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tafte, that tho' the feverer Critics among us cannot bear it, yet the generality of our audiences feem to be better pleas'd with it than with an exact Tragedy. The Merry Wives of Windfor, the Comedy of Errors, and the Taming of the Shrew, are all pure Comedy; the reft, however they are call'd, have fomething of both kinds. 'Tis not very easy to determine which way of writing he was most excellent in. There is certainly a great deal of entertainment in his comical humours; and tho' they did not then strike at all ranks of people, as the Satire of the prefent age has taken the liberty to do, yet there is a pleafing and a well-distinguish'd variety in those characters which he thought fit to meddle with. Falstaff is allow'd by every body to be a mafter-piece; the Character is always well-fuftain'd, tho' drawn out into the length of three Plays; and even the account of his death, given by his old landlady Mrs. Quickly, in the first act of Henry V. tho' it be extremely natural, is yet as diverting as any part of his life. If there be any fault in the draught he has made of this lewd old fellow, it is, that tho' he has made him a thief, lying, cowardly, vain-glorious, and in fhort every way vicious, yet he has given him fo much wit as to make him almoft too agreeable; and I don't know whether fome people have not, in remembrance of the diverfion he had formerly afforded 'em, been forry to fee his friend Hal ufe him fo fcurvily, when he comes to the crown in the end of the second part of Henry the fourth. Amongst other extravagancies, in the Merry Wives of Windfor, he has made him a Deer-ftealer, that he might at the fame time remember his Warwickshire profecutor, under the name of Juftice Shallow; he has given him very near the fame coat of arms which Dugdale, in his antiquities of that county, describes for a family there, and makes the Welsh parfon defcant very pleafantly upon 'em. That whole play is admirable; the humours are various and well oppos'd; the main defign, which is to cure Ford of his unreasonable jealoufy, is extremely well conducted. In Twelfth Night there is fomething fingularly ridiculous and pleasant in the fantastical fteward Malvolio. The parafite and the vainglorious in Parolles, in All's Well that Ends well, is as good as any thing of that kind in Plautus or Terence. Petruchio, in The Taming of the Shrew, is an uncommon piece of humour. The converfation of Benedick and Beatrice, in Much ado about Nothing, and of Rofalind in As you like it, have much wit and sprightliness all along. His clowns, without which character there was hardly any play writ in that time, are all very entertaining: And, I believe, Therfites in Troilus and Creffida, and Apemantus in Timon, will be allow'd to be mafter-pieces of ill-nature, and fatyrical fnarling. To these I might add, that incomparable character of Shylock the Jew, in the Merchant of Venice; but tho' we have seen

that

that play receiv'd and acted as a comedy, and the part of the Jew perform'd by an excellent Comedian, yet I cannot but think it was defigned tragically by the Author. There appears in it a deadly fpirit of revenge, fuch a favage fiercenefs and fellnefs, and fuch a bloody defignation of cruelty and mifchief, as cannot agree either with the style or characters of Comedy. The play it felf, take it altogether, feems to me to be one of the most finish'd of any of Shakespear's. The tale indeed, in that part relating to the caskets, and the extravagant and unusual kind of bond given by Antonio, is too much remov'd from the rules of probability: But taking the fact for granted, we muft allow it to be very beautifully written. There is fomething in the friendship of Antonio to Baffanio very great, generous and tender. The whole fourth act (fuppofing, as I faid, the fact to be probable) is extremely fine. But there are two paffages that deferve a particular notice. The first is, what Portia fays in praife of mercy, and the other on the power of mufick. The melancholy of Jaques, in As you like it, is as fingular and odd as it is diverting. And if, what Horace fays,

Difficile eft proprie communia dicere,

'twill be a hard task for any one to go beyond him in the defcription of the feveral degrees and ages of man's life, tho' the thought be old, and common enough.

