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the fuperiority of his genius over the hiftorians of the times than the following inftance.

The learned Sir Thomas More, in his history of Crook'd-Back Richard, tells, with the garrulity of an old nurse, the current stories of this king's deformity, and the monftrous appearances of his infancy, which he seems with fuperftitious credulity to believe, to have been the omens and prognostics of his future villany. Shakespear, with a more philofophic turn of mind, confiders them, not as prefaging, but as inftigating his cruel ambition, and finely accounts in the following speeches for the afperity of his temper, and his fierce and unmitigated defire of dominion, from his being by his perfon difqualified for the fofter engagements of society,

GLOUCESTER.

Well, fay there is no kingdom then for Richard;

What other pleasure can the world afford?

I'll make my heaven on a lady's lap;

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And

And deck my body in gay ornaments,

And 'witch fweet ladies with my words and looks.
Oh! miferable thought! and more unlikely,
Than to accomplish twenty golden crowns.
Why, love for wore me in my mother's womb,
And, for I fhould not deal in her foft laws,
She did corrupt frail nature with some bribe
To fhrink my arm like to a wither'd shrub }
To make an envious mountain on my back,
Where fits deformity to mock my body;
To fhape my legs of an uneven fize ;
To difproportion me in every part:
Like to a chaos, or unlick'd bear-whelp
That carries no impreffion like the dam.
And am I then a man to be belov'd?

Oh monstrous fault to harbour fuch a thought!
Then fince the world affords no joy to me,
But to command, to check, to o'er-bear fuch
As are of better perfon than myself;

I'll make my heav'n to dream upon the crown,
And while I live to account this world but hell,
Until the mishap'd trunk that bears this head
Be round impaled with a glorious crown.

[Henry VI. Act 3d, Scene 3d.
GLOUCESTER.

GLOUCESTER.

The midwife wonder'd, and the woman cry'd,
Oh Jefus blefs us, he is born with teeth!
And fo I was, which plainly fignified

That I should fnarl, and bite, and play the dog :
Then fince the heav'ns have fhap'd my body fo,
Let hell make crook'd my mind to answer it.
I have no brother, I am like no brother,

And that word, love, which grey-beards call divine,
Be refident in men like one another,

And not in me: I am myself alone.

[Henry VI. Act 5th, Scene 7th. Our author, by following minutely the chronicles of the times, has embarraffed his drama's with too great a number of perfons and events. The hurley-burley of these plays recommended them to a rude illiterate audience, who, as he fays, loved a noise of targets. His poverty, and the low condition of the ftage (which at that time was not frequented by perfons of rank) obliged him to this complaifance; and unfortunately he had not been tutored by any rules of art, or informed by acquaintance with just and regular drama's. Even the politer fort by reading

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reading books of chivalry, which were the polite literature of the times, were accuftomed to bold adventures and achievements. In our northern climates heroic adventures

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pleased more than the gallant dialogue, where love and honour dispute with all the fophiftry of the fchools, and one knows not when the conteft would end, if heraldry did not step in and decide the point, as in the foliloquy of the Infanta in the Cid.

L'INFANTE.

T'écouterai-je encor, refpect de ma naissance?
Qui fais un crime de mes feux?

T'écouterai-je, amour, dont la douce puiffance
Contre ce fier tyran fait rebeller mes vœux ?
Pauvre princeffe, auquel des deux

Dois-tu prêter obéiffance?

Rodrigue, ta valeur te rend digne de moi;

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Mais pour être vaillant tu n'es pas fils de roi.
Le Cid, Acte 5me.

Nor is this rule, that a princefs can love only the son of a king, a mere Spanish punto; you shall hear two Spartan virgins, daugh

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ters.

ters of Lyfander, fpeaking the fame

language,

ELPINICE.

Cotys eft roi, ma fæur; & comme fa couronne

Parle fuffifamment pour lui,

Affuré de mon cœur que fon trône lui donne,
De le trop demander il s'épargne l'ennui.

This lady then proceeds to queftion her fifter concerning her inclination for her lover Spitridates, and urges in his favour;

ELPINICE.

Car enfin, Spitridate a l'entretien charmant,
L'œil vif, l'efprit aifé, le cœur bon, l'ame belle;

A tant de qualités s'il joignait un vrai zéle. . .

To which the other anfwers,

AGLATIDE.

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Ma fæur, il n'eft pas roi comme l'eft votre amant.
Il n'eft pas roi, vous dis-je, & c'eft un grand défaut.

The Queen of the Lufitanians, in the famous play of Sertorius, fpeaks thus to that Roman general;

Agefilaus of Corneille.

VIRITATE.

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