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ON THE

HISTORICAL

DRAM A.

TH

HOSE Dramas of Shakespear, which he distinguishes by the name of his Histories, being of an original kind and peculiar construction, cannot come within any rules, prior to their exiftence. The office of the Critic, in regard to Poetry, is like that of the Grammarian and Rhetorician in respect to Language: it is the bufiness of both to fhew why fuch and fuch modes of fpeech are proper and graceful, others improper and ungraceful: but they pronounce on fuch words and expreffions only, as are actually extant.

The rules of Aristotle were drawn from

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the Tragedies of Æschylus, Sophocles, &c. Had that great Critic feen a play fo fashioned on the chronicles of his country, thus reprefentative of the manners of the times, and of the characters of the moft illuftrious perfons concerned in a feries of important events, perhaps he would have efteemed fuch a fort of Drama well worth his attention, as very peculiarly adapted to those ends, which the Grecian Philofophers proposed in popular entertainments. If it be the chief ufe of History, to teach Philofophy by Example, this fpecies of Hiftory must be allowed to be the best preceptor. The cataftrophe..of these plays is not built on a vain and idle fable of the wrath of Juno, or of the revenge of flighted Bacchus; nor is a man reprefented entangled in the web of Fate, from which his Virtues and his Deities cannot extricate him: but here we are admonished to obferve the effects of pride and ambition, the Tyrant's dangers and the Traitor's fate. The fentiments and the manners, the paffions and their confequences, are fully fet before you; the force

force and luftre of poetical language join with the weight and authority of history,

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to impress the moral leffon on the heart. The Poet collects, as it were, into a focus those truths, which lie fcattered in the diffuse volume of the Hiftorian, and kindles the flame of virtue, while he fhews the miferies and calamities of vice.

The common interests of humanity make us attentive to every story that has an air of reality, but we are more affected if we know it to be true; and the intereft is ftill heightened if we have any relation to the perfons concerned. Our noble countryman, Percy, engages us much more than Achilles, or any Grecian hero. The people, for whose use these public entertainments should be chiefly intended, know the battle of Shrewsbury to be a Fact: they are informed of what paffed on the banks of the Severn; all that happened on the shore of the Scamander has, to them, the appearance of a fiction.

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As the misfortunes of nations, like thofe of individuals, often arise from their ресиliar difpofitions, customs, prejudices, and vices, these home-born Dramas are excellently calculated to correct them. The Grecian tragedies are fo much founded on their mythology as to be very improper on our ftage. The paffion of Phædra and the death of Hippolytus, occafioned by the interposi→ tion of Venus and Neptune, wear the apparent marks of fiction; and when we cease to believe, we ceafe to be affected.

The nature of the Hiftorical Play gave scope to the extenfive talents of Shakespear. He had an uncommon felicity in painting Manners, and developing Characters, which he could employ with peculiar grace and propriety, when he exhibited the Chiefs in our civil wars. The great Earl of Warwick, Cardinal Beaufort, Humphrey Duke of Gloucester, the renowned Hotfpur, were very interesting objects to their countrymen. Whatever fhewed them in a strong light,

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