----All the world is a Stage,

And all the men and women meerly players;
They have their Exits and their Entrances,
And one man in his time plays many Parts,
His Acts being feven ages. Firft the Infant
Mewling and puking in the nurse's arms:
And then, the whining School-boy with his fatchel,
And fhining morning-face, creeping like fnail
Unwillingly to fchool. And then the Lover
Sighing like furnace, with a weful ballad
Made to his Miftrefs' eye-brow. Then a Soldier
Full of frange oaths, and bearded like the Pard,
Jealous in honour, fudden and quick in quarrel,
Seeking the bubble Reputation

Ev'n in the cannon's mouth. And then the Justice
In fair round belly, with good capon lin❜d,
With eyes fevere, and beard of formal cut,
Full of wife faws and modern inftances;
And fo he plays his part. The fixth age shifts..
Into the lean and flipper'd Pantaloon,.
b 3

With

With fpectacles on nofe, and pouch on fide;
His youthful hofe, well fav'd, a world too wide
For his fhrunk fbanks; and his big manly voice,
Turning again tow'rd childish treble, pipes
And whistles in bis found. Laft Scene of all,
That ends this ftrange eventful Hiftory,
Is fecond childishness and meer oblivion,

Sans teeth, fans eyes, fans tafte, fans every thing.
Vol. 2. p. 203.

His Images are indeed every where fo lively, that the thing he would reprefent ftands full before you, and you poffefs every part of it. I will venture to point out one more, which is, I think, as ftrong and as uncommon as any thing I ever faw; 'tis an image of Patience. Speaking of a maid in love, he fays,

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But let concealment, like a worm i' th' bud,
Feed on her damask cheek: She pin'd in thought,
And fat like Patience on a monument,
Smiling at Grief.

What an Image is here given! and what a task would it have been for the greateft mafters of Greece and Rome to have express'd the paffions defign'd by this sketch of Statuary! The ftyle of his Comedy is, in general, natural to the characters, and cafy in it felf; and the wit most commonly sprightly and pleafing, except in those places where he runs into doggril rhymes, as in The Comedy of Errors, and fome other plays. As for his jingling fometimes, and playing upon words, it was the common vice of the age he liv'd in; And if we find it in the pulpit, made ufe of as an ornament to the Sermons of fome of the graveft Divines of those times; perhaps it may not be thought too light for the Stage.

But certainly the greatness of this Author's genius do's no where fo much appear, as where he gives his imagination an entire loose, and raifes his fancy to a flight above mankind and the limits of the vifible world. Such are his attempts in The Tempeft, MidsummerNight's Dream,, Mackbeth, and Hamlet. Of thefe, The Tempest, however it comes to be plac'd the firft by the Publishers of his works, can never have been the first written by him: It seems to me as perfect in its kind, as almost any thing we have of his. One may observe, that the Unities are kept here, with an exactnefs uncommon to the liberties of his writing: tho' that was what, I fuppofe, he valu'd himself least upon, fince his excellencies were all of another kind. I am very fenfible that he do's, in this play, depart

too

too much from that likeness to truth which ought to be obferv'd in these fort of writings; yet he do's it fo very finely, that one is eafily drawn in to have more faith for his fake, than reason does well allow of. His Magick has fomething in it very folemn and very poetical: And that extravagant character of Caliban is mighty well fuftain'd, fhews a wonderful invention in the Author, who could ftrike out fuch a particular wild image, and is certainly one of the finest and most uncommon Grotefques that was ever seen. The observation, which I have been inform'd three very great men concurr'd in making upon this part, was extremely juft; That Shakespear had not only found out a new Character in his Caliban, but had alfo devis'd and adapted a new manner of Language for that Character.

