over him.

There is fo much terror in one, fo much tenderness and moving piety in the other, as muft touch any one who is capable either of fear or pity. In his Henry VIII. 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 fhewn in an equal degree, and the shades 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 disposition 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 refpect 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 fhewn him infolent in his profperity; and yet, by a wonderful addrefs, he makes his fall and ruin the fubject of general compaffion. The whole man, with his vices and virtues, is finely and exactly described in the fecond fcene of the fourth act. The diftreffes likewife of queen Catharine, in this play, are very movingly touched; and though the art of the poet has fcreened king Henry from any grofs imputation of injuftice, 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 justly obferved, in those characters taken from the Roman history; and of this, the fiercenefs and impatience of Corialanus, his courage, and disdain of the common people, the virtue and philofophical temper of Brutus, and the irregular greatness of mind in M. Antony, are beautiful proofs. For the two la especially, you find them exactly as they are defcribed by

Plutarch, from whom certainly Shakespeare copied them. He has indeed followed his original pretty clofe, and taken in feveral little incidents that might have been fpared in a play: but, as I hinted before, his defign feems to be, moft commonly, rather to defcribe thofe great men in the feveral fortunes and accidents of their lives, than to take any fingle great action, and form his work fimply upon that. However, there are fome of his pieces, where the fable is founded upon one action only. Such are more efpecially, Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet, and Othello. The defign in Romeo and Juliet, is plainly the punishment of their two families, for the unreasonable feuds and animofities that had been fo long kept up between them, and occafioned the effufion of fo much blood. In the management of this ftory, he has fhewn fomething wonderfully tender and paffionate in the love part, and very pitiful in the diftrefs. Hamlet is founded on much the fame tale with the Electra of Sophocles. In each of them a young prince is engaged to revenge the death of his father, their mothers are equally guilty, are both concerned in the murder of their husbands, and are afterwards married to the murderers. There is in the first part of the Greek tragedy fomething very moving in the grief of Electra; but as Mr. Dacier has obferved, there is something very unnatural and shocking in the manners he has given that princess and Oreftes in the latter part. Oreftes embrues his hands in the blood of his own mother; and that barbarous action is performed, though not immediately upon the stage, yet fo near, that the audience hear Clytemneftra crying out to

gyfthus for help, and to her fon for mercy: while Electra her daughter, and a princefs (both of them characters that ought to have appeared with more decency) ftands upon the stage, and encourages her brother in the parricide. What horror does this not raife! Clytemnestra was a wicked wo

man, and had deserved to die; nay, in the truth of the story,
fhe was killed by her own fon; but to represent an action of
this kind on the ftage, is certainly an offence against those
rules of manners proper to the perfons, that ought to be ob-
ferved there. On the contrary, let us only look a little on
the conduct of Shakespeare. Hamlet is represented with
the fame piety towards his father, and refolution to revenge
his death, as Oreftes; he has the fame abhorrence for his
mother's guilt, which, to provoke him the more, is height-
ened by inceft: but 'tis with wonderful art and juftness of
judgment, that the poet reftrains him from doing violence
to his mother. To prevent any thing of that kind, he
makes his father's ghoft forbid that part of his vengeance.
But how foever thou purfu'ft this act,

Taint not thy mind, nor let thy foul contrive
Against thy mother ought; leave her to heav'n,
And to thofe thorns that in her bofom lodge,
To prick and fting her.

This is to diftinguifh rightly between horror and terror. The latter is a proper paflion of tragedy, but the former eught always to be carefully avoided. And certainly no dratick writer ever fucceeded better in raising terror in the minds of an audience than he has done. The whole tragedy of Macbeth, but more especially the scene where the king is murdered in the fecond act, as well as this play, is a noble proof of that manly spirit with which he writ; and both fhew how powerful he was in giving the strongest motions to our fouls that they are capable of. I cannot leave Hamlet, without taking notice of the advantage with which we have feen this master-piece of Shakespeare distinguish itself upon the ftage, by Mr. Betterton's fine performance of that part. A man, who though he had no other good qualities, as he has a great many, must have made his way into the esteem

of all men of letters, by this only excellency. No man is better acquainted with Shakespeare's manner of expreffion, and indeed he has ftudied him fo well, and is fo much a mafter of him, that whatever part of his he performs, he does it as if it had been written on purpofe for him, and that the author had exactly conceived it as he plays it. I muft own a particular obligation to him, for the most confiderable part of the paffages relating to this life, which I have here transmitted to the publick; his veneration for the memory of Shakespeare having engaged him to make a journey into Warwickshire, on purpose to gather up what remains he could of a name for which he had fo great a veneration,

The following Inftrument was tranfmitted to us by JoнN ANSTIS, Efq; Garter King at Arms. It is marked G. 13. P. 349.

[There is alfo a Manufcript in the Heralds Office, marked W. 2. p. 276; where notice is taken of this Coat, and that the perfon to whom it was granted, had borne magiftracy at Stratford upon Avon.]

T

O all and fingular noble and gentlemen. of all eftates

and degrees, bearing arms, to whom these presents fhall come; William Dethick, garter principal king of arms of England, and William Camden, alias Clariencieulx, king of arms for the fouth, eaft, and weft parts of this realm, fend Greetings. Know ye, that in all nations and kingdoms the record and remembrance of the valiant facts and virtuous difpofitions of worthy men have been made known and divulged by certain fhields of arms and tokens of chivalrie; the grant or teftimony whereof appertaineth unto us, by virtue of our offices from the queen's moft excellent majefty, and her highnefs's most noble and victorious progenitors: Wherefore being folicited, and by credible report informed, that John Shakespeare, now of Stratford upon Avon in the county of Warwick, gentleman, whose great-grandfather, for his faithful and approved fervice to the late meft prudent prince, king Henry VII. of famous memory, was advanced and rewarded with lands and tenements, given to him in thofe parts of Warwickshire, where they have continued by fome defcents in good reputation and credit; and for that the faid John Shakespeare having married the daughter and one of the heirs of Robert Arden of Wellingcote in the faid county, and alfo produced this his ancient coat of arms, heretofore affigned to him whilst he was her majefty's officer and