the vehemence with which he speaks of them, and the imprecations he utters against the delinquent fon, that we can guess at the violence of his emotions; therefore he excites more indignation at the conduct of Polynices, than fympathy with his own forrow; of which we can judge only as Spectators: for he has explained to us merely the external duties and relations of Parent and Child. The pangs of paternal tendernefs, thus wounded, are more pathetically expreffed by King Lear, who leaves out whatever of this enormity is equally sensible to the spectator, and immediately exposes to us his own internal feelings, when, in the bitterness of his soul, curfing his daughter's offspring, he adds,

That she may feel,

How sharper than a ferpent's tooth it is,

To have a thankless child.

By this we perceive, how deeply paternal affection is wounded by filial ingratitude.

In the play of King John, the legate offers many arguments of confolation to Conftance, on the lofs of Arthur; they appear, to the Spectator, reasonable, till she so strongly expreffes the peculiar tenderness of maternal love, by answering,

He fpeaks to me that never had a fon.

3 One might be made to conceive, in fome degree, the horrors of a murderer, under whofe knife the bleeding victim is expiring in agonies, by a defcription of the unhappy object; but how fully, and how forcibly is the consciousness of guilt expreffed by Macbeth, when, fpeaking of the grooms who lay near Duncan, he fays,

МАСЕЕТН.

One cry'd, God blefs us! and Amen! the other;
As they had seen me with these hangman's hands,
Liftening their fear. I could not say, Amen,
When they did fay, God bless us!

Thefe

Thefe expreffions open to us the internal ftate of the perfons interested, and never fail to command our fympathy. Shakespear seems to have had the art of the Dervife, in the Arabian tales, who could throw his foul into the body of another man, and be at once poffeffed of his fentiments, adopt his paffions, and rife to all the functions and feelings of his fituation.

Shakespear was born in a rank of life, in which men indulge themselves in a free expreffion of their paffions, with little regard to exterior appearance. This perhaps made him more acquainted with the emotions of the heart, and lefs knowing or obfervant of outward forms: against the one he often offends, he very rarely misrepresents the other. The French tragedians, on the contrary, attend not to the nature of the Man, whom they represent, but to the decorums of his Rank: fo that their best tragedies are made ridiculous, by changing the condition of the perfons of the drama; which could

not be so easily effected, if they spoke the language of paffion, which in all ranks of men is much alike. This kind of exterior representation falls intirely fhort of the intention of the Drama: and indeed many Plays are little more than Poems rehearsed and the theatrical decorations are used rather to improve the Spectacle, than to affift the Drama, of which the Poet remains the apparent hero. We are told by a French Critic, that the great pleasure of their audience arifes from a reflection on the difficulty of rhyming in that language.-If that be the cafe, it is plain neither the French Tragedians endeavour at, nor their Audience expect from them, the true perfections of Drama. For, by the same rule, if Hercules was reprefented under the difficulties of performing any of the tasks enjoined by Euryftheus, the attention of the Audience would not be engaged fo much to the means by which he atchieved his heroic labours, as to the sweat and toil of the Poet in his closet, in afforting male and female rhymes. We have already remarked, that the more we revert from the

Stage

Stage to the Poet, the less we shall be affected by what is acted; and therefore if the difficulty of rhyme, and its apparent difference from the common language of dialogue, be fuch, as continually to fet the Art and the Artist before our eyes, the fpecific merit of a piece intended to conceal the Poet, and represent certain persons and events, does not, in any degree, exift in fuch compofitions. Sophocles certainly unfolds the fatal mystery of the birth of Edipus with great art: but our interest in the play arifes not from reflection on the conduct of the Poet, but is the effect of his making us alternately hope and fear for this 'guiltlefs, unhappy man. We wait with trembling expectation for the anfwer of the Oracle, and for the testimony of Phorbas, because we imagine that the destiny of Edipus, and the fate of Thebes, depend on them; if we confidered it merely as the contrivance of the Poet, we fhould be as unconcerned at the unravelling of the plot, as about the explication of a riddle.