without any moral purpose. From his writings indeed a fyftem 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 fhow 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 independent on time or place.

The plots are often fo loosely formed, that a very flight confideration may improve them, and fo carelessly pursued, that he feems not always fully to comprehend his own defign. 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 fake of those which are more eafy.

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 in view of his reward, he fhortened the labour to fnatch the profit. He therefore remits his efforts where he fhould moft vigorously exert them, and his catastrophe is improbably produced or imperfectly reprefented.

He had no regard to diftinction of time or place, but gives to one age or nation, without fcruple, the customs, inftitutions, and opinions of another, at the expence not only of likelihood, but of poffibility. These faults Pope has endeavoured, with more zeal than judgment, to transfer to his imagined interpolators. We need not wonder to find Hector

quoting Ariftotle, when we fee the loves of Thefeus and Hippolyta combined with the Gothick mythology of fairies. Shakspeare, indeed, was not the only violator of chronology, for in the fame age Sidney, who wanted not the advantages of learning, has, in his Arcadia, confounded the paftoral with the feudal times, the days of innocence, quiet, and fecurity, with thofe of turbulence, violence, and adventure.2

In his comick scenes he is feldom very fuccessful, when he engages his characters in reciprocations of fmartness and contests of farcafin; their jefts are commonly grofs, and their pleafantry licentious; neither his gentlemen nor his ladies have much delicacy, nor are fufficiently diftinguished from his clowns by any appearance of refined manners. Whether he reprefented the real converfation of

2 As a further extenuation of Shakspeare's error, it may be urged that he found the Gothick mythology of Fairies already incorporated with Greek and Roman ftory, by our early tranfiators. Phaer and Golding, who first gave us Virgil and Ovid in an English drefs, introduce Fairies almost as often as Nymphs are mentioned in these claffick authors. Thus, Homer, in his 24th Iliad:

« Ἐν Σιπύλω, ὅθι φασὶ θεάων ἔμμεναι εὐνὰς « ΝΥΜΦΑΩΝ, αἶτ ̓ ἀμφ' Αχελώϊον έρρωσαντο." But Chapman translates

"In Sypilus-in that place where 'tis said

"The goddeffe Fairies ufe to dance about the funeral bed "Of Achelous :

Neither are our ancient verfifiers lefs culpable on the fcore of anachronisms. Under their hands the balifta becomes a cannon, and other modern inftruments are perpetually fubftituted for such as were the produce of the remotest ages.

It may be added, that in Arthur Hall's verfion of the fourth Iliad, Juno fays to Jupiter:

66 -the time will come that Totnam French fhal turn." And in the tenth Book we hear of "The Baftile," "Lemfter wooll," and "The Byble." STEEVENS.

his time is not eafy to determine; the reign of Elizabeth is commonly supposed to have been a time of ftatelinefs, formality, and referve, 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 effufions of paffion, which exigence forces out, are for the most part ftriking and energetick; but whenever he folicits his invention, or ftrains his faculties, the offfpring of his throes is tumour, meanness, tedioufnefs, and obfcurity.

In narration he affects a difproportionate pomp of diction, and a wearifome 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 obftructs the progrefs of the action; it should therefore always be rapid, and enlivened by frequent interruption. Shakspeare found it an incumbrance, and inftead of lightening it by brevity, endeavoured to recommend it by dignity and fplendour.

His declamations or fet fpeeches are commonly cold and weak, for his power was the power of nature; when he endeavoured, like other tragick writers, to catch opportunities of amplification, and inftead of inquiring what the occafion demanded, to fhow how much his ftores of knowledge could fupply, he feldom efcapes 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 can

not well express, 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 most reason to complain when he approaches nearest to his highest excellence, and feems 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. What he does beft, he foon ceases to do. He is not long foft and pathetick without fome idle conceit, or contemptible equivocation. He no fooner begins to move, than he counteracts himself; and terror and pity, as they are rifing in the mind, are checked and blafted by fudden frigidity.

A quibble is to Shakspeare, 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 fascinations are irresistible. Whatever be the dignity or profundity of his difquifitions, 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 ca

reer, or stoop 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 reafon, propriety, and truth. A quibble was to him the fatal Cleopatra for which he loft the world, and was content to lose 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 instituted 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 oppofe, adventure to try how I can defend him.

His hiftories, being neither tragedies nor comedies, are not subject to any of their laws; nothing more is neceffary to all the praise 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 diftinct. No other unity is intended, and therefore none is to be fought.

In his other works he has well enough preserved the unity of action. He has not, indeed, an intrigue regularly perplexed and regularly unravelled; he does not endeavour to hide his defign only to discover it, for this is feldom the order of real events, and Shakspeare is the poet of nature: but his plan has commonly what Ariftotle requires, a beginning, a middle, and an end; one event is