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find traits that will stand the test of the severest judgment; and strokes as carelessly hit off, to the level of the more ordinary capacities; some descriptions raised to that pitch of grandeur, as to astonish you with the compass and elevation of his thought; and others copying nature within so narrow, so confined a circle, as if the author's talent lay only at drawing in miniature.

In how many points of light must we be obliged to gaze at this great poet! In how many branches of excellence to consider and admire him! Whether we view him on the side of art or nature, he ought equally to engage our attention: whether we respect the force and greatness of his genius, the extent of his knowledge and reading, the power and address with which he throws out and applies either nature or learning, there is ample scope both for our wonder and pleasure. If his diction, and the clothing of his thoughts attract us, how much more must we be charmed with the richness and variety of his images and ideas! If his images and ideas steal into our souls, and strike upon our fancy, how much are they improved in price when we come to reflect with what propriety and justness they are applied to character! If we look into his characters, and how they are furnished and proportioned to the employment he cuts out for them, how are we taken up with the mastery of his portraits! What draughts of nature! What variety of originals, and how different each from the other! How are they dressed from the stores of his own luxurious imagination, without being the apes of mode, or borrowing from any foreign wardrobe! Each of them are the standards of fashion for themselves: like gentlemen that are above the direction of their tailors, and can adorn themselves without the aid of imita

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By Hogarth "It was suggested by George Steevens (q.v.) that Hogarth's plate, 'The Distressed Poet,' as first published on 3 March, 1736, was intended as a satire on the much abused Theobald. The composition was doubtless inspired by Pope's vivid picture of the dunçe-laureate-elect brooding over his sunken fortunes."-Dictionary of National Biography.

tion. If other poets draw more than one fool or coxcomb, there is the same resemblance in them as in that painter's draughts who was happy only at forming a rose; you find them all younger brothers of the same family, and all of them have a pretence to give the same crest: but Shakespeare's clowns and fops come all of a different house; they are no farther allied to one another than ås man to man, members of the same species, but as different in features and lineaments of character as we are from one another in face or complexion. But I am unawares launching into his character as a writer, before I have said what I intended of him as a private member of the republic.

Mr. Rowe has very justly observed, that people are fond of discovering any little personal story of the great men of antiquity, and that the common accidents of their lives naturally become the subject of our critical enquiries: that however trifling such a curiosity at the first view may appear, yet, as for what relates to men and letters, the knowledge of an author may, perhaps, sometimes conduce to the better understanding his works; and, indeed, this author's works, from the bad treatment he has met with from copyists and editors, have so long wanted a comment, that one would zealously embrace every method of information that could contribute to recover them from the injuries with which they have so long lain overwhelmed.

"Tis certain that if we have first admired the man in his writings, his case is so circumstanced that we must naturally admire the writings in the man: that if we go back to take a view of his education, and the employment in life which fortune had cut out for him, we shall retain the strongest ideas of his extensive genius.

His father, we are told, was a considerable dealer in wool; but having no fewer than ten children, of whom our Shakespeare was the eldest, the best education he could afford him was no better than to qualify him for his own business and employment. I cannot affirm with any certainty how long his father lived, but I take him to be the same Mr. John Shakespeare who was living in the year 1599, and who then, in honour of his son, took out an extract of his family arms from the herald's office, by which it appears that he had been officer and bailiff of Stratford-upon-Avon, in Warwickshire, and that he enjoyed some hereditary lands and tenements, the reward of his great-grandfather's faithful and approved service to King Henry VII.

Be this as it will, our Shakespeare, it seems, was bred for some time at a free-school-the very free-school, I presume, founded at Stratford-where, we are told, he acquired what Latin he was master of; but that his father being obliged, through narrowness of circumstances, to withdraw him too soon from thence, he was thereby unhappily prevented from making any proficiency in the dead languages: a point that will deserve some little discussion in the sequel of this dissertation.

How long he continued in his father's way of business, either as an assistant to him, or on his own proper account, no notices are left to inform us, nor have I been able to learn precisely at what period of life he quitted his native Stratford, and began his acquaintance with London and the stage.

In order to settle in the world after a family manner, he thought fit, Mr. Rowe acquaints us, to marry while he was yet very young. It is certain he did so, for by

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