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crown in the end of the fecond part of Henry IV. 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 Warwickfhire profecutor, under the name of Justice Shallow. He has given him very near the fame coat of arms which Dugdale, in his antiquities of that county, defcribes for a family there, and makes the Welsh parfon defcant very pleafantly upon them. That whole play is admirable; the humours are various, and well opposed: the main defign, which is to cure Ford of his unreasonable jealousy, is extremely well conducted. In Twelfth night there is fomething fingularly ridiculous and pleafant in the fantaftical 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 forew, 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 fprightlinefs all along. His clowns, without which character there was hardly any play writ in that time, are all very entertaining: and I belive Therfites in Troilus and Creffida, and Apemantus in Timan, will be allowed to be masterpieces, of ill-nature and fatyrical fnarling. To thefe I might add that incomparable character of Shylock the Jew, in The merchant of Venice. But though we have feen that play received and acted as a comedy, and the part of the Jew performed by an excellent comedian, yet I cannot but think it was defigned tragically by the author. There appears in it fuch a deadly fpirit of revenge, fuch a favage fiercenefs and fellnefs, and fuch a bloody defignation of cruelty and mifchief, as cannot agree cither with the ftyle or characters of comedy. The play itfelf, take it altogether, feems to me to be one of the most finished of any of Shakespear's. The tale indeed, in that part relating to the cafkets, and the extravagant and unufual kind of bond given by ntonio, is too much removed from the rules of probability. But, taking the fact for granted, we must allow it to be very beautifully written. There is fomething in the friendhip of Antonio to Baflanio very great, generous, and

tender.

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 praise of mercy, and the other. on the power of mufic. 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,

it will be a hard task for any one to go beyond him in the description of the feveral degrees and ages of man's life, though the thought be old and common enough. All the world is a ftage,

And all the men and women merely players;
They have their exits and their entrances,
And one man in his time plays many parts;
His acts being feven ages. At first 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 woful bailad
Made to his miftrefs' eye-brow. Then a foldier,
Full of frange oaths, and bearded like the pard,
Jealous in honour, fudden and quick in quarrel;
Seeking the bubble reputation

Even in the cannon's mouth. And then the juftice,
In fair round belly, with good capon lin`d,
With eyes fevere, and heard of formal cut,
Full of wife faws and modern inftances;
And fo he plays his part. The fixth age fhifts
Into the lean and flipper'd pantaloon,
With fpectacles on nofe, and pouch on fide;
His youthful hofe well fav'd, a world too wide
For his fhrunk fhanks; and his big manly voice,
Turning again tow'rd childish treble, pipes
And whiffles in his found Laft scene of all,
That ends this ftrange eventful history,
Is fecond childishness, and mere oblivion,
Sans teeth, fans eyes, fans tafte, fans every thing.
Vol. 2. p. 246.

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

-She never told her love;

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

Vol. 3. P. 110.

What an image is here given! and what a task would it have been for the greatest mafters of Greece and Rome to have expreffed the paffions defigned by this fketch of ftatuary! The ftyle of his comedy is, in general, natural to the characters, and easy in itself; and the wit most commonly fprightly and pleafing, except" in thofe places where he runs into doggrel rhimes, 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 lived in. And if we find it in the pulpit, made use of as an ornament to the fermons of fome of the gravett divines of thofe times, perhaps it may not be thought too light for the ftage.

But certainly the greatnefs of this author's genius does no where fo much appear, as where he gives his imagination an entire loofe, and raifes his fancy to a flight above mankind, and the limits of the vifible world. Such are his attempts in The tempeft, Midfummer-night's dream, Macbeth, and Hamlet. Of these, The tempeft, however it comes to be placed the first by the publishers of his works, can never have been the firft written by him. It feems to me as perfect in its kind as almost any thing we have of his. One may obferve, that the unities are kept here with an exactnefs uncommon to the liberties of his writing; though that was what, I fuppofe, he valued himfelf leaft upon, fince his excelJencies were all of another kind. I am very fenfible, that he does, in this play, depart too much from that likeness to truth which ought to be observed in these fort

of

of writings; yet he does it so very finely, that one is eafily drawn in to have more faith for his fake, than reafon does well allow of. His magic has fomething in it very solemn and very poetical: and that extravagant character of Caliban is mighty well fuftained; fhews a wonderful invention in the author, who could strike out fuch a particular wild image; and is certainly one of the finest and most uncommon grotefques that was ever feen. The observation which I have been informed

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three very great men concurred in making upon this part, was extremely juft, That Shakespear had not only found out a new character in his Caliban, but had alfo devifed and adapted a new manner of language for that

character.

It is the fame magic that raifes 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 last of these plays I fhall have occafion to take notice among the tragedies of Mr. Shakefpear. If one undertook to examine the greatest part of thefe by thofe rules which are established by Aristotle, and taken from the model of the Grecian ftage, it would be no very hard task to find a great many faults. But as Shakespear lived under a kind of mere light of nature, and had never been made acquainted with the regularity of those written precepts, so it would be hard to judge him by a law he knew nothing of. We are to confider him as a man that lived in a ftate of almost univerfal licence and ignorance: there was no established 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 intitle it to an appearance on the present ftage, it cannot but be a matter of great wonder, that he fhould advance dramatic poetry fo far as he did. The fable is what is generally placed the first, among thofe that are reckoned the conftituent parts of a tragic or heroic poem; not, perhaps, as it is the most difficult or beautiful, but as it is the first properly to be thought of in the contrivance and courfe of the whole; and with * Lord Falkland, Lord C. J. Vaughan, and Mr. Selden,

the

the fable ought to be confidered, the fit difpofition, order, and conduct of its feverál parts. As it is not in this province of the drama that the ftrength and maftery of Shakelpear 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 them in that order, with thofe incidents, and that extent of time in which he found them in the authors from whence he borrowed them. Almoft all his hiftorical plays comprehend a great length of time, and very different and diftinct places and in his Antony and Cleopatra, the fcene travels over the greatest part of the Roman empire. But, in recompence for his careleffnefs 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 fewn by the poet, he may be generally juftified, and in very many places greatly commended. For thofe plays which he has taken from the English or Roman hiftory, let any man compare them, 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 fubject, that the title very often tells you it is The life of King John, King Richard, &c. What can be more agreeable to the idea our hiftorians give of Henry VI. than the picture Shakefpear has drawn of him! His manners are every where exactly the fame with the ftory; one finds him ftill defcribed with fimplicity, paffive fanctity, want of courage, weakness of mind, and easy fubmiffion to the governance of an imperious wife, or prevailing faction : though at the fame time the poet does juítice 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 refigned to the fevereft difpenfations of God's providence. There is a fhort scene in the second part of Henry VI. which I cannot but think admirable in its kind. Cardinal Beaufort, who had murdered the Duke of Gloucester, is fhewn in the laft agonis on his deathbed, with the good King praying over him. There is fo much terror in

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