other resemblance they have none; and he has not been at the trouble of finding or inventing a single point, in which they may be said to have the remotest likeness. If we are to suppose, that whilst he drew these elaborate pictures of virtue and honour, he retained the least remembrance of the persons, who were nominally sitting for their portraits, we cannot but wonder at the want of discrimination which led him to attribute to them the particular qualities, in which they were most signally defective. The best excuse, after all, is that which Mr. Burke offered, when he observed, that such extravagant panegyrics were the vice of the time, and not of the man; that the dedications of almost every other writer of that period were equally loaded with flattery, and that no disgrace was annexed to such an exercise of men's talents, the contest being who should go farthest in the most graceful way, and with the best turns of expression.

We turn, with pleasure, from compositions of such a doubtful character, to the consideration of his prefaces, where there is nothing to censure on the score of morality, at leastwhere we are often instructed, and always delighted-where we are sure to be charmed with the beauties of his language, though we have reason to question the soundness of his critical judgment. They altogether contain a richer fund of dramatic criticism than is, perhaps, to be found in our language; and, though the purer metal of the mine be mixed up with a good deal that is more plausible than true, and some that is absolutely false, yet, when we take into consideration the prevailing bad taste of the age in which he lived, we shall rather be disposed to wonder, that his judgment did not oftener go astray, than that it was occasionally misled by public opinion, to which he was ever remarkably obsequious. Under this fatal influence, he was labouring the greater part of his life; and it was not till nearly the close of his career, that he succeeded in emancipating himself from its fetters. The clouds which had obscured his vision were then withdrawn, and the divinity of Shakspeare shone as brightly upon him, as it does, at this day, upon us. But the criticisms which he has bequeathed us on the works of the dramatic writers who preceded him, were written nearer to the time when he was in the habit of placing the plays of Jonson on a level with the noblest productions of Shakspeare; and the reformation of his taste is testified only by the change in his own practice. It may be worth while to recall to the recollection of our readers the style in which Shakspeare and his contemporaries were criticised in the age of Charles II., and to contrast it with the way in which they are severally appreciated at the present moment.

"To begin, then, with Shakspeare. He was the man who of all modern, and perhaps ancient poets, had the largest and most comprehensive soul. All the images of nature were still present to him, and he drew them not laboriously, but luckily: when he describes any thing, you more than see it, you feel it too. Those who accuse him to have wanted learning, give him the greater commendation: he was naturally learned; he needed not the spectacles of books to read nature; he looked inwards, and found her there. I cannot say he is every where alike; were he so, I should do him injury to compare him with the greatest of mankind. He is many times flat, insipid; his comick wit degenerating into clenches, his serious swelling into bombast. But he is always great, when some great occasion is presented to him; no man can say he ever had a fit subject for his wit, and did not then raise himself as high above the rest of poets,

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Quantum lenta solent inter viburna cupressi.

Shakspeare, who many times has written better than any poet in any language, is yet so far from writing wit always, or expressing that wit according to the dignity of the subject, that he writes in many places below the dullest writers of ours or of any precedent age. Never did any author precipitate himself from such heights of thought to so low expressions, as he often does. He is the very Janus of poets; he wears almost every where two faces; and you have scarce begun to admire the one, ere you despise the other.

"To speak justly of this whole matter, it is neither height of thought that is discommended, nor pathetick vehemence, nor any nobleness of expression in its proper place; but it is a false measure of all these, something which is like them and is not them: it is the Bristol stone, which appears like a diamond; it is an extravagant thought, instead of a sublime one; it is roaring madness, instead of vehemence; and a sound of words, instead of sense. If Shakspeare were stripped of all the bombast in his passions, and dressed in the most vulgar words, we should find the beauties of his thoughts remaining; if his embroideries were burnt down, there would still be silver at the bottom of the melting-pot: but I fear (at least, let me fear it for myself), that we who ape his sounding words have nothing of his thought, but are all outside; there is not so much as a dwarf within our giant's clothes. Therefore, let not Shakspeare suffer for our sakes; it is our fault, who succeed him in an age which is more refined, if we imitate him so ill, that we copy his failings only, and make a virtue of that in our writings, which in his was an imperfection."

Of Beaumont and Fletcher, the latter of whom he calls a true Englishman, who, when he did well, never knew when to give over, he observes:

"Their plots were generally more regular than Shakspeare's, especially those which were made before Beaumont's death; and they

understood and imitated the conversation of gentlemen much better; whose wild debaucheries, and quickness of wit in repartees, no poet before them could paint as they have done. Humour, which Ben Jonson derived from particular persons, they made it not their business to describe: they represented all the passions very lively, but, above all, love. I am apt to believe the English language in them arrived to its highest perfection; what words have since been taken in, are rather superfluous than ornamental."

In another place, he draws a comparison between Shakspeare and Fletcher.

"For what remains, the excellency of that poet was, as I have said, in the more manly passions, Fletcher's in the softer: Shakspeare writ better betwixt man and man, Fletcher betwixt man and woman; consequently, the one described friendship better, the other love; yet Shakspeare taught Fletcher to write love; and Juliet and Desdemona are originals. It is true, the scholar had the softer soul; but the master had the kinder. Friendship is both a virtue and a passion essentially; love is a passion only in its nature, and is not a virtue but by accident: good nature makes friendship, but effeminacy love. Shakspeare had an universal mind, which comprehended all characters and passions; Fletcher a more confined and limited; for though he treated love in perfection, yet honour, ambition, revenge, and generally all the stronger passions, he either touched not, or not masterly. To conclude all, he was a limb of Shakspeare."

