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The polite are always catching modifh innovations, and the learned depart from eftablished forms of fpeech, in hope of finding or making better; those who wifh for diftinction forfake the vulgar, when the vulgar is right; but there is a converfation above groffnefs and below refinement, where propriety refides, and where this poet seems to have gathered his comick dialogue. He is therefore more agreeable to the ears of the prefent age than any other author equally remote, and among his other excellencies deferves to be ftudied as one of the original masters of our language.

Thefe obfervations are to be confidered not as unexceptionably conftant, but as containing general and predominant truth. Shakspeare'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 fentiments are fometimes forced, and their actions improbable; as the earth upon the whole is fpherical, though its furface is varied with protuberances and cavities.

Shakspeare with his excellencies has likewise faults, and faults fufficient to obfcure and overwhelm any other merit. I fhall fhow them in the proportion in which they appear to me, without envious malignity or fuperftitious veneration. 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.

No

His firft 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 purpose. From his writings indeed a system 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 always careful to fhow in the virtuous a difapprobation of the wicked; he carries his perfons indifferently through right and wrong, and at the clofe difmiffes them without further care, and leaves their examples to operate by chance. This fault the barbarity of his age cannot extenuate; for it is always a writer's duty to make the world better, and justice is a virtue independent on time or place.

The plots are often fo loosely formed, that a very flight confideration may improve them, and fo carelessly purfued, that he seems not always fully to comprehend his own defign. He omits opportunities of inftructing or delighting, which the train of his ftory feems to force upon him, and apparently rejects thofe exhibitions which would be more affecting, for the fake of those which are more easy.

It may be observed, that in many of his plays the latter part is evidently neglected. When he found himself near the end of his work, and in view of his reward, he fhortened the labour to fnatch the profit. He therefore remits his efforts where he should moft vigoroufly exert them, and his catastrophe is improbably produced or imperfectly reprefented.

He had no regard to diftinction of time or place, but gives to one age or nation, without fcruple, the customs, inftitutions, and opinions of another, at the expence not only of likelihood, but of poffibility. These faults Pope has endeavoured, with more zeal than judgment, to transfer to his imagined interpolators. We need not wonder to find Hector

quoting Ariftotle, when we fee the loves of Thefeus and Hippolyta combined with the Gothick mythology of fairies. Shakspeare, indeed, was not the only violator of chronology, for in the fame age Sidney, who wanted not the advantages of learning, has, in his Arcadia, confounded the paftoral with the feudal times, the days of innocence, quiet, and fecurity, with those of turbulence, violence, and adventure.2

In his comick scenes he is feldom very fuccessful, when he engages his characters in reciprocations of fmartness and contests of farcafm; their jefts are commonly grofs, and their pleafantry licentious; neither his gentlemen nor his ladies have much delicacy, nor are fufficiently diftinguifhed from his clowns by any appearance of refined manners. Whether he reprefented the real converfation of

As a further extenuation of Shakspeare's error, it may be urged that he found the Gothick mythology of Fairies already incorporated with Greek and Roman ftory, by our early tranflators. Phaer and Golding, who firft gave us Virgil and Ovid in an English dress, introduce Fairies almost as often as Nymphs are mentioned in these claffick authors. Thus, Homer, in his 24th Iliad:

“ Ἐν Σιπύλω, ὅθι φασὶ θεάων ἔμμεναι εὐνὰς « ΝΥΜΦΑΩΝ, αἶτ ̓ ἀμφ' Αχελώτον έρρωσαντο.” But Chapman tranflates

"In Sypilus-in that place where 'tis faid

"The goddeffe Fairies ufe to dance about the funeral bed "Of Achelous :

Neither are our ancient verfifiers lefs culpable on the score of anachronisms. Under their hands the balifta becomes a cannon, and other modern inftruments are perpetually substituted for such as were the produce of the remotest ages.

It may be added, that in Arthur Hall's verfion of the fourth Iliad, Juno fays to Jupiter :

"the time will come that Totnam French shal turn." And in the tenth Book we hear of "The Baftile," 66 Lemfter wooll," and "The Byble." STEEVENS.

his time is not eafy to determine; the reign of Elizabeth is commonly supposed to have been a time of ftatelinefs, formality, and reserve, yet perhaps the relaxations of that feverity were not very elegant. There muft, however, have been always fome modes of gaiety preferable to others, and a writer ought to choose the best.

In tragedy his performance feems conftantly to be worse, as his labour is more. The effufions of paffion, which exigence forces out, are for the most part ftriking and energetick; but whenever he folicits his invention, or ftrains his faculties, the offfpring of his throes is tumour, meannefs, tedioufnefs, and obfcurity.

In narration he affects a difproportionate pomp of diction, and a wearifome train of circumlocution, and tells the incident imperfectly in many words, which might have been more plainly delivered in few. Narration in dramatick poetry is naturally tedious, as it is unanimated and inactive, and obftructs the progrefs of the action; it should therefore always be rapid, and enlivened by frequent interruption. Shakspeare found it an incumbrance, and inftead of lightening it by brevity, endeavoured to recommend it by dignity and fplendour.

His declamations or fet fpeeches are commonly cold and weak, for his power was the power of nature; when he endeavoured, like other tragick writers, to catch opportunities of amplification, and inftead of inquiring what the occafion demanded, to fhow how much his ftores of knowledge could fupply, he feldom efcapes without the pity or refentment of his reader.

It is incident to him to be now and then entangled with an unwieldy fentiment, which he can

not well exprefs, and will not reject; he ftruggles with it a while, and if it continues ftubborn, comprifes it in words fuch as occur, and leaves it to be difentangled and evolved by thofe who have more leifure to bestow upon it.

Not that always where the language is intricate, the thought is fubtle, or the image always great where the line is bulky; the equality of words to things is very often neglected, and trivial fentiments and vulgar ideas difappoint the attention, to which they are recommended by fonorous epithets and fwelling figures.

But the admirers of this great poet have most reafon to complain when he approaches neareft to his highest excellence, and feems fully refolved to fink them in dejection, and mollify them with tender emotions by the fall of greatnefs, the danger of innocence, or the croffes of love. What he does beft, he foon ceases to do. He is not long foft and pathetick without fome idle conceit, or contemptible equivocation. He no fooner begins to move, than he counteracts himself; and terror and pity, as they are rifing in the mind, are checked and blafted by fudden frigidity.

A quibble is to Shakspeare, what luminous vapours are to the traveller; he follows it at all adventures; it is fure to lead him out of his way, and fure to engulf him in the mire. It has fome malignant power over his mind, and its fafcinations are irresistible. Whatever be the diguity or profundity of his difquifitions, whether he be enlarging knowledge, or exalting affection, whether he be amufing attention with incidents, or enchaining it in fufpenfe, let but a quibble spring up before him, and he leaves his work unfinished. A quibble is the golden apple for which he will always turn afide from his ca

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