the power of mufic. The melancholy of Jaques, in As you like it, is as fingular and odd as it is diverting. And if, what Horace says, Difficile eft proprie communia dicere, it will 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 ftage, And all the men and women merely players; Even in the cannon's mouth. And then the juflice, His images are indeed every where fo lively, that the thing he would reprefent ftands full before you, and you poffefs every part of it. I will venture to point out one more; which is, I think, as ftrong and as uncommon as VOL. J. d any 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, Vol. 3. p. 107. What an image is here given! and what a task would it have been for the greatest mafters of Greece and Rome to have expreffed the paffions defigned by this sketch of ftatuary! The ftyle of his comedy is, in general, natural to the characters, and eafy in itfelf; and the wit most commonly sprightly and pleasing, except in thofe places where he runs into doggrel rhimes, as in The Comedy of Errors, and some 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 ftage. But certainly the greatnefs of this author's genius does no where fo much appear, as where he gives his imagination an entire loofe, and raifes his fancy to a flight above mankind, and the limits of the vifible world. Such are his attempts in The Tempeft, Midfummer-night's Dream, Macbeth, and Hamlet. Of thefe, The Tempeft, however it comes to be placed the firft 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 obferve, that the unities are kept here with an exactnefs uncommon to the liberties of his writing; though that was what, I fuppofe, 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 eafily drawn in to have more faith for his fake, than reafon does well allow of. His magic has fomething in it very folemn and very poetical: and that extravagant character character of Caliban is mighty well fuftained; fhews a wonderful invention in the author, who could strike out fuch a particular wild image; and is certainly one of the finest and most uncommon grotefques that was ever feen. The observation which I have been informed three * concurred in making upon this very great men part, was extremely juft, That Shakespeare had not only found out a new character in his Caliban, but had alfo devifed and adapted a new manner of language for that cha racter. It is the fame magic that ranes the fairies in Midfummer-night's Dream, the witches in Macbeth, and the ghoft in Hamlet, with thoughts and language fo proper to the parts they fuftain, and fo peculiar to the talent of this writer. But of the two last of thefe plays I fhall have occafion to take notice among the tragedies of Mr. Shakefpeare. If one undertook to examine the greatest part of these by thofe 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 na ture, and had never been made acquainted with the regularity of thofe written precepts, fo 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 almost univerfal licence and ignorance: there was no established 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 appearance on the prefent ftage, it cannot be but a matter of great wonder, that he fhould advance dramatic poetry fo far as he did. The fable is what is generally placed the firft, among those that are reckoned the conftituent parts of a tragic or he roic poem; not, perhaps, as it is the most difficult or beautiful, but as it is the first properly to be thought of in the contrivance and courfe 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 maftery of Shakespeare d 2 * Lord Falkland, Lord C. J. Vaughan, and Mr. Selden. Shakespeare lay, fo I fhall not undertake the tedious and ill-natur'd 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 novels and romances: and he commonly made ufe 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 feene 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 his characters, in acting or speaking what is proper for them, and fit to be fhewn by the poet, he may be generally juftified, and in very many places greatly commended. For those plays which he has taken from the English or Roman hiftory, let any man compare them, and he will find the character as exact in the poet as the biftorian. He feems indeed fo far from propofing to himself any one action for a fubject, that the title ve ry often tells you it is The life of King John, King Ri chard, &c. What can be more agreeable to the idea our hiftorians give of Henry VI. than the picture Shakefpeare has drawn of him! His manners are every where exactly the fame with the ftory; one finds him ftill defcribed with fimplicity, paffive fanctity, want of courage, weakness of mind, and eafy fubmiffion to the governance of an imperious wife, or prevailing faction: though at the fame time the poet does justice to his good qualities, and moves the pity of his audience for him, by fhewing him pious, difinterefted, a contemner of the things of this world, and wholly refigned to the fevereft difpenfations of God's providence. There is a short 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 last agonies on his deathbed, with the good King praying over him. There is fo much terror in one, fo much tenderness and moving piety in the other, as must touch any one who is capable either of fear or pity. In his Henry VIII. that prince is drawn with that greatnefs greatnefs 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 fhades in this picture do not bear a juft proportion to the lights, it is not that the artist wanted either colours or fkill in the difpofition of them: but the truth, I believe, might be, that he forbore doing it out of regard to Queen Elifabeth; 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 justly 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 defcribed in the second scene 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 inclin'd 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 juftly obferved in those characters taken from the Roman hiftory. And of this, the fiercenefs and impa tience of Coriolanus, his courage and difdain 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 laft efpecially, you find them exactly as they are defcribed by Plutarch, from whom certainly Shakespeare copied them. He has indeed followed his original pretty close, and taken in feveral little incidents that might have been spared in a play. But, as I hinted before, his defign feems most commonly rather to describe thofe great men in the feveral fortunes and accidents of their lives, than to take any single great action, and form his work fimply upon that. However, there are some 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 d. 3 their |