'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 Alts being feven ages. First the Infant
Mewling and puking in the nurse's arms :
And then, the whining School-boy with his fatchel,
And fbining morning-face, creeping like fnail
Unwillingly to fchool. And then the Lover
Sighing like furnace, with a woful ballad
Made to his Miftrefs' eye-brow. Then a Soldier
Full of frange 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 lin❜d,
With eyes fevere, and beard of formal cut,
Full of wife faws and modern inftances;
And fo he plays his part. The fixth age shifts
Into the lean and flipper'd Pantaloon,
With spectacles on nofe, and pouch on fide;
His youthful hofe, well fav'd, a world too wide
For his fhrunk fbanks; and his big manly voice,
Turning again tow'rd childish treble, pipes
And whistles in his found. Laft Scene of all,
That ends this strange eventful Hiftory,
Is fecond Childishness and meer oblivion,
Sans teeth, fans eyes, fans tafte, fans every thing.
Vol. 2. p. 203.

His Images are indeed every where fo 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 ftrong 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 i' th' bud,
Feed on ber damask check: 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 exprefs'd the paffions defign'd by this sketch of Statuary! The ftyle of his Comedy is, in general, natural to the characters, and eafy in itself; and the wit moft commonly fprightly and pleafing, except in those places where he runs into doggril rhymes, as in The Comedy of Errors, and fome other plays. As for his jingling fometimes, 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 thofe times; perhaps it may not be thought too light for the Stage.

But certainly the greatnefs 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, MidJummer-Night's Dream, Mackbeth, and Hamlet. Of thefe, 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 feems to me as perfect in its kind, as almost any thing we have of his. One may obferve, that the Unities are kept here, with an exactness uncommon to the liberties of his writing:

tho'

a

tho' that was what, I fuppofe, he valu'd himself leaft upon, fince his excellencies were all of another kind. I am very fenfible that he do's, in this play, depart too much from that likeness to truth which ought to be observ'd in these fort of writings; yet he does it fo very finely, that one is eafily drawn in to have more faith for his fake, than reafon does well allow of. His Magick has fomething in it very folemn and very poetical: And that extravagant character of Caliban is mighty well fuftain'd, fhews a wonderful invention in the Author, who could ftrike out fuch a particular wild image, and is certainly one of the finest and most uncommon Grotefques that was ever feen. The Obfervation, which I have been inform'd (a) three very great men concurr'd in making upon this part, was extremely juft; That Shakespear had not only found out a new Character in his Caliban, but bad alfo devis'd and adapted a new manner of Language for that Character.

It is the fame magick that raises the Fairies in Midfummer Night's Dream, the Witches in Mackbeth, and the Ghoft in Hamlet, with thoughts and language fo proper to the parts they fuftain, and fo peculiar to the talent of this Writer. But of the two last of these Plays I fhall 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 Ariftotle, 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, fo it would be hard to judge him by a law he knew nothing of. We are to confider him as a man that liv'd in a state of almoft univerfal licenfe and ignorance; there was no eftablifh'd judge

(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 prefent Stage, it cannot but be a matter of great wonder that he should advance dramatick Poetry fo far as he did. The Fable is what is generally plac'd the first, among those that are reckon'd the conftituent 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 confider'd, the fit Difpofition, Order and Conduct of its feveral parts. As it is not in this province of the Drama that the strength and mastery of ShakeSpear lay, fo I fhall not undertake the tedious and illnatur'd trouble to point out the feveral faults he was guilty of in it. His Tales were feldom invented, but rather taken either from true Hiftory, or Novels and Romances: And he commonly made ufe of 'em in that order, with thofe 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 diftinct places: And in his Antony and Cleopatra, the Scene travels over the greatest part of the Roman Empire. But in recompenee for his carelefsnefs in this point, when he comes to another part of the Drama, The Manners of bis Characters, in acting or fpeaking 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 hiftory, let any man compare 'em, and he will find the character as exact in the Poet as the Hiftorian. He feems indeed fo far from propofing to himself any one action for a Subject, that the Title very often tells you, 'tis

The

The Life of King John, King Richard, &c. What can be more agreeable to the idea our hiftorians give of Henry the fixth, than the picture Shakespear has drawn of him! His Manners are every where exactly the fame with the ftory; one finds him still defcrib'd with fimplicity, paffive fanctity, want of courage, weakness of mind, and easy fubmiffion to the governance of an imperious Wife, or prevailing Faction: Tho' at the fame time the Poet does juftice to his good qualities, and moves the pity of his audience for him, by fhewing him pious, difinterested, a contemner of the things of this world, and wholly refign'd to the fevereft difpenfations of God's providence. There is a fhort Scene in the fecond part of Henry VI. which I cannot but think admirable in its kind. Cardinal Beaufort, who had murder'd the Duke of Gloucefter, is fhewn in the laft agonies on his death-bed, with the good King praying over him. There is fo much terror in one, fo 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 greatnefs of mind, and all those good qualities which are attributed to him in any account of his reign. If his faults are not fhewn in an equal degree, and the fhades in this picture do not bear a juft proportion to the lights, it is not that the Artift wanted either colours or skill in the difpofition 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 refpect to the memory of his Mistress, to have expos'd fome 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 Wolfey. He has fhewn him infolent in his profperity; and yet, by a wonderful address, he makes his fall and ruin the fubject of

general