performance. Errour and inadvertence are imputed, as natural effects, to hafte; and even ignorance itself finds a convenient shelter under the pretence of rapidity of compofition. A very different fate attends on those works, whofe publication, having been long promifed and frequently deferred, is fuppofed to be delayed only to render them by fo much the more valuable when they appear, as their appearance may have been procraftinated. Under this difadvantage lies the prefent edition of Shakespeare ; a poet, who leaft requires, and moft deferves, a comment, of all the writers his age produced. We cannot help thinking it, therefore, a misfortune almoft as fingular as his merit, that, among fo many ingenious fcholiafts that have employed themfelves in elucidating his writings, hardly one of them hath been found in any degree worthy of him. They all feem to have mistaken the route, in which only they could do honour to themselves, or be useful to the reader. Engaged in the piddling task of adjusting quibbles, and restoring conundrums, they have neglected the illustration of characters, fentiments and fituations, Inftead of afpiring to trim the ruffled bays that have a little obfcured his brow, they have been laboriously and fervilely employed in brushing the dirt from his fhoes. Instead of ftrewing flowers, and planting fresh laurels, on his tomb, they have been irreve→ rently trampling down the turf, that had otherwise covered his duft with perpetual verdure. From the prefent Editor, it is true, we hoped better things. But what fhall we fay? when he himfelf confeffes, that, as to the poetical beauties ar defects of his author, he hath not been very diligent to obferve them; having given up this part of his defign to chance and caprice.' This is urely a frange conceffion to be made by the author of the propofals for printing this work by fubfcription! We were by them given to understand, that the Editor would proceed in a manner very different from his predeceffors; and were encouraged to hope that Shakespeare would no longer be commented on, like a barren or obfolete writer; whofe works were of no other use than to employ the fagacity of antiquarians and philologers. But perhaps our Editor found the task, of commenting on Shakefpeare as a poet, much more difficult than he had conceived it to be. It might found as harsh in the ear of the public, to tax a writer whom it hath fo much honoured by its approbation, with want of capacity for writing fuch a commentary, as it doubtless would, in the ears of Dr. Johnfon, to hear himself charged with want of application to it, when he acknowledges the great encouragement he has had the honour of receiving for that pur→ pofe. We fhould be very tender, be the occafion what it would, of laying any writer of acknowledged merit under the neceffity of pleading guilty either to the charge of ignorance or indolence, But we cannot help fubfcribing to the opinion of a very inge

nious critic*, when he affirms, that every writer is juftly chargeable with want of knowledge when he betrays it on the fubject he is treating af, let him be ever fo capable of treating other fubjects, or however juftly founded may be his reputation for learning in general.' It hath been observed, in fome remarks already published † on this occafion, that our Editor's notes, few and exceptionable as they are, lay claim to our admiration, if we reflect on the extreme indolence of the Writer; who is naturally an idler. How far fuch a plea may be fatisfactory to the purchasers of this edition, we know not; but we have too high an opinion of the Editor's character, to think he will more readily acquiefce under the imputation of ingratitude than under that of incapacity. At the fame time, however, we cannot but exprefs our apprehenfions, that every judicious reader, who may accompany us through a fair and impartial review of his preface and commentary, will think, with us, that there are many evident marks of the want of ingenuity or induftry in the Com

mentator.

We find little in the first five pages of our Editor's preface, but trite and common-place reflections, on our veneration for antiquity, and on the general talents of Shakespeare; delivered in that pompous ftyle which is fo peculiar to himfelf, and is fo much admired by fome kind of readers. In fome places, however, he is lefs verbofe; and then he is generally fenfible, inftructive and entertaining.

Shakespeare, fays he, is above all writers, at least above all modern writers, the poet of nature; the poet that holds up to his readers a faithful mirrour of manners and of life. His characters are not modified by the cuftoms of particular places, unpractifed by the reft of the world; by the peculiarities of studies or profeffions, which can operate but upon fmall numbers; or by the accidents of tranfient fashions or temporary opinions: they are the genuine progeny of common humanity, fuch as the world will always fupply, and obfervation will always find. His perfons act and fpeak by the influence of thofe general paffions and principles by which all minds are agitated, and the whole fyftem of life is continued in motion. In the writings of other poets a character is too often an individual; in thofe of Shakefpeare it is commonly a fpecies.

It is from this wide extenfion of defign that fo much inftruction is derived. It is this which fills the plays of Shakefpeare with practical axioms and domestic wifdom. It was faid of Euripides, that every verfe was a precept; and it may be faid of Shakespeare, that from his works may be collected a system of civil and oeconomical prudence. Yet his real power is not fhewn in

The author of the Canons of Criticism. James's Chronicle.

U 4

In the St.

the

the fplendour of particular paffages, but by the progrefs of his fable, and the tenour of his dialogue; and he that tries to recommend him by felect quotations, will fucceed like the pedant in Hierocles, who, when he offered his houfe to fale, carried a brick in his pocket as a specimen.

It will not eafily be imagined how much Shakespeare excells in accommodating his fentiments to real life, but by comparing him with other authours. It was observed of the ancient fchools of declamation, that the more diligently they were frequented, the more was the ftudent difqualified for the world, because he found nothing there which he fhould ever meet in any other place. The fame remark may be applied to every ftage but that of Shakespeare. The theatre, when it is under any other direction, is peopled by fuch characters as were never feen, converfing in a language which was never heard, upon topicks which will never arife in the commerce of mankind. But the dialogue of this authour is often fo evidently determined by the incident which produces it, and is pursued with so much eafe and fimplicity, that it seems scarcely to claim the merit of fiction, but to have been gleaned by diligent felection out of common converfation, and common occurrences.

