are fufficiently distinguished from his clowns by any appearance of refined manners. Whether he repre

fented the real converfation of his time is not easy to determine; the reign of Elizabeth is commonly fupposed to have been a time of stateliness, formality, and reserve, yet perhaps the relaxations of that feverity were not very elegant. There muft, however, have been always fome modes of gaiety preferable to others, and a writer ought to choose the best.

In tragedy his performance feems conftantly to be worse, as his labour is more. The effusions of pasfion, which exigence forces out, are for the most part ftriking and energetick; but whenever he folicits his invention, or strains his faculties, the offspring of his throes is tumour, meannefs, tedioufnefs, and obfcurity.

In narration he affects a difproportionate pomp of diction, and a wearisome train of circumlocution, and tells the incident imperfectly in many words, which might have been more plainly delivered in few. Narration in dramatick poetry is naturally tedious, as it is unanimated and inactive, and obstructs the progress of the action; it should therefore always be rapid, and enlivened by frequent interruption. Shakespeare found it an encumbrance, and instead of lightening it by brevity, endeavoured to recommend it by dignity and splendor.

His declamations or fet fpeeches are commonly cold and weak, for his power was the power of nature; when he endeavoured, like other tragick VOL. L

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writers,

writers, to catch opportunities of amplification, and inftead of inquiring what the occafion demanded, to fhew how much his ftores of knowledge could fupply, he feldom escapes without the pity or refentment of his reader.

It is incident to him to be now-and-then entangled with an unwieldy fentiment, which he cannot well exprefs, and will not reject; he ftruggles with it a while, and if it continues ftubborn, comprifes it in words fuch as occur, and leaves it to be difentangled and evolved by those who have more leisure to bestow upon it.

Not that always where the language is intricate the thought is fubtle, or the image always great where the line is bulky; the equality of words to things is very often neglected, and trivial fentiments and vulgar ideas disappoint the attention, to which they are recommended by fonorous epithets and fwelling figures.

But the admirers of this great poet have never less reafon to indulge their hopes of fupreme excellence, than when he seems fully refolved to fink them in dejection, and mollify them with tender emotions by the fall of greatnefs, the danger of innocence, or the croffes of love. He is not long foft and pathetick without fome idle conceit, or contemptible equivocation. He no fooner begins to move, than he counteracts himfelf; and terror and pity, as they are rifing in the mind, are checked and blasted by fudden frigidity.

A quibble

À quibble is to Shakespeare, what luminous vapours are to the traveller: he follows it at all adventures; it is fure to lead him out of his way, and fure to engulf him in the mire. It has fome malignant power over his mind, and its fafcinations are irrefiftible. Whatever be the dignity or profundity of his difquifition, whether he be enlarging knowledge or exalting affection, whether he be amufing attention with incidents, or enchaining it in fufpenfe, let but a quibble fpring up before him, and he leaves his work unfinished. A quibble is the golden apple for which he will always turn afide from his career, or ftoop from his elevation. A quibble, poor and barren as it is, gave him fuch delight, that he was content to purchase it, by the facrifice of reason, propriety, and truth. A quibble was to him the fatal Cleopatra for which he loft the world, and was content to lofe it.

It will be thought ftrange, that, in enumerating the defects of this writer, I have not yet mentioned his neglect of the unities; his violation of those laws which have been inftituted and established by the joint authority of poets and of criticks.

For his other deviations from the art of writing, I refign him to critical juftice, without making any other demand in his favour, than that which must be indulged to all human excellence; that his virtues be rated with his failings: but, from the cenfure which this irregularity may bring upon him, I fhall, with due reverence to that learning which I muft oppose, adventure to try how I can defend him.

His hiftories, being neither tragedies nor comedies, are not fubject to any of their laws; nothing more is neceffary to all the praife which they expect, than that the changes of action be fo prepared as to be understood, that the incidents be various and affecting, and the characters confiftent, natural, and distinct. No other unity is intended, and therefore none is to be fought.

In his other works he has well enough preferved the unity of action. He has not, indeed, an intrigue regularly perplexed and regularly unravelled; he does not endeavour to hide his design only to discover it, for this is feldom the order of real events, and Shakefpeare is the poet of nature: but his plan has commonly what Aristotle requires, a beginning, a middle, and an end; one event is concatenated with another, and the conclufion follows by eafy confequence. There are perhaps fome incidents that might be fpared, as in other poets there is much talk that only fills up time upon the stage; but the general system makes gradual advances, and the end of the play is the end of expectation.

To the unities of time and place he has fhewn no regard; and perhaps a nearer view of the principles on which they stand will diminish their value, and withdraw from them the veneration which, from the time of Corneille, they have very generally received, by discovering that they have given more trouble to the poet, than pleasure to the auditor.

The neceffity of observing the unities of time and place arifes from the fuppofed neceffity of making the drama credible. The criticks hold it impoffible, that an action of months or years can be poffibly believed to pass in three hours; or that the spectator can fuppofe himself to fit in the theatre, while ambaffadors go and return between diftant kings, while armies are levied and towns befieged, while an exile wanders and returns, or till he whom they faw courting his mistress, shall lament the untimely fall of his fon. The mind revolts from evident falfehood, and fiction lofes its force when it departs from the refemblance of reality.

From the narrow limitation of time neceffarily arifes the contraction of place. The fpectator, who knows that he saw the first act at Alexandria, cannot suppose that he sees the next at Rome, at a distance to which not the dragons of Medea could, in so short a time, have tranfported him; he knows with certainty that he has not changed his place; and he knows that place cannot change itself; that what was a house cannot become a plain; that what was Thebes can never be Perfepolis.

Such is the triumphant language with whicn a critick exults over the mifery of an irregular poet, and exults commonly without resistance or reply. It is time therefore to tell him, by the authority of Shakefpeare, that he affumes, as an unquestionable principle, a pofition, which, while his breath is forming it into words, his understanding pronounces to be falfe. It is falfe, that any reprefentation is mistaken