is a good deal true in it: But I believe it may be as well exprefs'd by what Horace says of the first Romans, who wrote Tragedy upon the Greek models, (or indeed tranflated 'em) in his epiftle to Auguftus.

--Naturâ fublimis & acer,

Nam fpirat Tragicum fatis & feliciter Audet,
Sed turpem putat in Chartis metuitque Lituram.

As I have not proposed to myself to enter into a large and compleat collection upon Shakespear's Works, fo I will only take the liberty, with all due fubmission to the judgment of others, to obferve fome of those things I have been pleas'd with in looking him over.

His plays are properly to be diftinguish'd only into Comedies and Tragedies. Those which are call'd Hiftories, and even some of his Comedies are really Tragedies, with a run or mixture of Comedy amongit 'em. That way of Tragi-comedy was the common miftake of that age, and is indeed become fo agreeable to the English 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 moft excellent in. There is certainly a great deal of entertainment in his comical humours; and tho' they did not then ftrike 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-diftinguifhed 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

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 almost too agreeable; and I don't know whether fome people have not, in remembrance of the diverfion he had formerly afforded 'em, been sorry to fee his friend Hal use 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-stealer, that he might at the fame time remember his Warwickshire 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, describes for a family there, and makes the Welfb parfon defcant very pleasantly upon 'em. That whole play is admirable; the humours are various and well opposed; the main defign, which is to cure Ford of his unreasonable jealou y, is extremely well conducted. In Twelfth-Night there is fomething fingularly ridiculous and pleasant in the fantastical Iteward Malvolio. The parasite and the vain-glorious 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 fprightline's 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 Treilus and Creffida, and Apemantus in Timon, will be allow'd to be mafter-pieces of ill-nature, and fatyrical fnarling. To thefe I might add, that incomparable character of Shylock the Jew, in the Merchant of Venice; but tho' we have feen that play receiv'd, and acted as a comedy, and the part of the few perform'd

by

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 fellness, and fuch a bloody defignation of cruelty and mischief, as cannot agree either with the ftyle or characters of Comedy. The play itfelf, 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 cafkets, and the extravagant and unufual kind of bond given by Antonio, is too much remov'd 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 friendship of Antonio to Bafanio 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 praise of mercy, and the other on the power of mufick. The melancholy in 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 a man's life, tho' the thought be old, and common enough.

All the world is a Stage,

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 Ats being feven ages. First the Infant
Muling 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

Sighing like furnace, with a woful ballad
Made to his Miftrefs' Eye-brow. Then a Soldier
Full of frange oaths, and bearded like the Pard,
Jealous in bonour, fulden and quick in quarrel,
Seeking the bubble Reputation

Ev'n in the cannon's mouth. And then the faftice
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 be plays his part. The fixth age shifts
Into the lean and flipper'd Pantaloon,
With spectacles on nofe, and pouch on fide;
His youthful bofe, well fav'd, a world too wide
For his fhrunk fhanks; and his big manly voice,
Turning again tow'rd childish treble, pipes
And whifiles in his Jound. Laft Scene of all,
That ends this firange eventful Hiftery,
Is fecond Childishness and meer oblivion,
Sans teeth, fans eyes, fans tafte, fans every thing.
Vol. II. 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,

She never told her love,

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 greatest mafters of Greece and Rome to have exprefs'd the paffions defign'd by this sketch of Statuary! The style of his Comedy is, in

general,

general, natural to the characters, and easy in itself; and the wit most commonly fprightly 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 use of as an ornament to the Sermons of fome of the gravest Divines of those times; perhaps it may not be thought too light for the Stage.

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 visible world. Such are his attempts in The Tempest, Midfummer-Night's Dream, Macbeth, and Hamlet. Of thefe, The Tempest, however it comes to be plac'd the. first by the Publifhers of his works, can never have been the first written by him: It feems to me as perfect in its kind, as almoft any thing we have of his. One may observe, that the Unities are kept here, with an exactness uncommon to the liberties of his writing: tho' that was what, I fuppofe, he valu'd himself leaft upon, fince his Excellencies 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 observ'd in these fort of writings; yet he does it fo fo very finely, that one is eafily drawn in to have more faith for his fake, than reafon 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 strike out fuch a particular wild image, and is certainly one of the finest and most uncommon Grotefques that was ever feen. The Obfervation, which I have been inform'd (a) three very

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

great