may convey all the Inftruction of Tragedy or Comedy cannot be denied; because it includes both in its Alterations of Exhibition, and approaches nearer than either to the Appearance of Life, by fhewing how great Machinations and flender Defigns may promote or obviate one another, and the high and the low co-operate in the general System by unavoidable Concatenation.

It is objected, that by this Change of Scenes the Paffions are interrupted in their Progreffion, and that the principal Event, being not advanced by a due Gradation of preparatory Incidents, wants at laft the Power to move, which conftitutes the Perfection of dramatick Poetry. This Reasoning is fo fpecious, that it is received as true even by those who in daily Experience feel it to be falfe. The Interchanges of mingled Scenes feldom fail to produce the intended Viciffitudes of Paffion. Fiction cannot move fo much, but that the Attention may be easily transferred; and though it must be allowed that pleafing Melancholy be fometimes interrupted by unwelcome Levity; yet let it be confidered likewife, that Melancholy is often not pleafing, and that the Disturbance of one Man may be the Relief of another; that different Auditors have different Habitudes; and that, upon the Whole, all Pleasure confifts in Variety.

The Players, who in their Edition divided our Author's Works into Comedies, Hiftories, and Tragedies, feem not to have diftinguished the three Kinds, by any very exact or definitive Ideas.

An Action which ended happily to the principal Perfons, however serious or diftressful through its intermediate Incidents, in their Opinion constituted a Comedy. This Idea of a Comedy continued long amongst us, and Plays were written, which, by changing the Catastrophe, were Tragedies to-day, and Comedies to-morrow.

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Tragedy

Tragedy was not in those Times a Poem of more general Dignity or Elevation than Comedy; it required only a calamitous Conclufion, with which the common Criticism of that Age was fatisfied, whatever lighter Pleasure it afforded in its Progress.

Hiftory was a Species of Actions, with no other than chronological Succeffion, independent of each other, and without any Tendency to introduce or regulate the Conclufion. It is not always very nicely ditinguished from Tragedy. There is not much n arer Approach to Unity of Action in the Tragedy of Antony and Cleopatra, than in the Hiftory of Richard the Second. But a Hiftory might be continued through many Plays; as it had no Plan, it had no Limits.

Through all thefe Denominations of the Drama, Shakespeare's Mode of Compofition is the fame; an Interchange of Seriousness and Merriment, by which the Mind is foftened at one Time, and exhilarated at another. But whatever be his Purpose, whether to gladden or deprefs, or to conduct the Story, without Vehemence or Emotion, through Tracts of easy and familiar Dialogue, he never fails to attain his Purpofe; as he commands us, we laugh or mourn, or fit filent with quiet Expectation, in Tranquillity without Indifference.

When Shakespeare's Plan is understood, moft of the Criticisms of Rhymer and Voltaire vanifh away. The Play of Hamlet is opened, without Impropriety, by two Sentinels; Iago bellows at Brabantio's Window, without Injury to the Scheme of the Play, though in Terms which a modern Audience would not easily endure; the Character of Polonius is feasonable and useful; and the Grave-diggers themselves may be heard with Applause.

Shakespeare engaged in dramatick Poetry with the World open before him; the Rules of the Ancients were yet known to few; the publick Judgment was unformed;

unformed; he had no Example of fuch Fame as might force him upon Imitation, nor Criticks of fuch Authority as might restrain his Extravagance: He therefore indulged his natural Difpofition, and his Difpofition, as Rhymer has remarked, led him to Comedy. In Tragedy he often writes with great Appearance of Toil and Study, what is written at last with little Felicity; bnt in his comic Scenes he feems to produce without Labour, what no Labour can improve. In Tragedy he is always ftruggling after fome Occafion to be comick; but in Comedy he feems to repofe, or to luxuriate, as in a Mode of Thinking congenial to his Nature. In his tragick Scenes there is always fomething wanting; but his Comedy often furpaffes Expectation or Defire. His Comedy pleases by the Thoughts and the Language, and his Tragedy for the greater Part by Incident and Action. His Tragedy feems to be Skill, his Comedy to be Instinct.