• Upon every other stage the univerfal agent is love, by whose power all good and evil is diftributed, and every action quickened or retarded. To bring a lover, a lady and a rival into the fable; to entangle them in contradictory obligations, perplex them with oppofitions of intereft, and harrafs them with violence of defires inconfiftent with each other; to make them meet in rapture and part in agony; to fill their mouths with hyperbolical joy and Outrageous forrow; to diftrefs them as nothing human ever was diftreffed; to deliver them as nothing human ever was delivered, is the bufinefs of a modern dramatift. For this probability is violated, life is mifreprefented, and language is depraved. But love is only one of many paffions, and as it has no great influence upon the fum of life, it has little operation in the dramas of a poet, who caught his ideas from the living world, and exhibited only what he faw before him. He knew, that any other paffion, as it was regular or exorbitant, was a caufe of happiness or calamity.

Characters thus ample and general were not eafily difcriminated and preferved, yet perhaps no poet ever kept his perfonages more diftinct from each other. I will not fay with Pope, that every speech may be affigned to the proper fpeaker, because many. fpeeches there are which have nothing characteristical; but perhaps, though feme may be equally adapted to every perfon, it will be difficult to find any, that can be properly transferred from the prefent poffeffor to another claimant. The choice is right, when there is reafon for choice.

• Other

Other dramatists can only gain attention by hyperbolical or aggravated characters, by fabulous and unexampled excellence or depravity, as the writers of barbarous romances invigorated the reader by a giant and a dwarf; and he that should form his expectations of human affairs from the play, or from the tale, would be equally deceived. Shakespeare has no heroes; his fcenes are occupied only by men, who act and speak as the reader thinks that he should himself have spoken or acted on the fame occafion Even where the agency is fupernatural the dialogue is level with life. Other writers difguife the most natural panions and moft frequent incidents; fo that he who contemplates them in the book will not know them in the world: Shakespeare approximates the remote, and familiarizes the wonderful; the event which he represents will not happen, but if it were poffible, its effects would probably, be fuch as he has affigned; and it may be faid, that he has not only fhewn human nature as it acts in real exigences, but as it would be found in trials, to which it cannot be expofed.

This therefore is the praife of Shakespeare, that his drama is the mirrour of life; that he who has mazed his imagination, in following the phantoms which other writers raife up before him, may here be cured of his delirious extafies, by reading human fentiments in human language; by fcenes from which a hermit may eftimate the tranfactions of the world, and a confeffor predict the progrefs of the paffions.'

After beftowing this juft elogium on Shakespeare, our editor proceeds to exculpate him from the cenfures of Rhymer, Dennis, and Voltaire; entering particularly into a defence of the tragi-comedy, or that mixed kind of drama, which hath given fuch great offence to the minor critics. He ftates the fact, and confiders it thus:

Shakespeare's plays are not in the rigorous and critical fenfe either tragedies or comedies, but compofitions of a distinct kind; exhibiting the real state of fublunary nature, which partakes of good and evil, joy and forrow, mingled with endless variety of proportion and innumerable modes of combination; and expreffing the course of the world, in which the loss of one is the gain of another; in which, at the fame time, the reveller is hafting to his wine, and the mourner burying his friend, in which the malignity of one is fometimes defeated by the frolic of another; and many mischiefs and many benefits are done and hindered without defign.

Out of this chaos of mingled purposes and cafualties the ancient poets, according to the laws which custom had prescribed, selected fome the crimes of men, and fome their abfurdities; fome the momentous viciffitudes of life, and fome the lighter occurrences; fome the terrors of diftrees, and fome the gayeties of

profperity. Thus rofe the two modes of imitation, known by the names of tragedy and comedy, compofitions intended to promote different ends by contrary means, and confidered as fo little allied, that I do not recollect among the Greeks or Romans a fingle writer who attempted both.

Shakespeare has united the powers of exciting laughter and forrow not only in one mind but in one compofition. Almoft all his plays are divided between ferious and ludicrous characters, and, in the fucceffive evolutions of the defign, fometimes produce feriousness and forrow, and fometimes levity and laughter.

That this is a practice contrary to the rules of criticism will be readily allowed; but there is always an appeal open from criticifm to nature. The end of writing is to inftruct; the end of poetry is to inftruct by pleafing. That the mingled drama may convey all the inftruction of tragedy and comedy cannot be denied, because it includes both in its alterations and exhibition, and approaches nearer than either to the appearance of life, by fhewing how great machinations and flender defigns may promote or obviate one another, and the high and the low co-operate in the general fyftem by unavoidable concatenation.

It is objected, that by this change of fcenes the paffions are interrupted in their progreffion, and that the principal event, being not advanced by a due gradation of preparatory incidents, wants at laft the power to move, which conftitutes the perfection of dramatick poetry. This reafoning is fo fpecious, that it is received as true even by thofe 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 eafily transferred; and though it must be allowed that pleafing melancholy be sometimes interrupted by unwelcome levity, yet let it be confidered likewife, that melancholy is often not pleafing, 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 pleasure confifts in variety.'

We do not feel the force of this reasoning; though we think the critics have condemned this kind of drama too feverely. What follows alfo is to us a little problematical. Dr. Johnfon prefers Shakespeare's comic fcenes to his tragic: in the latter, he fays, there is always fomething wanting, while the former often furpaffes expectation or defire. His tragedy feems to be fkill, and his comedy inftinct.' As this is a general assertion, unfupported by any particular examples, we cannot very eafily controvert it; but we are apt to fufpect it is founded in a great degree on the preference which the Editor himself may. poffibly be difpofed to give to comedy in general. Different auditors, as he obferves, have different habitudes; fo that, were we to put