Thus it is that Shakespear redeems the nonfenfe, 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 sky, and did not hear the deep-voiced thunder, and the roaring elements, would have been to defcribe the aweful horrors of this midnight storm.

The French Critic apologizes for our perfifting in the reprefentation of Shakefpear's plays, by faying we have none of a more regular form. In this he is extremely mistaken; we have many plays written according to the rules of art; but nature, which fpeaks 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 fentiment, seemed inspired with the paffion they were to counterfeit, fell fo naturally into the circumstances

cumstances and fituations the poet had appointed for them, that they never betrayed they were actors, but might fometimes have an awkward gefture, or for a moment a vicious pronunciation, should 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 speech had not the various inflections of the human voice; would a real connoiffeur abandon the living actors for fuch lifeless images, because some nice and dainty Critic pleaded, that the puppets were not subject 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 move

ments and tones, being directed by just mechanics, would never betray the awk

wardness

wardness of rufticity, or a false accent caught from bad education.

The dramatis perfonæ of Shakespear are men, frail by constitution, 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 fubjects of the French plays. From the first of these paffions many by age and temper are entirely exempted: and from the second many more, by fituation. Among a thousand spectators, there are not perhaps half a dozen, who ever were, or can be, in the circumstances of the perfons reprefented:

they

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 perfons fuch fentiments, as agreed with their actions and characters. There is not a more fure way of judging of the merit of rival geniufes, 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 difplaying 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 described by Tacitus, who in a few words, fets before us the infolence, the profligacy, and rapaciousness of a set of minifters, encouraged by the weaknefs of the prince to attempt whatever they wished, and incited by his age to snatch 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 hiftorian the most faithfully that was poffible. One would imagine the infolent Martianus, the bold and fubtle Vinius, the bafe, fcandalous, flothful Laco, fhould all appear in their proper characters, which would be unfolding through the whole progrefs of the play, as their various schemes and interests were expofed. Inftead of this, Martianus