ALL FOR LOVE.

A MODERN Would not have ventured to write upon a subject which SHAKSPERE had treated, so fully are we convinced of the unrivalled strength of his muse, and the irregular grandeur of his imagination.

That such efforts have been made by DRYDEN and by THOMSON, after the Antony and Cleopatra and Coriolanus of our Bard, must be ascribed to their habitual veneration for the scholastic regularity of the Greek drama-wanting this preservation of the unities, he wanted in their idea the principal ingredient of rational pleasure. Accordingly, the former professing to imitate his style, the latter without such profession, both equally unlike him, have given us tragedies upon the same subjects.

DRYDEN'S All for Love is the standard of what dramatically he could effect-it is written with the utmost strain of his powers, and abounds with varieties of poetic beauty-it is more regular, consistent, and florid than the play of Shakspere; has less nerve, less nature, less action-It is like a French play translated.

The master scene between Antony and Ventidius is a copy from FLETCHER.-Ventidius is Melantius in the Maids Tragedy.

PROLOGUE.

WHAT flocks of critics hover here to-day,
As vultures wait on armies for their prey,
All gaping for the carcass of a plav!
With croaking notes they bode some dire event,
And follow dying poets by the scent.

Ours gives himself for gone; you'ave watch'd your time;
He fights this day unarm❜d, without his rhyme,
And brings a tale, which often has been told,

As sad as Dido's, and almost as old.
His hero, whom you wits his bully call,
Bates of his mettle, and scarce rants at all:
He's somewhat lewd, but a well-meaning mind;
Weeps much, fights little, but is wondrous kind:
In short, a pattern and companion fit
For all the keeping tonies of the pit:
I cou'd name more; a wife and mistress too,
Both (to be plain) too good for most of you;
The wife well-natur'd, and the mistress true.

Now, Poets, if your fame has been his care,
Allow him all the candour you can spare.
A brave man scorns to quarrel once a-day,
Like Hectors, in at ev'ry petty fray.

Let those find fault whose wit's so very small
They 'ave need to show that they can think at all.
Errors like
he straws upon the surface flow;

He who would search for pearls must dive below:
Fops may have leave to level all they can,

As pigmies would be glad to lop a man.
Half-wits are fleas, so little and so light,

We scarce could know they live but that they bite.
But as the rich, when tir'd with daily feasts,
For change become their next poor tenant's guests,
Drink hearty draughts of ale from plain brown bowls,
And snatch the homely rasher from the coals;
So you, retiring from much better cheer,

For once may venture to do penance here:

And since that plenteous autumn now is past,
Whose grapes and peaches have indulg'd your taste,
Take in good part from our poor Poet's board
Such rivel'd fruits as winter can afford.

B