As for the paffage which he mentions out of ShakeSpear, there is fomewhat like it in Julius Cæfar, but without the abfurdity; nor did I ever meet with it in any edition that I have feen, as quoted by Mr. Johnfon. Befides his plays in this edition, there are two or three afcrib'd to him by Mr. Langbain, which I have never seen, and know nothing of. He writ likewife Venus and Adonis, and Tarquin and Lucrece, in ftanza's, which have been printed in a late collection of Poems. As to the character given of him by Ben Johnson, there is a good deal true in it: But I believe it may be as well exprefs'd by what Horace fays of the first Romans, who wrote Tragedy upon the Greek models, (or indeed tranflated 'em) in his epiftle to Auguftus.

Naturâ fublimis & acer,

Nam fpirat Tragicum fatis & feliciter Audet, Sed turpem putat in Chartis metuitque Lituram. As I have not propos'd to myself to enter into a large and compleat collection upon Shakespear's Works, fo I will only take the liberty, with all due fubmiffion to the judgment of others, to obferve fome of thofe things I have been pleas'd with in looking

him over.

His Plays are properly to be diftinguish'd only into Comedies and Tragedies. Thofe which are call'd Hiftories, and even fome of his Comedies are really Tragedies, with a run or mixture of Comedy amongst 'em. That way of Tragi-comedy was the common mistake of that age, and is indeed become fo agreeable to the English tafte, that tho' the feverer Critics among us cannot bear it, yet the generality of our audiences seem to be better pleas'd with it than with an exact Tragedy. The Merry Wives of Windfor, the Comedy of Errors, and the Taming of the Shrew, are all pure Comedy; the reft, however they are call'd, have fomething of both kinds. 'Tis not very easy

to

to determine which way of writing he was most excellent in. There is certainly a great deal of entertainment in his comical humours; and tho' they did not then strike at all ranks of people, as the Satire of the prefent age has taken the liberty to do, yet there is a pleafing and a well-diftinguish'd variety in thofe characters which he thought fit to meddle with. Falfaff is allow'd by every body to be a mafter-piece; the Character is always well-fuftain'd, tho' drawn out into the length of three Plays; and even the account of his death, given by his old landlady Mrs. Quickly, in the first act of Henry V. tho it be extremely natural, is yet as diverting as any part of his life. If there be any fault in the draught he has made of this lewd old fellow, it is, that tho' he has made him a thief, lying, cowardly, vain-glorious, and in fhort every way vicious, yet he has given him fo much wit as to make him almost too agreeable; and I don't know whether fome people have not, in remembrance of the diverfion he had formerly afforded 'em, been forry to fee his friend Hal ufe him fo fcurvily, when he comes to the crown in the end of the fecond part of Henry the fourth. Amongst other extravagancies, in the Merry Wives of Windfor, he has made him a Deer-ftealer, that he might at the fame time remember his Warwickshire profecutor, under the name of Juftice Shallow; he has given him very near the fame coat of arms which Dugdale, in his antiquities of that county, defcribes for a family there, and makes the Welsh parfon defcant very pleasantly upon 'em. That whole play is admirable; the humours are various and well oppos'd; the main defign, which is to cure Ford of his unreasonable jealoufy, is extremely well conducted. In TwelfthNight there is fomething fingularly ridiculous and pleafant in the fantaftical steward Malvolio. The parasite and the vain-glorious in Parolles, in All's well that Ends well, is as good as any thing of that kind in Plautus

