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 fnatch the profit. He therefore remits his efforts where he should moft vigorously exert them, and his catastrophe is improbably produced or imperfectly reprefented.

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. 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 mythology of fairies. Shakespeare, indeed, was not the only violater 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 comic scenes he is feldom very fuccefsful, when he engages his characters in reciprocations of smartness and conteft of sarcasm; their jefts are commonly grofs, and their pleasantry licentious; neither his gentlemen nor his ladies have much delicacy, nor are fufficiently diftinguished from his clowns by any appearance of refined manners. Whether he reprefented the real converfation of his time is not eafy to determine; the reign of Elizabeth is commonly fuppofed to have been a time of statelinefs, formality and referve, yet perhaps the relaxations of that feverity 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 seems conftantly to be worse, as his labour is more. The effufions of passion which exigence forces out, are for the most part ftriking and energetick; but whenever he folicits his invention, or strains his faculties, the offspring of his throes is tumour, meannefs, tediousness, and obfcurity.

In narration he affects a disproportionate pomp of diction, and a wearisome train of circumiocution, and tells the incident imperfectly in many words, which might have been more plainly delivered in few. Narration in dramatic poetry is naturally tedious, as it is unanimated and inactive, and obftructs the progress of the action; it should therefore always be rapid, and enlivened by frequent interruption. Shakespeare found it an encumbrance, and instead of lightening it by brevity, endeavoured to recommend it by dignity and fplendour.

His declamations or fet fpeeches are commonly cold and weak, for his power was the power of nature; when he endeavoured, like other tragic writers, to catch opportunities of amplification, and instead of inquiring what the o.cafion demanded, to show how much his ftores of knowledge could fupply, he seldom escapes without the pity or refentment of his reader.

It is incident to him to be now and then entangled with an unwieldy fentiment, which he cannot well express, and will not reject; he ftruggles with it a while, and if it continues ftubborn, comprises it in words fuch as occur, and leaves it to be difentangled and evolved by those who have more leifare to bestow upon it.

Not that always where the language is intricate the thought is subtle, or the image always great where the line is bulky; the equality of words to things is very often neglected, and trivial fentiments and vulgar ideas disappoint

the attention, to which they are recommended by fonorous ephithets and fwelling figures.

But the admirers of this great poet have never lefs reason to indulge their hopes of fupreme excellence, that when he feems fully refolved to fink them in dejection, and mollify them with tender emotions by the fall of greatness, the danger of innocence, or the croffes of love. He is not long soft and pathetic without fome idle conceit, or contemptible equivocation. He no fooner begins to move, than he counteracts himself; and terrour and pity, as they are rifing in the mind, are checked and blafted by sudden frigidity.

A quibble is to Shakespeare, what luminous vapours are to the traveller; he follows it at all adventures, it is fure to lead him out of his way, and fure to engulf him in the mire. It has fome malignant power over his mind, and its fafcinations are irrefiftible. Whatever be the dignity or profoundity of his difquifition, whether he be enlarging knowledge or exalting affection, whether he be amusing attention with incidents, or enchaining it in suspense, let but a quibble spring up before him, and he leaves his work unfinifhed. A quibble is the golden apple for which he will always turn afide from his career, or stoop from his elevation. A quibble, poor and barren as it is, gave him fuch delight, that he was content to purchase it, by the sacrifice of reafon, propriety and truth. A quibble was to him the fatal Cleopatra for which he loft the world, and was content to lose it.

It will be thought strange, that, in enumerating the defects of this writer, I have not yet mentioned his neglect of the unities; his violation of those laws which have been inftituted and established by the joint authority of poets and of criticks.

For his other deviations from the art of writing, I refign him to critical justice, without making any other demand in his favour, than that which must be indulged to all human excellence ; that his virtues be rated with his failings: But, from the cenfure which this irregularity may bring upon him, I fhall, with due reverence to that learning which I muft oppose, adventure to try how I can defend him.

His hiftories, being neither tragedies nor comedies, are not fubject to any of their laws; nothing more is neceffary to all the praise which they expect, than that the changes of action be fo prepared as to be understood, that the incidents be various and affecting, and the characters confiftent, natural and distinct. No other unity is intended, and therefore none is to be fought.

In his other works he has well enough preserved the unity of action. He has not, indeed, an intrigue regularly perplexed and regularly unravelled; he does not endeavour to hide his design only to discover it, for this is feldom the order of real events, and Sheakspeare is the poet of nature: But his plan has commonly what Ariftotle requires, a beginning, a middle, and an end; one event is concatenated with another, and the conclufion follows by easy confequence. There are perhaps fome incidents that might be fpared, as in other poets there is much talk that only fills up time upon the ftage; but the general fyftem makes gradual advances, and the end of the play is the end of expectation.

To the unities of time and place he has fhewn no regard, and perhaps a nearer view of the principles on which they ftand will diminish their value, and withdraw from them the veneration which, from the time of Corneille, they have very generally received, by discovering that they have VOL. I.

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given more trouble to the poet, then pleasure to the auditor.

The neceffity of obferving the unities of time and place arifes from the fuppofed neceffity of making the drama credible. The criticks hold it impoffible, that an action of months or years can be poffibly believed to pass in three hours ; or that the spectator can suppose himself to fit in the theatre, while ambassadors go and return betwe n distant kings, while armies are levied and towns befieged, while an exile wanders and returns, or till he whom they faw courting his mistress, shall lament the untimely fall of his fon. The mind revolts from evident falsehood, and fiction lofes its force when it departs from the refemblance of reality.

From the narrow limitation of time neceffarily arises the contraction of place. The fpectator, who knows that he faw the first act at Alexandria, cannot suppose that he sees the next at Rome, at a distance to which not the dragons of Medea could, in fo fhort a time, have tranfported him; he knows with certainty that he has not changed his place; and he knows that place cannot change itself; that what was a house cannot become a plain; that what was Thebes can never be Perfepolis.

Such is the triumphant language with which a critic exults over the mifery of an irregular poet, and exults commonly without refiftance or reply. It is time therefore to tell him, by the authority of Shakespeare, that he affumes, as an unquestionable principle, a pofition, which, while his breath is forming it into words, his understanding pronounces to be falfe. It is false, that any representation is mistaken for reality; that any dramatic fable in its materiality was ever credible, or, for a fingle moment, was ever credited.

The objection arifing from the impoffibility of paffing the first hour at Alexandria, and the next at Rome, fuppofes,