Through all these denominations of the drama, Shakespeare's mode of compofition is the fame; an interchange of seriousness and merriment, by which the mind is foftened at one time, and exhilarated at another. But whatever be his purpose, whether to gladden or deprefs, or to conduct the ftory, without vehemence or emotion, through tracts of eafy and familiar dialogue, he never fails to attain his purpose; as he commands us, we laugh or mourn, or fit filent with quiet expectation, in tranquillity without indifference.

When Shakespeare's plan is understood, most of the criticisms of Rhymer and Voltaire vanish away. The play of Hamlet is opened, without impropriety, by two centinels; Iago bellows at Brabantio's window, without injury to the scheme of the play, though in terms which a modern audience would not easily endure; the character of Polonius is feasonable and useful; and the Grave-diggers themfelves may be heard with applause.

Shakespeare engaged in dramatick poetry with the world open before him; before him; the rules of the ancients were yet known to few; the publick judgment was unformed; he had no example of fuch fame as might force him upon imitation, nor criticks of fuch authority as might restrain his extravagance: he therefore indulged his natural difpofition, and his difpofition, as Rhymer has remarked, led him to comedy.. In tragedy he often writes with great appearance of toil and study, what is written at laft with little felicity; but in his comick fcenes, he seems to produce without labour,

labour, what no labour can improve. In tragedy he is always ftruggling after fome occafion to be comick, but in comedy he seems to repose, or to luxuriate, as in a mode of thinking congenial to his nature. In his tragick scenes there is always fomething wanting, but his comedy often furpaffes expectation or defire. His comedy pleases by the thoughts and the language, and his tragedy for the greater part by incident and action. His tragedy feems to be skill, his comedy to be instinct.

The force of his comick fcenes has fuffered little diminution from the changes made by a century and a half, in manners or in words. As his perfonages act upon principles arifing from genuine paffion, very little modified by particular forms, their pleasures and vexations are communicable to all times and to all places; they are natural, and therefore durable; the adventitious peculiarities of perfonal habits, are only fuperficial dies, bright and pleasing for a little while, yet foon fading to a dim tinct, without any remains of former luftre; but the difcriminations of true passion are the colours of nature; they pervade the whole mafs, and can only perish with the body that exhibits them. The accidental compofitions of heterogeneous modes are diffolved by the chance which combined them; but the uniform fimplicity of primitive qualities neither admits increase, nor fuffers decay. The fand heaped by one flood is fcattered by another, but the rock always continues in its place. The ftream of time, which is continually washing the diffoluble fabricks of other poets, paffes without injury by the adamant of Shakespeare.

If there be, what I believe there is, in every nation, a stile which never becomes obfolete, a certain mode of phrafeology fo confonant and congenial to the analogy and principles of its respective language, as to remain fettled and unaltered; this ftile is probably to be fought in the common intercourse of life, among those who speak only to be understood, without ambition of elegance. The polite are always catching modish innovations, and the learned depart from established forms of fpeech, in hope of finding or making better; those who wish for diftinction forfake the vulgar, when the vulgar is right; but there is a conversation above groffnefs and below refinement, where propriety refides, and where this poet feems 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 mafters of our language.

Thefe obfervations are to be confidered not as unexceptionably conftant, but as containing general and predominant truth. Shakespeare's familiar dialogue is affirmed to be fmooth and clear, yet not wholly without ruggednefs 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.

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Shake

Shakespeare with his excellencies has likewise faults, and faults fufficient to obfcure and overwhelm any other merit. I fhall fhew them in the proportion in which they appear to me, without envious malignity or fuperftitious veneration. No question can be more innocently difcuffed than a dead poet's pretensions to renown; and little regard is due to that bigotry which fets candor higher than truth.

His first defect is that to which may be imputed most of the evil in books or in men. He facrifices. virtue to convenience, and is fo much more careful to pleafe 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 must 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 fhew in the virtuous a disapprobation 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 carelefsly pursued, that he feems not always fully to comprehend his own defign. He omits opportunities of inftructing or delighting, which the train of his Rory feems to force upon him, and apparently rejects

thofe

those exhibitions which would be more affecting, for the fake of those which are more easy.

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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 shortened the labour to snatch the profit. He therefore remits his efforts where he should most vigorously exert them, and his catastrophe is improbably produced or imperfectly represented.

He had no regard to distinction 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. Shakespeare, 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 pastoral with the feudal times, the days of innocence, quiet, and fecurity, with those of turbulence, violence, and ad

venture.

In his comick scenes he is feldom very fuccessful, when he engages his characters in reciprocations of smartness and contefts of farcafm; their jefts are commonly gross, and their pleasantry licentious; neither his gentlemen nor his ladies have much delicacy, nor

are