3

or Terence Petruchio, in The Taming of the Shrew, is an uncommon piece of humour. The converfation of Benedick and Beatrice, in Much ado about Nothing, and of Rofalind in As you like it, have much wit and fprightliness all along. His clowns, without which character there was hardly any play writ in that time, are all very entertaining: And, I believe, Therfites in Troilus and Creffida, and Apemantus in Timon, will be allow'd to be mafter-pieces of ill-nature, and fatyrical fnarling. To thefe I might add, that incomparable character of Shylock the Jew, in the Merchant of Venice; but tho' we have feen that play receiv'd and acted as a comedy, and the part of the few perform'd by an excellent Comedian, yet I cannot but think it was defigned tragically by the Author. There appears in it a deadly fpirit of revenge, fuch a favage fiercenefs and fellnefs, and fuch a bloody defignation of cruelty and mischief, as cannot agree either with the ftyle or characters of Comedy. The play itself, take it altogether, feems to me to be one of the most finish'd of any of Shakespear's. The tale indeed, in that part relating to the caskets, and the extravagant and unusual kind of bond given by Antonio, is too much remov'd from the rules of probability: But taking the fact for granted, we must allow it to be very beautifully written: There is fomething in the friendfhip of Antonio to Baffanio very great, generous and tender. The whole fourth act (fuppofing, as I faid, the fact to be probable) is extremely fine. But there are two paffages that deferve a particular notice. The firft is, what Portia fays in praife of mercy, and the other on the power of mufick. The melancholy of Jaques, in As you like it, is as fingular and odd as it is diverting. And if, what Horace fays,

Difficile eft proprie communia dicere,

twill 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 lenough. tren

ཀ་

All the world is a Stage,

And all the men and women meerly Players;
They have their Exits and their Entrances,
And one man in his time plays many Parts,
His Acts being feven ages. First the Infant
Mewling and puking in the nurse's arms:

And then, the whining School-boy with his fatchel,
And shining morning-face, creeping like fnail
Unwillingly to fchool. And then the Lover
Sigbing like furnace, with a woful ballad

Made to his Miftrefs' eye-brow. Then a Soldier
TOG Full of frange oaths, and bearded like the Pard,
dor Jealous in honour, fudden and quick in quarrel,
Seeking the bubble Reputation

Ev'n in the cannon's mouth. And then the Justice In fair round belly, with good capon lin'd, With eyes fevere, and beard of formal cut, Full of wife faws and modern inftances; And fo be plays his part. The fixth age fhifts y Into the lean and flipper'd Pantaloon,

With spectacles on nofe, and pouch on fide; bre His youthful bofe, well fav'd, a world too wide For bis fhrunk shanks; and his big manly voice, ya Turning again tow'rd childish treble, pipes And whistles in his found. Laft Scene of all, That ends this ftrange eventful Hiftory, Is fecond Ghildishness and meer oblivion, Sans teeth, fans eyes, fans tafte, fans every thing. Vol. 2. p. 203.

His Images are indeed every where fo lively, that the thing he would reprefent ftands full before you,

and

and you poffefs every part of it. I will venture tơi point out one more, which is, I think, as ftrong and as uncommon as 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,
Feed on her damask cheek: She pin'd in thought,
And fat like Patience on a monument,
Smiling at Grief.

What an Image is here given! and what a task would it have been for the greatest masters of Greece and Rome to have exprefs'd the paffions defign'd by this sketch of Statuary! The style of his Comedy is, in general, natural to the characters, and eafy in itfelf; and the wit moft commonly fprightly and pleafing, except in those places where he runs into doggril rhymes, as in The Comedy of Errors, and fome other plays. As for his jingling fometimes, and playing upon words, it was the common vice of the age he liv'd in: And if we find it in the pulpit, made ufe of as an ornament to the Sermons of fome of the gravest Divines of thofe times; perhaps it may not be thought too light for the Stage,

But certainly the greatnefs of this Author's genius do's no where so much appear, as where he gives his imagination an entire loofe, and raises his fancy to a flight above mankind and the limits of the visible world. Such are his attempts in The Tempest, Midfummer-Night's Dream, Mackbeth, and Hamlet. Of thefe, The Tempest, however it comes to be plac'd the firft by the Publishers of his works, can never have been the first written by him: It feems 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 exactness uncommon to the liberties of his writing:

tho'