point out one more, which is, I think, as ftrong
and as uncommon as any thing I ever faw; it is an
image of Patience. Speaking of a maid in love,
he fays,

"But let concealment, like a worm i'th' bud,
"Feed on her damask cheek: the pin'd in thought,
"And fate like Patience on a monument,

What an image is here given! and what a tafk
would it have been for the greatest mafters of
Greece and Rome to have expreffed the paffions
defigned by this sketch of ftatuary! The ftyle of his
comedy is, in general, natural to the characters,
and eafy in itself; and the wit most commonly
fprightly and pleafing, except in thofe places where
he runs into doggrel 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 lived in and if we find
it in the pulpit, made ufe of as an ornament to the
fermons 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
does no where so 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 Tempest,
A Midfummer-Night's Dream, Macbeth, and Ham-
let. Of these, The Tempest, 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 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 likehefs to truth which ought to be observed in thefe fort of writings; yet he does it 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 fuftained, fhows a won-. derful 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 ever was feen. The obfervation, which, I have been informed, three very great men concurred in making upon this part, was extremely juft; that Shakspeare had not only found out a new character in his Caliban, but had alfo devised and adapted a now manner of language for that character.

9

It is the fame magick that raifes the Fairies in A Midfummer-Night's Dream, the Witches in Mac beth, and the Ghoft in Hamlet, with thoughts and language fo proper to the parts they fuftain, and fo peculiar to the talent of this writer. But of the two laft of thefe plays I fhall have occafion to take

which, I have been informed, three very great men concurred in making-] Lord Falkland, Lord C. J. Vaughan, and Mr. Selden. Rowe.

Dryden was of the fame opinion. "His perfon (fays he, fpeaking of Caliban,) is monftrous, as he is the product of unnatural luft, and his language is as hobgoblin as his perfon: in all things he is diftinguished from other mortals." Preface to Troilus and Crefida. MALONE.

.

notice, among the tragedies of Mr. Shakspeare. If. one undertook to examine the greatest part of these by thofe rules which are eftablished by Ariftotle, and taken from the model of the Grecian stage, it would be no very hard tafk to find a great many faults; but as Shakspeare lived under a kind of mere light of nature, and had never been made acquainted with the regularity of thofe 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 lived in a state of almost universal 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 entitle it to an appearance on the prefent ftage, 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 placed the firft, among thofe that are reckoned the conftituent parts of a tragick or heroick poem; not, perhaps, as it is the moft 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 confidered the fit difpofition, order, and conduct of its feveral parts. As it is not in this province of the drama that the ftrength and maftery of Shakspeare lay, fo I fhall not undertake the tedious and ill-natured trouble to point out the feveral faults he was guilty of in it. His tales were feldom invented, but rather taken either from the true hiftory, 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. So The Winter's Tale,

which is taken from an old book, called The Delectable Hiftory of Doraftus and Fawnia, contains the fpace of fixteen or feventeen years, and the fcene is fometimes laid in Bohemia, and fometimes in Sici ly, according to the original order of the ftory. Almost all his hiftorical plays comprehend a great length of time, and very different and distinct places: and in his Antony and Cleopatra, the fcene travels over the greatest part of the Roman empire. But in recompence for his carelessnefs in this point, wherr 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 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 the Sixth, than the picture Shakspeare has drawn of him? His manners are every where exactly the fame with the story; one finds him ftill defcribed with fimplicity, paffive fanctity, want of courage, weaknefs of mind, and eafy fubmiffion to the governance of an imperious wife, or prevailing faction though at the fame time the poet does juftice to his good qualities, and moves the pity of his audience for him, by fhowing him pious, difinterested, a contemner of the things of this world, and wholly refigned to the fevereft difpenfations of God's providence. There is a fhort fcene in The Second Part of Henry the Sixth, which I cannot think but admirable in its kind. Cardinal Beaufort,

who had murdered the Duke of Gloucefter, is shown in the last 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 the Eighth, that prince is drawn with that greatness of mind, and all thofe good qualities which are attributed to him in any account of his reign. If his faults are not fhown in an equal degree, and the fhades in this picture do not bear a just proportion to the lights, it is not that the artist wanted either colours or skill in the difpofition of them; 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 respect to the memory of his mistress, to have expofed 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 Wolfey. He has fhown him infolent in his profperity; and yet, by a wonderful addrefs, he makes his fall and ruin the subject of general com, paffion. The whole man, with his vices and vir tues, is finely and exactly defcribed in the feeand fcene of the fourth Act. The diftreffes likewife of Queen Katharine, in this play, are very movingly touched; and though the art of the poet has screened King Henry from any grofs imputation of injustice, yet one is inclined to with, the Queen had met with a fortune more worthy of her birth and virtue. Nor are the manners, proper to the perfons reprefented, lefs juftly obferved, in thofe characters taken from the Roman hiftory; and of this, the fiercenefs and impatience of Coriolanus, his courage and difdain of the common people, the virtue and philofophical temper of Brutus, and the