The Force of his comick Scenes has fuffered little Diminution from the Changes made by a Century and a half in Manners or in Words. As his Perfonages act upon Principles arifing from genuine Pasfion, very little modified by particular Forms, their Pleasures and Vexations are communicable to all Times, and to all Places; they are natural, and therefore durable; the adventitious Peculiarities of perfonal Habits are only fuperficial Dyes, bright and pleafing for a little while, yet foon fading to a dim Tinct, without any Remains of former Luftre; but the Discriminations of true Paffion and the Colours of Nature; they pervade the whole Mafs, and can only perish with the Body that exhibits them. The accidental Compofitions of heterogeneous Modes are diffolved by the Chance which combined them; but the uniform Simplicity of primitive Qualities neither admits Increase, nor fuffers Decay. The Sand heaped by one Flood is scattered by another, but the Rock always continues

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continues in its Place. The Stream of Time, which is continually washing the diffoluble Fabricks of other Poets, paffes without Injury by the Adamant of Shakespeare.

If there be, what I believe there is, in every Nation, a Stile which never becomes obfolete, a certain Mode of Phrafeology fo confonant and congenial to the Analogy and Principles of its refpective Language, as to remain fettled and unaltered; this Stile is probably to be fought in the common Intercourfe of Life among those who speak only to be understood, without Ambition of Elegance. The Polite are always catching modifh Innovations, and the Learned depart from established Forms of Speech, in Hope of finding or making better; thofe who with for Diftinction, forfake the Vulgar, when the Vulgar is right; but there is a Converfation above Groffnefs, and below Refinement, where Propriety refides, and where this Poet feems to have gathered his Comick Dialogue. He is therefore more agreeable to the Ears of the prefent Age than any other Authour equally remote, and among his other Excellencies, deferves to be ftudied as one of the original Mafters of our Language.

These Obfervations are to be confidered not as unexceptionably conftant, but as containing general and predominant Truth. Shakespeare's familiar Dialogue is affirmed to be fmooth and clear, yet not wholly without Ruggedness or Difficulty; as a Country may be eminently fruitful, though it has Spots unfit for Cultivation: His Characters are praised as natural, though their Sentiments are fometimes forced, and their Actions improbable; as the Earth upon the Whole is fpherical, though its Surface is varied with Protuberances and Cavities.

Shakespeare with his Excellencies has likewife Faults, and Faults fufficient to obfcure and overwhelm any other Merit. I fhall fhew them in the

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Proportion in which they appear to me, without envious Malignity, or fuperftitious Veneration. No Question can be more innocently difcuffed than a dead Poet's Pretenfions to Renown; and little Regard is due to that Bigotry which fets Candour higher than Truth.

His firft Defect is that to which may be imputed. moft of the Evil in Books or in Men. He facrifices Virtue to Convenience, and is so much more careful to please than to inftruct, that he feems to write without any moral Purpose. From his Writings indeed a Syftem of focial Duty may be felected, for he that thinks reasonably must think morally; but his Precepts and Axioms drop cafually from him; he makes no just Distribution of Good or Evil, nor is always careful to fhew in the Virtuous a Difapprobation of the Wicked; he carries his Perfons indifferently through Right and Wrong, and at the Clofe difmiffes them without further Care, and leaves their Examples to operate by Chance. This Fault the Barbarity of his Age cannot extenuate; for it is always a Writer's Duty to make the World better, and Juftice is a Virtue independant on Time or Place.

The Plots are often fo loosely formed, that a very flight Confideration may improve them, and fo carele'sly purfued, that he seems not always fully to comprehend his own Design. He omits Opportunities of inftructing or delighting which the Train of his Story feems to force upon him, and apparently rejects thofe Exhibitions which would be more affecting, for the Sake of thofe which are inore easy.

It may be observed, that in many of his Plays the latter Part is evidently neglected. When he found himself near the End of his Work, and inView of his Reward, he fhortened the Labour, to fnatch the Profit. He therefore remits his Efforts where he should moft vigourously exert them, and