It is the fame magick that raises the Fairies in Midfummer Night's Dream, the Witches in Macbeth, and the Ghoft in Hamlet, with thoughts and language fo proper to the parts they fuftain, and so peculiar to the talent of this Writer. But of the two laft of these Plays I fhall have occafion to take notice, among the Tragedies of Mr. Shakespear. If one undertook to examine the greatest part of these by thofe rules which are establish'd by Ariftotle, and taken from the model of the Grecian Stage, it would be no very hard -task to find a great many faults: But as Shakespear liv'd under a kind of mere light of nature, and had never been made acquainted with the regularity of those written precepts, fo it would be hard to judge him by a law he knew nothing of. We are to confider him as a man that liv'd in a state of almost universal license and ignorance: there was no establish'd judge, but every one took the liberty. to write according to the dictates of his own fancy. When one confiders, that there is not one play before him of a reputation good enough to entitle it to an appearance on the prefent Stage, it cannot but be a matter of great wonder that he fhould advance dramatick Poetry fo far as he did. The Fable is what is generally plac'd the firft, among thofe that are reckon'd the conftituent parts of a Tragick or Heroick Poem; not, perhaps, as it is the most difficult or beautiful, but as it is the firft properly to be thought of in the contrivance and courfe of the whole; and with the Fable ought to be confider'd, the fit Difpofition, Order and Conduct of its leveral parts. As it is not in this province of the Drama that the ftrength and maftery of Shakespear lay, fo I fhall not undertake the tedious and ill-natur'd trouble to point out the feveral faults he was guilty of in it. His Tales were feldom invented, but rather taken either from true History, or Novels and Romances: And he commonly made ufe of 'em in that order, with thofe Incidents, and that extent of time in which he found 'em in the Authors b 4 from

(a) Lord Falkland, Lord C. J. Vaughan, and Mr. Selden.

from whence he borrow'd them. Almost all his hiftorical Plays comprehend a great length of time, and very different and diftinct places: And in his Antony and Cleopatra, the Scene travels over the greatest part of the Roman Empire. But in recompence for his carelessnefs in this point, when he comes to another part of the Drama, The Manners of his Characters, in acting or speaking what is proper for them, and fit to be shown by the Poet, he may be generally juftify'd, and in very many places greatly commended. For thofe Plays which he has taken from the English or Roman history, let any man compare 'em, and he will find the character as exact in the Poet as the Hiftorian. He feems indeed fo far from propofing to himself any one action for a Subject, that the Title very often tells you, 'tis The Life of King John, King Richard, &c. What can be more agreeable to the idea our hiftorians give of Henry the fixth, than the picture Shakespear has drawn of him! His Manners are every where exactly the fame with the ftory; one finds him ftill defcrib'd with fimplicity, paffive fan&tity, want of courage, weakness of mind, and eafie fubmiffion to the governance of an imperious Wife, or prevailing Faction: Tho' at the fame time the Poet does juftice to his good qualities, and moves the pity of his audience for him, by fhewing him pious, difinterefted, a contemner of the things of this world, and wholly refign'd to the fevereft difpenfations of God's providence. There is a fhort Scene in the fecond part of Henry VI. which I cannot but think admirable in its kind. Cardinal Beaufort, who had murder'd the Duke of Gloucester, is fhewn in the laft agonies on his death-bed, with the good King praying over him. There is fo much terror in one, fo much tenderness and moving piety in the other, as must touch any one who is capable either of fear or pity. In his Henry VIII, that Prince is drawn with that greatnefs of mind, and all thofe good qualities which are attributed to him in any account of his reign. If his faults are not fhewn in an equal degree, and the fhades in this picture do not bear a juft proportion to the lights, it is not that the Artist wanted either colours or skill in the difpofition of 'em; but the truth, I believe, might be, that he forbore doing it out of regard to Queen Elizabeth, fince it could have been no very great refpect to the memory of his Miftrefs, to have expo'd fome certain parts of her father's life upon the ftage. He has dealt much more freely with the Minifter of that great King, and certainly nothing was ever more juftly written, than the character of Cardinal Wolley. He has fhewn him infolent in his profperity; and yet, by a wonderful addrefs, he makes his fall and ruin the fubject of general compaffion. The whole man, with his vices and virtues, is finely and exactly defcrib'd in the second scene of the fourth act. The diftreffes likewife of Queen Catharine, in this

Play,

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