But there are
The firft is,

the fat to be probable) is extremely fine. two paffages that deferve a particular notice. what Portia fays in praife of mercy, and the other on the power of mufick. The melancholy of Jaques in As you like it, is as fingular and odd as it is diverting. And if, what Horace fays,

Difficile eft proprie communia dicere,

'twill be a hard task for any one to go beyond him in the defcription of the feveral degrees and ages of man's life, though the thought be old, and common enough.

All the world is a stage,

And all the men and women merely players;
They have their exits and their entrances,
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages. First the infant
Mewling and puking in the nurse's arms:
And then, the whining fchool-boy with his fatchel,
And shining morning-face, creeping like fnail
Unwillingly to fschool. And then the lover
Sighing like furnace, with a woful bellad

Made to his mistress' eye-brow. Then a foldier
Full of ftrange oaths, and bearded like the pard,
Jealous in honour, fudden and quick in quarrel,
Seeking the bubble reputation

Ev'n in the cannon's mouth. And then the juftice
In fair round belly, with good capon lin❜d,

With eyes fevere, and beard of formal cut,
Full of wife faws and modern instances;
And fo he plays his part. The fixth age shifts
Into the lean and flipper'd pantaloon,
With spectacles on nofe, and pouch on fide;
VOL. I.

n

His youthful hofe, well fav'd, a world too wide
For his fhrunk fhanks; and his big manly voice,
Turning again tow'rd childish treble, pipes
And whiftles in his found. Laft scene of all,
That ends this strange eventful history,

Is fecond childifhnefs and meer oblivion,
Sans teeth, fans eyes, fans taste, fans every thing.
Vol. I. Part II. p. 462.

His images are indeed every where fo very lively, that the thing he would represent stands full before you, and you poffels every part of it. I will venture to point out one more, which is, I think, as ftrong and as uncommon as any thing I ever faw; 'tis an image of Patience. Speaking of a maid in love, he fays,

She never told her love,

But let concealment, like a worm i' th' bud,

Feed on her damask cheek: the pin'd in thought,
And fat like Patience on a monument,
Smiling at Grief.

What an image is here given! and what a task would it have been for the greatest masters of Greece and Rome to have expreffed the paffions defigned by this sketch of ftatuary! The style of his comedy is, in general, natural to the characters, and easy in itself; and the wit, most commonly, fprightly and pleafing, except in those 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 thofe 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 raises his fancy to a flight above mankind and the limits of the visible world. Such are his attempts in The Tempest, Midsummer Night's Dream, Macbeth, and Hamlet. Of thefe, The Tempeft, however it comes to be placed the first by the publishers of his works, can never have been the firft written by him: it seems to me as perfect in its kind, as almost any thing we have of his. One may observe, that the unities are kept here, with an exactnefs uncommon to the liberties of his writing: that was what I fuppofc 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 likeness to truth which ought to be observed in these fort of writings; yet he does it fo very finely, that one is easily 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, fhews a wonderful invention in the author, who could ftrike out fuch a particular wild image, and is certainly one of the finest and most uncommon grotefques that was ever seen. The obfervation, which I have been informed three very great men concurred in making upon this part, was extremely juft; "That Shake

speare had not only found out a new character in his Caliban, but had alfo devised and adapted a new manner of "language for that character."

* Lord Falkland, Lord C. J. Vaughan, and Mr. Selden;

It is the fame magick that raises the fairies in the Midfummer Night's Dream, the witches in Macbeth, and the ghost in Hamlet, with thoughts and language so proper to the parts they fuftain, and fo peculiar to the talents of the writer. But of the two laft of these plays I fhall have occafion to take notice among the tragedies of Mr. Shakespeare. If one undertook to examine the greatest part of these by those rules which are established by Ariftotle, and taken from the model of the Grecian ftage, it would be no very hard task to find a great many faults: but as Shakespeare lived under a kind of mere light of nature, and had never been made acquainted with the regularity of those written precepts, so 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 almoft univerfal licence and ignorance: there was no eftablifhed 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 appearence on the prefent flage, it cannot but be a matter of great wonder that he should advance dramatick poetry fo far as he did. The fable is what is generally placed the firft, among those that are reckoned the constituent parts of a tragick or heroick poem; not, perhaps, as it is the most difficult or beautiful, but as it is the firft property to be thought of in the contrivance and course 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 mastery of Shakespeare 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 true hiftory, or no

vels and romances: and he commonly made use of them in that order, with those incidents, and that extent of time in which he found them in the authors from whence he borrowed them. Almost all his hiftorical plays comprehend a great length of time, and very different and diftinct places: and in his Antony and Cleopatra, the foene travels over the greatest part of the Roman empire. But in recompence for his careleffnefs in this point, when he comes to another part of the drama, The manners of bis characters, in acting or Speaking what is proper for them, and fit to be shown by the poet, he may be generally justified, and in very many places greatly commended. For those plays which he has taken from the English or Roman history, 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 subject, that the title very often tells you, 'tis The Life of King John, King Richard, &c. What can be more agreeable to the idea our historians give of Henry the Sixth, than the picture Shakespeare has drawn of him! His manners are every where exactly the fame with the story; one finds him still described with fimplicity, paffive fanctity, want of courage, weakness of mind, and easy 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 fhewing 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 scene in the fecond part of Henry VI. which I cannot but think admirable in its kind. Cardinal Beaufort, who had murdered the duke of Gloucester, is fhewn in the laft agonies on his death-bed, with the good king praying