'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, Ev'n in the cannon's mouth. And then the Justice Sans teeth, fans eyes, fans taste, fans every thing. His Images are indeed every where so lively, that the thing he would represent stands full before you, and 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, 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' 10 2 tho' that was what, I suppose, he valu'd himself leaft It is the same magick that raises the Fairies in Mid- (a) Lord Falkland, Lord C. J. Vaughan, and Mr. Selden. 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 The 4 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 |