The following is his character of Jonson :

"As for Jonson, to whose character I am now arrived, if we look upon him while he was himself, (for his last plays were but his dotages,) I think him the most learned and judicious writer which any theatre ever had. He was a most severe judge of himself, as well as others. One cannot say he wanted wit, but rather that he was frugal of it. In his works you find little to retrench or alter. Wit, and language, and humour also in some measure, we had before him; but something of art was wanting to the drama, till he came. He managed his strength to more advantage than any who preceded him. You seldom find him making love in any of his scenes, or endeavouring to move the passions; his genius was too sullen and saturnine to do it gracefully, especially when he knew he came after those who had performed both to such an height. Humour was his proper sphere; and in that he delighted most to represent mechanick people. He was deeply conversant in the ancients, both Greek and Latin, and he borrowed boldly from them: there is scarce a poet or historian among the Roman authors of those times whom he has not translated in Sejanus and Catiline. But he has done his robberies so openly, that one may see he fears not to be taxed by any law. He invades authors like a monarch; and what would be theft in other poets, is only victory in him. With the spoils of these writers he so represents old Rome to us, in its rites, ceremonies, and customs, that if one of

their poets had written either of his tragedies, we had seen less of it than in him. If there was any fault in his language, 'twas that he weaved it too closely and laboriously, in his comedies especially : perhaps too, he did a little too much Romanize our tongue, leaving the words which he translated almost as much Latin as he found them wherein, though he learnedly followed their language, he did not enough comply with the idiom of ours. If I would compare him with Shakspeare, I must acknowledge him the more correct poet, but Shakspeare the greater wit. Shakspeare was the Homer, or father of our dramatick poets; Jonson was the Virgil, the pattern of elaborate writing; I admire him, but I love Shakspeare."

There is something in the tone of his remarks, here and in other places, which induces us to think, that even at this time, he felt the superiority of Shakspeare more strongly than he has chosen, in compliance with the feeling of the age, to express. Our readers, we fear, who entertain religious notions of his absolute supremacy, will be somewhat scandalized at the proximity of so worthy a competitor as Dryden has here given him. But setting aside all considerations of the taste of the period, which ran so strongly in favour of Jonson, perhaps they had lived too recently to be justly estimated. Time, after all, is the best critic, and tries by the surest test. The gilded surface may, for a while, shew as bright as the pure gold of the mine, but, after a lapse of years, there will be no difficulty in distinguishing the one from the other. That which lives longest, and pleases most ages, must be considered to possess the most sterling properties.

In his Essay on Dramatic Poesy, he discusses the merits of rhyme, considered as the language of the drama; and plays off his arguments, one against the other, with the utmost ingenuity. The following are the observations he puts into the mouth of the advocate for blank verse.

"First then, I am of opinion, that rhyme is unnatural in a play, because dialogue there is presented as the effect of sudden thought: for a play is the imitation of nature; and since no man, without premeditation, speaks in rhyme, neither ought he to do it on the stage. This hinders not but the fancy may be there elevated to an higher pitch of thought than it is in ordinary discourse; for there is a probability that men of excellent and quick parts may speak noble things extempore: but those thoughts are never fettered with the numbers or sound of verse without study, and therefore it cannot be but unnatural to present the most free way of speaking in that which is the most constrained.

"But there are two particular exceptions, which many besides myself have had to verse; by which it will appear yet more plainly how improper it is in plays. And the first of them is grounded on that very reason for which some have commended rhyme; they say,

the quickness of repartees in argumentative scenes receives an ornament from verse. Now what is more unreasonable than to imagine, that a man should not only light upon the wit, but the rhyme too, upon the sudden? This nicking of him who spoke before both in sound and measure, is so great an happiness, that you must at least suppose the persons of your play to be born poets: Arcades omnes, et cantare pares, et respondere parati: they must have arrived to the degree of quicquid conabar dicere;-to make verses almost whether they will or no. If they are any thing below this, it will look rather like the design of two, than the answer of one: it will appear that your actors hold intelligence together; that they perform their tricks like fortune-tellers, by confederacy. The hand of art will be too visible in it, against that maxim of all professions-Ars est celare artem; that it is the greatest perfection of art to keep itself undiscovered. Nor will it serve you to object, that however you manage it, 'tis still known to be a play; and consequently, the dialogue of two persons, understood to be the labour of one poet For a play is still an imitation of nature; we know we are to be deceived, and we desire to be so; but no man ever was deceived but with a probability of truth; for who will suffer a gross lie to be fastened on him? Thus we sufficiently understand, that the scenes which represent cities and countries to us, are not really such, but only painted on boards and canvass; but shall that excuse the ill painture or designment of them? Nay, rather ought they not to be laboured with so much the more diligence and exactness, to help the imagination? since the mind of man does naturally tend to truth; and therefore the nearer any thing comes to the imitation of it, the more it pleases."

A bad cause was never, we believe, sustained by more ingenious plausibility than is exerted in the reply which is made to these objections.

Verse, 'tis true, is not the effect of sudden thought; but this hinders not that sudden thought may be represented in verse, since those thoughts are such as must be higher than nature can raise them without premeditation, especially to a continuance of them, even out of verse; and consequently you cannot imagine them to have been sudden either in the poet or the actors. A play, as I have said, to be like nature, is to be set above it; as statues which are placed on high are made greater than the life, that they may descend to the sight in their just proportion.

"You will often find in the Greek tragedians, and in Seneca, that when a scene grows up into the warmth of repartees, which is the close fighting of it, the latter part of the trimeter is supplied by him who answers; and yet it was never observed as a fault in them by any of the ancient or modern criticks. The case is the same in our verse, as it was in theirs; rhyme to us being in lieu of quantity to them. But if no latitude is to be allowed a poet, you take from him not only his licence of quidlibet audendi, but you tie him up in a straiter compass than you would a philosopher. This is indeed Musas