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Towny cannot help being a shirtles apt to diftruft the Authority of this Tradition bes caufe as his Wife furvived him feven Years, and as his Favouriter Daughter Sufanna surviv'd her twenty fix Years,o'tish very improbable, they should fuffer fuch as Treafurettor bere mov'd, and tranflated intonau remoter Branch of the Family, without a Scrutiny first made into the Value of ind This I fay, binclines me tordiftruft the Authority of the Relation: but notwithstanding, fuch an apparent Im probability, Vif we really loft fuchsa Treasure, by whatever Fatality for Caprices of Fortune they came into fuch ignorant and neglectful Hands agree with the Relater, the Mis fortune is wholly irreparable. Is

Writer.

To thefe Particulars, which regard his Perfoh and private Life, fome few more are to be glean'difrom Mr.Rowen's Account of This Life and Writings: Let us now take a fhort His ChaView of him in this publick Capacity, as caracter as a Writer Vand,nifrom thence, the Tranfition will be leafy touhe State in which hiso Wai tings have been handed down to us! NoAgeuperhaps, can produced an Author morer various from himself, than Shakespeare has been univerfally acknowledg'd to be. The Divertity in Stile, land other Parts of Conipofition, bfos obvious in him, is as variously to be accounted for His Education, we find, was cat best but begun and he started early into a Science from the Force of Genius, unequally

equally affifted by acquir'd Improvements. His Fire, Spirit, and Exuberance of Imagination gave an Impetuofity to his Pen: His Ideas flow'd from him in a Stream rapid, but not turbulent; copious, but not ever overbearing its Shores. The Eafe and Sweetness of his Temper might not a little contribute to his Facility in Writing: as his Employment, as a Player, gave him an Advantage and Habit of fancying himself the very Character he meant to delineate. He ufed the Helps of his Function in forming himfelf to create and exprefs that Sublime, which other Actors can only copy, and throw out, in Action and graceful Attitude. But Nullum fine Venia pla cuit Ingenium, fays Seneca. The Genius, that gives us the greatest Pleasure, fometimes ftands in Need of our Indulgence. Whenever this happens with regard to Shakespeare, I would willingly impute it to a Vice of his Times. We fee Complaifance enough, in our in u own Days, paid to a bad Tafte. His Clinches, falfe Wit, and defcending beneath himself, feem to be a Deference paid to reigning Barbarifm. He was a Sampfon in Strength, but he fuffer'd fome fuch Dalilah to give him up to the Philistines.

As I have mention'd the Sweetness of his Difpofition, I am tempted to make a Reflexi→ on or two on a Sentiment of his, which, I am perfuaded, came from the Heart.

The

The Man, that hath no Mufick in himself,
is not mov'd with Concord of fweet
Sounds,

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Is fit for Treafons, Stratagems, and S Spoils:
The Motions of bis Spirit are dull as Night,
And bis Affections dark as Erebus:

Let no fuck Man be trufted. BogoT eld N nilqin an a

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Shakespeare was all Opennefs, Candour, and A Lover of Complacence; and had fuch a Share of Har- Mufick. mony in his Frame and Temperature,, that we have no Reafon to doubt, from a Number of fine Paffages, Allufions, Similies, &c. fetch'd from Mufck, but that He was a paffionate Lover of it. And to this, perhaps, we may owe that great Number of Sonnets, which are (prinkled thro' his Plays. I have found, that the Stanza's fung by the Gravedigger in Hamlet, are not of Shakespeare's own Compofition, but owe their Original to the old Earl of Surrey's Poems. Many other of his Occafional little Songs, I doubt not, but he purposely copied from his Contemporary Writers; fometimes, mes, out of Banter; fometimes, to do them Honour. The Manner of their Introduction, and in he has 07 the Ufes to which

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off the Reasons they are refpectively employ'd. In As you like it, there are feveral little Copies of Verfes on Rofalind, which are faid to be the right Butter-woman's Rank to Market, and the very falfe Gallop of Verfes. Dr. Tho

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PREFACE. mas Lodge, a Phyfician who flourish'd early in Queen Elizabeth's Reign, and was a great Writer of the Paftoral Songs and Madrigals, which were fo much the Strain of thofe Times, compofed a whole Volume of Poems in Praise of his Miftrefs, whom he calls Rofalinde. I never yet could meet Id meet lection; but whenever I do, I am perfuaded, dont with this ColI fhall find many of our Author's Canzonets or on this Subject to be Scraps of the Doctor's amorous Mufe: as, perhaps, thofe by Biron too, and the other Lovers in Love's Labour's loft, may prove to be.

nude nidor It has been remark'd in the Course of my Notes, that Mufick in our Author's time had a very different Ufe from what it has now. At this Time, it is only employ'd to raise and inflame the Paffions; it, then, was apply'd to calm and allay all kinds of Perturbations. And, agreeable to this Obfervation, throughout all Shakespeare's Plays, where Mufick either actually used, or its Powers defcrib'd, it is chiefly faid to be for thefe Ends. His Twelfth-Night, particularly, begins with a fine Reflexion that admirably marks its foothing Properties,

That Strain again; -It had a dying Fall.
Oh, it came o'er my Ear like the fweet South,
That breathes upon a Bank of Violets, of Bur
Stealing and giving Odour

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This Similitude is remarkable not only for the Bears that it prefents, but likewife for the Exactness to the Thing compared. This is a way of Teaching peculiar to the Poets; that, when they would defcribe the Nature of any thing, they do it not by a direct Enumeration of its Attributes or Qualities, but by bringing fomething into Comparifon, and defcribing thofe Qualities of it that are of the Kind with thofe in the Thing th compared. So, here for inftance, the Poet willing to inftruct in the Properties of Mufick, in which the fame Strains have a Power to excite Pleasure, or Pain, according to that State of Mind the Hearer is then in, does it by prefenting the Image of a fweet South Wind blowing o'er a Violet-bank; which wafts away the Odour of the Violets, and at the fame time communicates to it its own Sweetness: by This infinuating, that affecting Mufick, tho it takes away the natural sweet Tranquillity of the Mind, yet, at the fame time, communicates a Pleafure the Mind felt not before. This Knowledge, of the same Objects being capable of raifing two contrary Affections, is a Proof of no ordinary Progrefs in the Study of human Nature. The general Beauties of thofe two Poems of MILTON, bim. intitled, L'Allegro and Il Penforofo, are obvious to all Readers, because the Defcriptions are the most poetical in the World; yet there is a peculiar Beauty in thofe two excellent Pieces,

Milton an

Imitator of

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