dy amongst them. That way of tragi-comedy was the common mistake of that age, and is indeed be —are really tragedies, with a run or mixture of comedy amongst them.] Heywood, our author's contemporary, has ftated the best defence that can be made for his intermixing lighter with the more ferious fcenes of his dramas: "It may likewife be objected, why amongft fad and grave hiftories I have here and there inferted fabulous jefts afts and tales favouring of lightnefs. I anfwer, I have therein imitated our hiftorical, and comical poets, that write to the stage, who, left the auditory fhould be dulled with ferious courfes, which are merely weighty and material, in every act prefent fome Zany, with his mimick action to breed in the lefs capable mirth and laughter; for they that write to all, muft ftrive to please alt And as fuch fashion themfelves to a multitude diverfely addicted fo I to an univerfality of readers diverfely difpofed." Pref. to Hiftory of Women, 1624. MALONE. The criticks who renounce tragi-comedy as barbarous, I fear, fpeak more from notions which they have formed in their closets, than any well-built theory deduced from experience of what pleafes or difpleafes, which ought to be the foundation of all rules. of a Even fuppofing there is no affectation in this refinement, and that thofe criticks have really tried and purified their minds till there is no drofs remaining, ftill this can never be the cafe popular audience, to which a dramatick reprefentation is referred. Dryden in one of his prefaces condemns his own conduct in The Spanish Friar; but, fays he, I did not write it to please myfelf, it was given to the publick. Here is an involuntary confellion that tragi-comedy is more pleafing to the audience; I would ask then, upon what ground it is condemned? This ideal excellence of uniformity refts upon a fuppofition that we are either more refined, or a higher order of beings than we really are: there is no provision made for what may be called the animal part of our minds. Though we fhould acknowledge this paffion for variety and contrarieties to be the vice of our nature, it is ftill a propensity which we all feel, and which he who undertakes to divert us muft find provifion for. We are obliged, it is true, in our purfuit after science, or excellence in any art, to keep our minds fteadily fixed for a long continuance; it is a talk we impofe on ourselves: but I do not wish to task myself in my amusements. If the great object of the theatre is amufement, a dramatick come fo agreeable to the English tafte, that though the feverer criticks among us cannot bear it, yet the generality of our audiences feem to be better pleafed with it than with an exact tragedy. The Merry Wives of Windfor, The Comedy of Errors, and The Taming of a Shrew, are all pure comedy; the reft, however they are called, have fomething of both kinds. It is 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 though they did not then ftrike at all ranks of people, as the fatire of the prefent age has taken the liberty to do, yet there is a pleafing and a well-diftinguifhed variety in thofe characters which he thought fit to meddle with. Falftaff is allowed by every body to be a mafterpiece; the character is always well fuftained, though 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 the Fifth, though 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 though 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 do not know whether tever! work muft poffefs every means to produce that effect; if it gives inftruction by the by, fo much its merit is the greater; but that is not its principal object. The ground on which it stands, and which gives it a claim to the protection and encouragement of civilifed fociety, is not because it enforces moral precepts, or gives inftruction of any kind; but from the general advantage that it produces, by habituating the mind to find its amusement in intellectual pleasures; weaning it from fenfuality, and by degrees filing off, fmoothing, and polishing, its rugged corners. SIR J. REYNOLDS. A fome people have not, in remembrance of the diverfion he had formerly afforded them, been forry to see 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 extravagan cies, 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, defcribes for a family there, and makes the Welsh parfon defcant very pleasantly upon them. That whole play is admira ble; the humours are various and well oppofed; 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 pleafant in the fantaftical fteward Malvolio. The parafite 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. Pe truchio, 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 fprightliness all along. His clowns, without which character there was hardly any play writ in that time, are all very entertaining and, I believe, 7 the fame coat of arms which Dugdale, in his Antiquities of that county, defcribes for a family there,] There are two coats, I obferve, in Dugdale, where three filver fishes are borne in the name of Lucy; and another coat to the monument of Thomas Lucy, fon of Sir William Lucy, in which are quartered in four several divifions, twelve little fifhes, three in each divifion, probably luces. This very coat, indeed, feems alluded to in Shallow's giving the dozen white luces; and in Slender's faying he may quarter. THEOBALD. L Therfites in Troilus and Crefsida, and Apemantus in Timon, will be allowed to be mafter-pieces of illnature, and satirical fnarling. To these 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 fellness, and fuch a bloody defignation of cruelty and mischief, as cannot agree either with the ftyle or characters of comedy. The play itself, take it altogether, seems to me to be one of the most finished of any of Shakspeare'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 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 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 praise of mercy, and the other on the 名 8 but though we have feen that play received and acted as a comedy,] In 1701 Lord Lanfdown produced his alteration of The Merchant of Venice, at the theatre in Lincoln's-Fun-Fields, under the title of The Jew of Venice, and expressly calls it a comedy. Shylock was performed by Mr. Dogget. REED, And fuch was the bad tafte of our ancestors that this piece continued to be a stock-play from 1701 to Feb. 14, 1741, when The Merchant of Venice was exhibited for the first time at the theatre in Drury-Lane, and Mr. Macklin made his first appearance in the character of Shylock. MALONE, power of mufick. The melancholy of Jaques, in As you like it, is as fingular and odd as it is divert ing. And if, what Horace fays, commit to spent evet od "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's a stage, "And all the men and women merely players; And then, the whining school-boy with his fatchel, "Made to his miftrefs' eye-brow. Then, a foldier; "Ev'n in the cannon's mouth. And then, the justice; With eyes fevere, and beard of formal cut, Full of wife faws and modern instances; "And fo he plays his part. The fixth age fhifts pit od "Into the lean and flipper'd pantalbon; With fpectacles on nofe, and pouch on fide; "His youthful hofe, well fay'd, a world too wide "And whiftles in his found: Laft fcene of all, olch Is fecond childishnefs, and mere oblivion ; Sans teeth, fans eyes, fans tafte, fans every thing.' 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 it?] |