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'twill be a hard task for any one to go beyond him in the description of the several degrees and ages of man's life, though the Thought be old, and common enough.

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 bis time plays many Parts,
His Acts being seven 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 snail
Unwillingly to school. And then the Lover
Sighing like furnace, with a woful ballad
Made to his Mistress' eye-brow. Then a Soldier
Full of strange oaths, and bearded like the Pard,
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 lind,
With eyes severe, and beard of formal cut,
Full of wife faws and modern instances;
And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts
Into the lean and flipper'd Pantaloon,
With spectacles on nose, and pouch on fide;
His youthful hose, well sav'd, a world too wide
For his shrunk shanks; and his big manly voice,
Turning again tow'rd childish treble, pipes
And whistles in his found. Last Scene of all,
That ends this strange eventful History,
Is fecond Childishness and meer oblivion,

Sans teeth, fans eyes, fans taste, fans every thing.
Vol. 2. p. 203.

His Images are indeed every where so lively, that

the thing he would represent stands full before you,

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and you possess every part of it. I will venture to point out one more, which is, I think, as strong and as uncommon as any thing I ever faw; 'tis an image of Patience. Speaking of a maid in love, he says,

She never told her love,

But let concealment, like a worm ỉ 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 express'd the passions design'd by this sketch of Statuary! The style of his Comedy is, in general, natural to the characters, and easy in itself; and the wit most commonly sprightly and pleasing, except in those places where he runs into doggril rhymes, as in The Comedy of Errors, and some other plays. As for his jingling sometimes, 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 use of as an ornament to the Sermons of some of the gravest Divines of those times; perhaps it may not be thought too light for the Stage.

But certainly the greatness of this Author's genius do's no where so much appear, as where he gives his imagination an entire loose, and raises his fancy to a flight above mankind and the limits of the visible world. Such are his attempts in The Tempest, MidSummer-Night's Dream, Mackbeth, and Hamlet. Of these, The Tempest, however it comes to be plac'd the first by the Publishers of his works, can never have been the first written by him: It seems to me as perfect in its kind, as almost any thing we have of his. One may observe, that the Unities are kept here, with an exactness uncommon to the liberties of his writing: tho'

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tho' that was what, I suppose, he valu'd himself leaft
upon, since his excellencies were all of another kind.
I am very sensible that he do's, in this play, depart
too much from that likeness to truth which ought to
be observ'd 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 reason does well allow of. His
Magick has something in it very folemn and very
poetical: And that extravagant character of Caliban is
mighty well sustain'd, shews a wonderful invention in
the Author, who could strike out such a particular
wild image, and is certainly one of the finest and most
uncommon Grotesques that was ever seen. The Ob-
servation, which I have been inform'd (a) three very
great men concurr'd in making upon this part, was
extremely just; That Shakespear had not only found
out a new Character in his Caliban, but had also de-
vis'd and adapted a new manner of Language for that
Character.

It is the same magick that raises the Fairies in Mid-
Summer Night's Dream, the Witches in Mackbeth,
and the Ghost in Hamlet, with thoughts and language
so proper to the parts they sustain, and so peculiar to
the talent of this Writer. But of the two last of these
Plays I shall have occafion to take notice, among the
Tragedies of Mr. Shakespear. If one undertook to
examine the greatest part of these by those rules
whch are establish'd by Aristotle, and taken from the
model of the Grecian Stage, it would be no very hard
task to find a great many faults: But as Shakespear
liv'd under a kind of mere light of nature, and had
never been made acquainted with the regularity of
those written precepts, so it would be hard to judge
him by a law he knew nothing of. We are to con-
fider him as a man that liv'd in a state of almost uni-
versal license and ignorance; there was no establish'd
judge

(a) Lord Falkland, Lord C. J. Vaughan, and Mr. Selden.

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judge, but every one took the liberty to write according to the dictates of his own fancy. When one confiders, that there is not one play before him of a reputation good enough to entitle it to an appearance on the present Stage, it cannot but be a matter of great wonder that he should advance dramatick Poetry so far as he did. The Fable is what is generally plac'd the first, among those that are reckon'd the constituent 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 course of the whole; and with the Fable ought to be consider'd, the fit Disposition, Order and Conduct of its several parts. As it is not in this province of the Drama that the strength and mastery of ShakeSpear lay, fo I shall not undertake the tedious and illnatur'd trouble to point out the several faults he was guilty of in it. His Tales were seldom invented, but rather taken either from true History, or Novels and Romances: And he commonly made use of 'em in that order, with those Incidents, and that extent of time in which he found 'em in the Authors from whence he borrow'd them. Almost all his historical Plays comprehend a great length of time, and very different and distinct places: And in his Antony and Cleopatra, the Scene travels over the greatest part of the Roman Empire. But in recompenee for his carelessness 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 shown by the Poet, he may be generally justify'd, and in very many places greatly commended. For those Plays which he has taken from the English or Roman history, let any man compare 'em, and he will find the character as exact in the Poet as the Historian. He seems indeed so far from proposing to himself any one action for a Subject, that the Title very often tells you, 'tis

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The Life of King John, King Richard, &c. What can be more agreeable to the idea our historians give of Henry the fixth, than the picture Shakespear has drawn of him! His Manners are every where exactly the fame with the story; one finds him still defcrib'd with fimplicity, passive sanctity, want of courage, weakness of mind, and easy fubmifsion to the governance of an imperious Wife, or prevailing Faction: Tho' at the fame time the Poet does justice to his good qualities, and moves the pity of his audience for him, by shewing him pious, disinterested, a contemner of the things of this world, and wholly resign'd to the severest dispensations of God's providence. There is a short Scene in the second part of Henry VI. which I cannot but think admirable in its kind. Cardinal Beaufort, who had murder'd the Duke of Gloucester, is shewn in the last agonies on his death-bed, with the good King praying over him. There is so much terror in one, so much tenderness and moving piety in the other, as must touch any one who is capable either of fear or pity. In his Henry VIII, that Prince is drawn with that greatness of mind, and all those good qualities which are attributed to him in any account of his reign. If his faults are not shewn in an equal degree, and the shades in this picture do not bear a just proportion to the lights, it is not that the Artist wanted either colours or skill in the disposition of 'em; 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 respect to the memory of his Mistress, to have expos'd some certain parts of her father's life upon the stage. He has dealt much more freely with the Minister of that great King, and certainly nothing was ever more justly written, than the character of Cardinal Wolsey. He has shewn him insolent in his profperity; and yet, by a wonderful address, he makes his fall and ruin the subject of general

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