labour, what no labour can improve. In tragedy he is always ftruggling after fome occafion to be comick; but in comedy he feems to repofe, or to luxuriate, as in a mode of thinking congenial to his nature. In his tragick fcenes 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 inftinct.

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 dyes, bright and pleafing for a little while, yet foon fading to a dim tinct, without any remains of former luftre; but the difcriminations of true paffion 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 increafe, nor fuffers decay. The fand heaped by one flood is feattered by another, but the rock always continues in its place. The ftream of time, which is continually wathing the diffoluble fabricks of other poets, paffes without injury by the adamant of Shakspeare.

If there be, what I believe there is, in every nation, a ftyle which never becomes obfolete, a certain mode of phrafeology fo confonant and congenial to the analogy and principles of its refpective language, as to remain fettled and unaltered; this ftyle is probably to be fought in the common intercourfe of life, among thofe 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; thofe who wish for diftinction forfake the vulgar, when the vulgar is right; but there is a conversation above groffness, 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 excellences deferves to be ftudied as one of the original masters of our language.

Thefe obfervations are to be confidered not as unexceptionably constant, but as containing general and predominant truth. Shakspeare'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 protu berances and cavities.

Shak

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Shakspeare with his excellencies has likewife 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 pretenfions to renown; and little regard is due to that bigotry which fets candour higher than truth.

His first defect is that to which may be imputed moft of the evil in books or in men. He facrifices virtue to convenience, and is fo much more careful to please than to inftruct, that he feems to write without any moral purpofe. From his writings indeed a system of focial duty may be felected, for he that thinks reasonably muft think morally; but his precepts and axioms drop cafually from him; he makes no just distribution of good or evil, nor is alway's careful to thew in the virtuous a difapprobation 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 juftice is a virtue independent on time or place.

The plots are often fo loofely formed, that a very flight confideration may improve them, and fo carelefsly purfued, that he feems not always fully to comprehend his own defign. He omits opportunities of inftructing or delighting, which the train of his story seems to force upon him, and apparently rejects

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those

thofe exhibitions which would be more affecting, for the fake of thofe which are more eafy.

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 fhortened the labour to fnatch the profit. He therefore remits his efforts where he fhould moft vigorously exert them, and his catastrophe is improbably produced or imperfectly ieprefented.

He had no regard to diftinction 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. Thefe 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 mytho-" logy of fairies. Shakspeare, 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 paftoral with the feudal times, the days of innocence, quiet, and fecurity, with those of turbulence, violence, and ad

venture.

In his comic scenes he is feldom very fuccessful, when he engages his characters in reciprocations of fmartness and contefts of sarcasm; their jests are commonly grofs, and their pleasantry licentious; neither his gentlemen nor his ladies have much delicacy, nor

are

are fufficiently diftinguifhed from his clowns by any appearance of refined manners. Whether he repre fented the real converfation of his time is not easy to determine; the reign of Elizabeth is commonly fupposed to have been a time of statelinefs, formality, and referve, yet perhaps the relaxations of that fe verity were not very elegant. There muft, however, have been always fome modes of gaiety preferable to others, and a writer ought to chufe the best.

In tragedy his performance feems conftantly to be worfe, as his labour is more. The effufions of paf fion, which exigence forces out, are for the most part ftriking and energetick; but whenever he folicits his invention, or ftrains his faculties, the offspring of his throes is tumour, meannefs, tedioufnefs, and ob fcurity.

In narration he affects a disproportionate pomp of diction, and a wearifome train of circumlocution, and tells the incident imperfectly in many words, which might have been more plainly delivered in few. Narration in dramatick poetry is naturally te dious, as it is unanimated and inactive, and obftructs the progrefs of the action; it fhould therefore always be rapid, and enlivened by frequent interruption. Shakspeare found it an incumbrance, and inftead of lightening it by brevity, endeavoured to recommend it by dignity and fplendor.

His declamations or fet fpeeches are commonly cold and weak, for his power was the power of nature; when he endeavoured, like other tragick VOL. I.

[B]

writers,