ma, that though they may fometimes conduce to pleafure, they are always to be facrificed to the nobler beauties of variety and instruction; and that a play, written with nice observation of critical rules, is to be contemplated as an elaborate curiofity, as the product of fuperfluous and oftentatious art, by which is fhewn, rather what is poffible, than what is neceffary.

He that, without diminution of any other excellence, fhall preserve all the unities unbroken, deferves the like applaufe with the architect, who fhall difplay all the orders of architecture in a citadel, without any deduction from its ftrength; but the principal beauty of a citadel is to exclude the enemy; and the greatest graces of a play, are to copy nature and inftruct life.

Perhaps, what I have here not dogmatically but deliberately written, may recal the principles of the drama to a new examination. I am almost frighted at my own temerity; and when I eftimate the fame and the strength of those that maintain the contrary opinion, am ready to fink down in reverential filence; as Eneas withdrew from the defence of Troy, when he faw Neptune fhaking the wall, and Juno heading the befiegers.

Those whom my arguments cannot perfuade to give their approbation to the judgment of Shakespeare," will eafily, if they confider the condition of his life, make fome allowance for his ignorance.

Every man's performances, to be rightly eftimated, must be compared with the ftate of the age in. which

which he lived, and with his own particular opportunities; and though to the reader a book be not worse or better for the circumstances of the authour, yet as there is always a filent reference of human works to human abilities, and as the enquiry, how far man may extend his defigns, or how high he may rate his native force, is of far greater dignity than in what rank we fhall place any particular performance, curiofity is always bufy to difcover the inftruments, as well as to furvey the workmanship, to know how much is to be afcribed to original powers, and how much to cafual and adventitious help. The palaces of Peru or Mexico were certainly mean and incommodious habitations, if compared to the houses of European monarchs; yet who could forbear to view them with astonishment, who remembered that they were built without the ufe of iron?.

The English nation, in the time of Shakespeare, was yet ftruggling to emerge from barbarity. The philology of Italy had been tranfplanted hither in the reign of Henry the Eighth; and the learned languages had been fuccessfully cultivated by Lilly, Linacer, and More; by Pole, Cheke, and Gardiner; and afterwards by Smith, Clerk, Haddon, and Afcham. Greek was now tought to boys in the principal fchools; and thofe who united elegance with learning, read, with great diligence, the Italian and Spanish poets. But literature was yet confined to profeffed fcholars, or to men and women of high rank. The publick was grofs and dark; and to be able to read and write, was an accomplishment ftill valued for its rarity. Nations,

Nations, like individuals, have their infancy. A people newly awakened to literary curiofity, being yet unacquainted with the true ftate of things, knows not how to judge of that which is propofed as its refemblance. Whatever is remote from common appearances is always welcome to vulgar, as to childish credulity; and of a country unenlightened by learning, the whole people is the vulgar. The ftudy of thofe who then aspired to plebeian learning was laid out upon adventures, giants, dragons, and enchantments. The Death of Arthur was the favourite volume.

The mind, which has feafted on the luxurious wonders of fiction, has no taste of the infipidity of truth. A play which imitated only the common occurrences of the world, would, upon the admirers of Palmerin and Guy of Warwick, have made little impreffion; he that wrote for fuch an audience was under the neceffity of looking round for ftrange events and fabulous tranfactions, and that incredibility, by which maturer knowledge is offended, was the chief recommendation of writings, to unfkilful curiofity.

Our authour's plots are generally borrowed from novels, and it is reasonable to fuppofe, that he chofe the most popular, fuch as were read by many, and related by more; for his audience could not have followed him through the intricacies of the drama, had they not held the thread of the story in their hands.

The ftories, which we now find only in remoter authours, were in his time acceffible and familiar.

The fable of As you like it, which is fuppofed to be copied from Chaucer's Gamelyn, was a little pamphlet of thofe times; and old Mr. Cibber remembered the tale of Hamlet in plain English profe, which the criticks have now to feek in Saxo Grammaticus.

His English hiftories he took from English chronicles and English ballads; and as the ancient writers were made known to his countrymen by verfions, they supplied him with new fubjects; he dilated fome of Plutarch's lives into plays, when they had been tranflated by North.

His plots, whether hiftorical or fabulous, are always crouded with incidents, by which the attention of a rude people was more easily caught than by fentiment or argumentation; and fuch is the power of the marvellous even over those who defpife it, that every man finds his mind more strongly seized by the tragedies of Shakespeare than of any other writer; others pleafe us by particular fpeeches, but he always makes us anxious for the event, and has perhaps excelled all but Homer in fecuring the first purpose of a writer, by exciting restless and unquenchable curiofity, and compelling him that reads his work to read it through.

The fhows and buftle with which his plays abound have the fame original. As knowledge advances, pleasure paffes from the eye to the ear, but returns, as it declines, from the ear to the eye. Those to whom our authour's labours were exhibited had more skill in pomps or proceffions than in poetical language,

and

and perhaps wanted fome vifible and difcriminated events, as comments on the dialogue. He knew how he fhould most please; and whether his practice is more agreeable to nature, or whether his example has prejudiced the nation, we ftill find that on our ftage fomething must be done as well as faid, and inactive declamation is very coldly heard, however mufical or elegant, passionate or sublime.

Voltaire expreffes his wonder, that our authour's extravagancies are endured by a nation, which has feen the tragedy of Cato. Let him be answered, that Addifon fpeaks the language of poets, and ShakeSpeare, of men. We find in Cato innumerable beauties which enamour us of its authour, but we see nothing that acquaints us with human fentiments or human actions; we place it with the faireft and the nobleft progeny which judgment propagates by conjunction with learning, but Othello is the vigorous and vivacious offspring of obfervation impregnated by genius. Cato affords a fplendid exhibition of artificial and fictitious manners, and delivers just and noble sentiments, in diction eafy, elevated and harmonious, but its hopes and fears communicate no vibration to the heart; the compofition refers us only to the writer; we pronounce the name of Cato, but we think on Addifon.

The work of a correct and regular writer is a garden accurately formed and diligently planted, varied with fhades, and fcented with flowers; the compofition of Shakespeare is a foreft, in which oaks extend