Thou perjur'd, and thou fimular of virtue, That art inceftuous! Caitiff, fhake to pieces, That under covert, and convenient seeming, Thus it is that Shakespear redeems the nonsense, the indecorums, the irregularities of his plays; and whoever, for want of natural taste, or from ignorance of the English language, is infenfible to the merit of these paffages, is just as unfit to judge of his works, as a deaf man, who only perceived the blackness of the fky, and did not hear the deep-voiced thunder, and the roaring elements, would have been to defcribe the awful horrors of this midnight ftorm. The French Critic apologizes for our perfifting in the representation of Shakespear's plays, by faying we have none of a more regular form. In this he is extremely miftaken; taken; we have many plays written accord ing to the rules of art; but nature, which speaks in Shakespear, prevails over them all. If at one of our theatres there were a fet of actors who gave the true force of every sentiment, feemed infpired with the paffion they were to counterfeit, fell fo naturally into the circumftances and fituations the poet had appointed for them, that they never betrayed they were actors, but might sometimes have an awkward gefture, or for a moment a vicious pronunciation, fhould we not conftantly refort thither?If at another theatre there were a fet of puppets regularly featured, whofe proportions and movements were geometrically true, and the faces, the action, the pronunciation of these puppets had no fault, but that there was no expreffion in their countenance, no natural air in their motion, and that their fpeech had not the various inflexions of the human voice; would a real connoiffeur abandon the living actors for fuch lifelefs images, because fome nice and dainty Critic pleaded, pleaded, that the puppets were not fubject to any human infirmities, would not cough, fneeze, or become hoarfe in the midst of a fine period? or could it avail much to urge, that their movements and tones, being directed by juft mechanics, would never betray the awkwardnefs of rufticity, or a falfe accent caught from bad education. The dramatis perfonæ of Shakespear are men, frail by conftitution, hurt by ill habits, faulty and unequal. But they speak with human voices, are actuated by human paffions, and are engaged in the common affairs of human life. We are interested in what they do, or fay, by feeling every moment, that they are of the fame nature as ourfelves. Their precepts therefore are an inftruction, their fates and fortunes an experience, their teftimony an authority, and their misfortunes a warning. Love and ambition are the subjects of the French plays. From the first of these paffions many F many by age and temper are entirely exempted: and from the fecond many more, by fituation. Among a thousand spectators, there are not perhaps half a dozen, who ever were, or can be, in the circumftances of the perfons reprefented: they cannot fympathize with them, unless they have fome conception of a tender paffion, combated by ambition, or of ambition struggling with love. The fable of the French plays is often taken from history, but then a romantic paffion is fuperadded to it, and to that both events and characters are rendered fubfervient. Shakespear, in various nature wife, does not confine himself to any particular paffion. When he writes from hiftory, he attributes to the persons such sentiments, as agreed with their actions and characters. There is not a more fure way of judging of the merit of rival geniuses, than by bringing them to the test of comparison where they have attempted fubjects of a fimilar nature. Corneille appears much inferior to our Shakespear in the art of conducting the events, and displaying the characters, he borrows from the hiftorian's page: his tragedy of Otho comprehends that period, in which the courtiers are caballing to make Galba adopt a fucceffor agreeable to their interests. The court of that emperor is finely defcribed by Tacitus, who in a few words fets before us the infolence, the profligacy, and rapaciousness of a fet of minifters, encouraged by the weakness of the prince to attempt whatever they wished, and incited by his age to fnatch by hafty rapine whatever they coveted. Tacitus, with his masterly pencil, has drawn the outlines of their characters fo ftrongly, that a writer of any genius might finish up the portraits to great refemblance and perfection. We have furely a right to expect this from an author, who profeffes to have copied this great historian the most faithfully that was poffible. One would imagine the infolent Martianus, the bold and fubtle Vinius, the bafe, F 2 |