Hamlet. Of thefe, The Tempeft, however it comes to be placed the first by the publishers of his works, can never have been the firft 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 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 likenefs to truth which ought to be observed in these sort of writings; yet he does it fo very finely, that one is easily drawn in to have more faith for his fake, than reafon does well allow of. His magick has fomething in it very folemn, and very poetical: and that extravagant character of Cali ban is mighty well fuftained, fhews a wonderful invention in the author, who could ftrike out fuch a particular wild image, and is certainly one of the finest and most uncommon grotefques that ever was feen. The obfervation, which, I have been informed, three very great men concurred in making upon this part, was extremely juft; that Shakspeare had not only found out a new character in his Caliban, but had also devijed and adapted a new manner of language for that cha racter. It is the fame magick that raises the Fairies in A Midfummer-Night's Dream, the Witches in Macbeth, and the Ghost 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 these plays I fhall have occafion to take notice, among the tragedies of Mr. Shakspeare. If one undertook to examine the greateft part of these by those 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 Shakspeare lived under a kind of mere light of nature, 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 ftate of almoft 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 con fiders, fiders, 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 but be a matter of great wonder that he fhould advance dramatick poetry fo far as he did. The fable is what is generally placed the firft, among thofe that are reckoned the conftituent parts of a tragick or heroick 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 Shakspeare lay, fo I fhall. not undertake the tedious and ill-natured trouble to point out the feveral faults he was guilty of in it. His tales were feldom invented, but rather taken either from the true hif tory, or novels and romances: and he commonly made use of them in that order, with thofe incidents, and that extent of time in which he found them in the authors from whence he borrowed them. So The Winter's Tale, which is taken from an old book, called The Delectable Hiftory of Doraftus and Fawnia, contains the space of fixteen or feventeen years, and the scene is fometimes laid in Bohemia, and fometimes in Sicily, according to the original order of the ftory. Almost all his historical plays comprehend a great length of time, and very different and diftinct places: and in his Antony and Cleopatra, the scene travels over the greatest part of the Roman empire. But in recompence for his carelessnefs 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 shewn 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 hiftorian. He seems indeed fo far from propofing to himself any one action for a fubject, that the title very often tells you, it is The Life of King John, King Richard, &c. What can be more agreeable to the idea our hiftorians give of Henry the Sixth, than the picture Shakspeare has drawn of him! His manners are every where exactly the fame with the story; one 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 juftice to his good qualities, and moves the pity of his audience for him, by. fhewing him pious, difinterested, a contemner of the things of this world, and wholly refigned to the fevereft difpenfations of God's providence. There is a fhort fcene in The Second Part of Henry the Sixth, which I cannot but think admirable in its kind. Cardinal Beaufort, who had mur. dered the Duke of Gloucester, is fhewn in the last agonies on his death-bed, with the good king praying over him. There is fo much terror in one, fo much tenderness and moving piety in the other, as muft touch any one who is capable either of fear or pity. In his Henry the Eighth, that prince is drawn with that 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 skill in the difpofition of them; but the truth, I believe,. might be, that he forbore doing it out of regard to queen Elizabeth, fince it could have been no very great refpect to the memory of his miftrefs, to have expofed fome certain. parts of her father's life upon the ftage. He has dealt much more freely with the minister of that great king; and certainly nothing was ever more juftly written, than the cha-racter 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 compaflion. The whole man, with his vices and virtues, is finely and exactly defcribed in the fecond fcene of the fourth act. The dif treffes likewife of Queen Katharine, in this play, are very movingly touched; and though the art of the poet has fcreened King Henry from any grofs imputation of injustice, yet one is inclined to with, the Queen had met with a for-tune more worthy of her birth and virtue. Nor are the manners, proper to the perfons reprefented, lefs justly obferved, in thofe characters taken from the Roman hiftory; and of this, the fiercenefs and impatience of Coriolanus, his courage 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 described by Plutarch, from whom certainly Shak fpeare copied them. He has indeed followed his original pretty clofe, and taken in feveral little incidents that might have been fpared in a play. But, as I hinted before, his defign feems most commonly rather to defcribe thofe great men in the feveral fortunes and accidents of their lives, than to take any fingle great action, and form his work fimply upon that. However, there are fome 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 their two families, for the unreasonable feuds and animofities that had been fo long kept up between them, and occafioned the effufion of fo much blood. In the management of this ftery, he has fhewn fomething wonderfully tender and paffionate in the love-part, and very pitiful in the diftrefs. Hamlet is founded on much the fame tale with the Electra of Sophocles. In each of them a young prince is engaged to revenge the death of his father, their mothers are equally guilty, are both concerned in the murder of their husbands, and are afterwards married to the murderers. There is in the first part of the Greek tragedy fomething very moving in the grief of Electra; but, as Mr. Dacicr has obferved, there is fomething very unnatural and shocking in the manners he has given that Princefs and Oreftes in the latter part. 'Oreftes imbrues his hands in the blood of his own mother; and that barbarous action is performed, though not immediately upon the stage, yet fo near, that the audience hear Clytemneftra crying out to Egyfthus for help, and to her fon for mercy while Electra her daughter, and a Princess, (both of them characters that ought to have appeared with more decency,) ftands upon the stage, and encourages her brother in the parricide. What horror does this not raife! Clytemneftra was a wicked woman, and had deserved to die; nay, in 4 It does not appear that Hamlet's mother was concerned in the death, of her hulband. MALONE. in the truth of the ftory, fhe was killed by her own fon; but to reprefent an action of this kind on the stage, is certainly an offence against those rules of manners proper to the perfons, that ought to be obferved there. On the contrary, let us only look a little on the conduct of Shakspeare. Hamlet is reprefented with the fame piety towards his father, and refolution to revenge his death, as Oreftes; he has the fame abhorrence for his mother's guilt, which, to provoke him the more, is heightened by incelt: but it is with wonderful art and juftnefs of judgment, that the poet reftrains him from doing violence to his mother. To prevent any thing of that kind, he makes his father's Ghoft forbid that part of his vengeance: "But howfoever thou purfu't this act, Taint not thy mind, nor let thy foul contrive "To prick and fting her." This is to diftinguish rightly between horror and terror. The latter is a proper paffion of tragedy, but the former ought always to be carefully avoided. And certainly no dramatick writer ever fucceeded better in raifing terror in the minds of an audience than Shakspeare has done. The whole tragedy of Macbeth, but more efpecially the fcene where the King is murdered, in the fecond act, as well as this play, is a noble proof of that manly spirit with which he writ; and both fhew how powerful he was, in giving the ftrongest motions to our fouls that they are capable of. I cannot leave Hamlet, without taking notice of the advantage with which we have seen this master-piece of Shakspeare diftinguish itself upon the ftage, by Mr. Betterton's fine performance of that part. A man, though he had no other good qualities, as he has a great many, muft have made his way into the esteem of all men of letters, by this only excellency. No man is better acquainted with Shakspeare's manner of expreffion, and indeed he has ftudied him fo well, and is fo much a master of him, that whatever part of his he performs, he does it as if it had been written on purpofe for him, and that the author had exactly conceived it as he plays it. I must own a particular obligation to him, for the most confiderable |