a half, in manners or in words. As his perfonages act upon principles arifing from genuine paffion, very little modified by particular forms, their pleasures and vexations are communicable to all times and to all places; they are natural, and therefore durable; the adventitious peculiarities of perfonal habits, are only fuperficial dies, bright and pleafing for a little while, while, yet foon fading to a dim tinct, without any remains of former luftre; but the difcriminations of true paffion are the colours of nature; they pervade the whole mafs, and can only perish with the body that exhibits them. The accidental compofitions of heterogeneous modes are diffolved by the chance which combined them; but the uniform fimplicity of primitive qualities neither admits increafe, nor fuffers decay. The fand heaped by one flood is fcattered by another, but the rock always continues in its place. The fream of time, which is continually washing the diffoluble fabricks of other poets, paffes without injury by the adamant of Shakespeare. If there be, what I believe there is, in every nation, a ftile which never becomes obfolete, a certain mode of phrafeology fo confonant and congenial to the analogy and principles of its refpective language as to remain fettled and unaltered; this ftile is probably to be fought in the common intercourfe of life, among those who speak only to be understood, without ambition of elegance. The polite are always catching modifh innovations, and the learned depart from eftablished forms of speech, in hope of finding or making. better; thofe who wish for diftinction forfake the vulgar, when the vulgar is right; but there is a converfation above groffhefs and below refinement, where propriety refides, and where this poet feems to have gathered his comick dialogue. He is therefore more agreeable to the ears of the prefent age than any other authour equally remote, and among his other excel lencies lencies deserves to be ftudied as one of the original masters of our language. These obfervations are to be confidered not as unexceptionably conftant, but as containing general and predominant truth. Shakespeare's familiar dialogue is affirmed to be smooth and clear, yet not wholly without ruggedness or difficulty; as a country may be eminently fruitful, though it has fpots unfit for cultivation: His characters are praised as natural, though their sentiments are fometimes forced, and their actions improbable; as the earth upon the whole is fpherical, though its furface is varied with protuberances and cavities. Shakespeare with his excellencies has likewife fauits, and faults fufficient to obfcure and overwhelm any other merit. I fhall fhew them in the proportion in which they appear to me, without envious malignity or fuperftitious veneration. No queftion can be more innocently difcuffed than a dead poet's pretenfions to renown; and little regard is due to that bigotry which fets candour higher than truth. His first defect is that to which may be imputed moft of the evil in books or in men. He facrifices virtue to convenience, and is fo much more careful to please than to inftruct, that he feems to write without any moral purpofe. From his writings indeed a fyftem of focial duty may be felected, for he that thinks reasonably muft think morally; but his precepts and axioms drop cafually from him; he makes no juft diftribution of good or evil, nor is al ་ |