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Hamlet's friend, not to acknowledge he does him great juftice.

The Grave-digger was never in better preservation than with Mr. YATES.-The Queen should be an object of deteftation or pity, yet is neither, but an odd compound of both.-Mrs. PRITCHARD here, as in many others much more interestingwhen shall we see her like again. -Ophelia found a great friend in Mrs. CIBBER, and has no reason to complain of her intimacy with Miss MACKLIN.

As to the versification and dialogue of this piece, they are flowing without monotony, poetical without bombast, easy without flatness, and always speak to the heart, where there is opportunity or occafion. To transcribe all the beautiful passages would feem a design to fill up; and to produce only few, where there is abundance, must be deemed partiality; wherefore I refer to the reader's taste and the piece itself; presuming to conclude my remarks on it with one general observation, which is, that no play can afford more entertainment on the stage, or improvement in the closet, tho' abounding with fuperfluities and inconsistencies; several of the former are omitted in performance, most of the latter must remain; all the moral we can deduce is, that murder cannot lie hid, and that confcience ever makes a coward of guilt.

The STRATHE

STRATAGEM.

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A COMEDY. By FARQUHAR.

As Mr. Pope declared an honest man the noblest

work of God, fo Mr. Addison pronounced a good tragedy to be the noblest work of man; whether he advanced this opinion from intending to raise fuch a masterly and permanent monument to his own reputation upon the story of Cato; or if he did, how much he failed in the great attempt, we shall not at present pretend to determine; but rather yield to Dryden's assertion, that an epic poem is undoubtedly the most arduous and comprehensive effort of human genius.

The tragic muse confessedly claims great preeminence over her sister the comic, yet if we confider, that a knowledge of ourselves and the world are the best possessions of our minds, the laughing lady, tho' she must yield precedence to dignity, may certainly, upon just principles, boast a greater share of utility; the elevated passions and incidents with which we are treated by the former may warm, melt, and astonish our feelings, while the latter, playing with fancy in its natural, or fome other familiar sphere, exhilerates our spirits, puts judgment in good humour, and pleasantly prepares us to receive some occafional necessary lashes of correction, applied to our vices or follies.

There

There is one remark relative to the dramatic

fifters well worth notice; that, as the elder is less general, so she is more lasting; her characters and passions are the fame through ages; while the younger is forced to draw existing peculiarities; which, when their parent, fashion vanishes, difappear with her, and become obsolete; thus the comedies of Shakespeare and Ben Johnson exhibit masterly genius, yet as the originals they took their pictures from are unknown, their force and beauty are in a great measure loft. When Mr. Garrick's Fribble was first played, a small hat helped confiderably to mark the petiteness and infignificancy of his figure; what fort of a hat must he wear now to diftinguish him from the present Liliputian head-covers.

1

We are told, that Wilkes played all his fine gentlemen in full-bottomed wigs, as Cibber did the fops also; how strange would any thing of that kind appear at present, when even bishops wear crop-eared bobs; the coxcomb and fine' lady of every seven years vary confiderably in almost every point of conversation and deportment, as they do every single year in regard of dress ; wherefore the writer of the present day, if he has genius fuitable, must have great advantage of his predeceffors, prevailing manners and originals being on his fide.

There have been instances of men very little converfant in life writing tolerable tragedies; but I don't remember one, nor do I believe an instance can be given, of any person writing a comedy of merit,

merit, whose intercourse with, and knowledge of fociety has not been pretty extensive.

Unities of time and place and place are, strictly applied, critical trammels, serving no purpose but to check the noble flights of genius; the same latitude of imagination, which can move us from a chamber to a street, and thence to a grove, may undoubtedly reconcile much greater transitions; avoiding this very allowable liberty has made most of our modern tragedies so barren of incident, that they are heavy and palling to a degree; but tho' moderate freedom is contended for, poetical licentioufness should be avoided; a child to be born in the first act, and appear fixteen or feventeen years old in the fifth, as we find in the Winter's Tale, throws contempt upon probability, and overstrains the utmost stretch of credibilty; such a lapse of time is totally unwarrantable; indeed as comedy is a delineator of familiar life, the unities should be much more punctually observed in her compofitions than those of tragedy.

an

Thus much premised, let us proceed to the investigation of Mr. Farquhar's last production; odd, yet it is hoped, not very blameable composition for a dying author; whose genius, like an expiring taper, has here thrown out several stronger flashes of light, than when in a perfect state of ex istence.

The STRATAGEM, more properly so called than Beaux Stratagem, takes its name and birth from the declining circumstances of two genteel spirited young fellows, who, from their own account, count, have spent their fortunes, and rather chose to retire from the circle of gay life, before neceffity subjected them to contempt; having seen many examples of worthy, sensible men, who, wanting full pockets, were not only shunned, but publicly ridiculed by coxcombs of their former acquaintance, whose finances remained still unimpaired.

The design of our adventurers, travelling to pick up a fortune in a matrimonial way, tho' not strictly honourable, is no way chimerical or improbable; and laying the first scene in a public-house, gives an opportunity of opening the play, and its general design, with humour as well as propriety.

The bustle of Boniface and the pertness of Cherry are extremely characteristic, nor can any thing be better supported than the forward, self-fufficient, talkative landlord is with his guests in the first scene; the praise of his beer, his punctuality respecting its age, its killing his wife, with the help of usquebaugh, his [resignation upon that circumstance, his transition to the characters of lady Bountiful, the other ladies, and Mrs. Sullen, is a well-expressed chain of connected, humorous nothingness, which is not a little enlivened by making every perfon old Bonny mentions, a subject of appeal to the tankard; his curiosity in founding Archer about his master, and Archer's whimsical referve work a comic effect.

The scene of explanation between Aimwell and Archer seems rather essentially the effect of their fituation and scheme then merely a designed information to the audience; and Boniface comes in

VOL. I.

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happily

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