maturer knowledge is offended, was the chief recommendation of writings, to unfkilful curiofity.

Our authour's plots are generally borrowed from novels, and it is reasonable to fuppofe, that he chofe the most popular, fuch as were read by many, and related by more; for his audience could not have followed him through the intricacies of the drama, had they not held the thread of the ftory in their hands.

The ftories, which we now find only in remoter authours, were in his time acceffible and familiar. The fable of As you like it, which is fuppofed to be copied from Chaucer's Gamelyn, was a little pamphlet of those times; and old Mr. Cibber remembered the tale of Hamlet in plain English profe, which the cri ticks have now to feek in Saxo Grammaticus.

His English hiftories he took from English chro nicles and English ballads; and as the ancient writers were made known to his countrymen by verfions, they supplied him with new fubjects; he dilated fome, of Plutarch's lives into plays, when they had been tranflated by North.

His plots, whether hiftorical or fabulous, are always crouded with incidents, by which the attention of a rude people was more eafily caught than by fentiment or argumentation; and fuch is the power

of

of the marvellous even over those who defpife it, that every man finds his mind more ftrongly feized by the tragedies of Shakespeare than of any other writer; others please us by particular fpe ches, but he always makes us anxious for the event, and has perhaps excelled all but Homer in fecuring the first purpose of a writer, by exciting reftlefs and unquenchable curiofity, and compelling him that reads his work to read it through.

The fhows and bustle with which his plays abound have the fame original. As knowledge advances, pleasure paffes from the eye to the ear, but returns, as it declines, from the ear to the eye. Those to whom our authour's labours were exhibited had more skill in pomps or proceffions than in poetical language, and perhaps wanted fome vifible and difcriminated. events, as comments on the dialogue. He knew how he should most please; and whether his practice is more agreeable to nature, or whether his example has prejudiced the nation, we ftill find that on our stage fomething must be done as well as faid, and inactive declamation is very coldly heard, however mufical or elegant, paffionate or fublime.

Voltaire expreffes his wonder, that our authour's extravagances are endured by a nation, which has feen the tragedy of Cato. Let him be answered, that Addison fpeaks the language of poets, and ShakeSpeares of men. We find in Cato innumerable beauVOL. I. [C]

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ties which enamour us of its authour, but we fee nothing that acquaints us, with human fentiments or human actions; we place it with the faireft and the nobleft progeny which judgment propagates by conjunction with learning, but Othello is the vigorous and vivacious offspring of obfervation impregnated by genius. Cato affords a fplendid exhibition of artificial and fictitious manners, and delivers just and noble sentiments, in diction eafy, elevated and harmonious, but its hopes and fears communicate no vibration to the heart; the compofition refers us only to the writer; we pronounce the name of Cata, but we think on Addison.

The work of a correct and regular writer is a garden accurately formed and diligently planted, varied with fhades, and fcented with flowers; the compofition of Shakespeare is a foreft, in which oaks extend their branches, and pines tower in the air, interfperfed fometimes with weeds and brambles, and fometimes giving fhelter to myrtles and to rofes; filling the eye with awful pomp, and gratifying the mind with endless diversity. Other poets display cabinets of precious rarities, minutely finished, wrought into fhape, and polished unto brightnefs. Shakespeare opens a mine which contains gold and diamonds in unexhaustible plenty, though clouded by incruftations, debafed by impurities, and mingled with a mafs of meaner minerals.

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It has been much difputed, whether Shakespeare owed his excellence to his own native force, or whether he had the common helps of fcholaftick education, the precepts of critical science, and the examples of ancient authours.

There has always prevailed a tradition, that ShakeIpeare wanted learning, that he had no regular education, nor much skill in the dead languages. Johnson, his friend, affirms, that he had small Latin, and no Greek; who, befides that he had no imaginable temptation to falsehood, wrote at a time when the character and acquifitions of Shakespeare were known to multitudes. His evidence ought therefore to decidé the controverfy, unlefs fome teftimony of equal force could be opposed.

Some have imagined that they have discovered deep learning in many imitations of old writers; but the examples which I have known urged, were drawn from books tranflated in his time; or were fuch eafy coincidencies of thought, as will happen to all who confider the fame fubjects; or fuch remarks on life or axioms of morality as float in converfation, and are tranfmitted through the world in proverbial fentences.

I have found it remarked, that, in this important Lentence, Go before, I'll follow, we read a translation of, I prae, fequar. I have been told, that when [C 2]

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Caliban, after a pleasing dream, fays, I cry'd to Лeep again, the authour imitates Anacreon, who had, like every other man, the fame with on the fame occafion.

There are a few paffages which may pafs for imitations, but fo few, that the exception only confirms the rule; he obtained them from accidental quotations, or by oral communication, and as he used what he had, would have used more if he had obtained it.

The Comedy of Errors is confeffedly taken from the Menæchmi of Plautus; from the only play of Plautus which was then in English. What can be more probable, than that he who copied that, would have copied more; but that those which were not translated were inacceffible?

Whether he knew the modern languages is uncertain. That his plays have fome French fcenes proves but little; he might easily procure them to be written, and probably, even though he had known the language in the common degree, he could not have written it without affiftance. In the ftory of Romeo and Juliet he is obferved to have followed the English translation, where it deviates from the Italian; but this on the other part proves nothing againft his knowledge of the original. He was to copy, not what he knew himfelf, but what was known to his audience.

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