because they are mistaken for realities, but because they bring realities to mind. When the imagination is recreated by a painted landscape, the trees are not fuppofed capable to give us fhade, or the fountains coolness; but we confider how we should be pleafed with fuch fountains playing befide us, and fuch woods waving over us. We are agitated in reading the history of Henry the Fifth, yet no man takes his book for the field of Agincourt. A dramatic exhibition is a book recited with concomitants that increafe or diminish its effect. Familiar comedy is often more powerful on the theatre, than in the page; imperial tragedy is always lefs. The humour of Petruchio may be heightened by grimace; but what voice or what geflure can hope to add dignity or force to the foliloquy of Cato ? A play read affects the mind like a play acted. It is therefore evident, that the action is not fuppofed to be real; and it follows, that between the acts a longer or fhorter time may be allowed to pafs, and that no more account of space or duration is to be taken by the auditor of a drama, than by the reader of a narrative, before whom may pass in an hour, the life of a hero, or the revolutions of an empire. Whether Shakespeare knew the unities, and rejected them by defign, or deviated from them by happy ignorance, it is, I think, impoffible to decide, and useless to inquire. We may reasonably fuppofe, that, when he rofe to notice, he did not want the counfels and admonitions of fcholars and critics, and that he at laft deliberately perfifted in a practice, which he might have begun by chance. As nothing is effential to the fable but unity of action, and as the unities of time and place arife evidently from false affumptions, and, by circumfcribing the extent of the drama, leffen its variety, I cannot think it much to be lamented, that they were not known by him, or not observed: nor, if fuch another poet could arise, should I very vehemently reproach him, that his first act paffed at Venice, and his next in Cyprus. Such violations of rules, merely pofitive, become the comprehenfive genius of Shakespeare, and fuch cenfures are fuitable to the minute and flender criticism of Voltaire : Non ufque adeo permifcuit imis Yet when I speak thus flightly of dramatic rules, I cannot but recollect how much wit and learning may be produced againft me; before fuch authorities I am afraid to ftand, not that I think the present question one of thofe that are to be decided by mere authority, but because it is to be fufpected, that these perhaps have not been fo eafily received, but for better reafons than I have yet been able to find. The refuit of my enquiries, in which it would be ludi. crous to boat of impartiality, is, that the unities of time and place are not effential to a just drama; that though they may fometimes conduce to pleasure, they are always to be facrificed to the nobler beauties of variety and inftruction; and that a play written with nice obfervation of critical rules, is to be contemplated as an elabo rate curiofity, as the product of fuperfluous and oftentatious art, by which is fhewn, rather what is poffible than what is neceffary. He that, without diminution of any other excellence, fhall preferve all the unities unbroken, deferves the like ap. plaufe with the architect, who fhall difplay all the orders of architecture in a citadel, without any deduction from its ftrength: but the principal beauty of a citadel is to exclude the enemy; and the greatest graces of a play are to copy nature, and instruct life. Perhaps, what I have here not dogmatically but deliberately written, may recall the principles of the drama to a new examination. I am almost frighted at my own temerity; and when I estimate the fame and the strength of those that maintain the contrary opinion, am ready to fink down in reverential filence; as Æneas withdrew from the defence of Troy, when he faw Neptune fhaking the wall, and Juno heading the befiegers. Thofe whom my arguments cannot perfuade to give their approbation to the judgment of Shakespeare, will easily, if they confider the condition of his life, make fome allowance for his ignorance. Every man's performances, to be rightly eftimated, must be compared with the itate of the age in which he lived, and with his own particular opportunities; and though to a reader a book be not worse or better for the circumftances of the author, yet as there is always a filent reference of human works to human abilities, and as the inquiry, how far man may extend his defigns, or how high he may rate his native force, force, is of far greater dignity than in what rank we shall place any particular performance, curiofity is always bufy to difcover the inftruments, as well as to furvey the workmanship, to know how much is to be afcribed to original powers, and how much to cafual and adventitious help. The palaces of Peru or Mexico were certainly mean and incommodious habitations, if compared to the houfes of European monarchs; yet who could forbear to view them with astonishment, who remembered that they were built without the use of iron ? The English nation, in the time of Shakespeare, was yet ftruggling to emerge from barbarity. The philology of Italy had been tranfplanted hither in the reign. of Henry the Eighth; and the learned languages had been fuccessfully cultivated by Lilly, Linacre, and More; by Pole, Cheke, and Gardiner; and afterwards by Smith, Clerk, Haddon, and Afcham. Greek was now taught to boys in the principal schools; and thofe who united. elegance with learning, read, with great diligence, the Italian and Spanish poets. But literature was yet confined to profeffed scholars, or to men and women of high rank. The public was grofs and dark; and to be able to read and write, was an accomplishment ftill valued for its rarity. Nations, like individuals, have their infancy. A people, newly awakened to literary curiofity, being yet unacquainted with the true ftate of things, knows not how to judge of that which is propofed as its resemblance. Whatever is remote from common appearances is always welcome to vulgar, as to childish credulity; and of a country unenlightened by learning, the whole people is the vulgar. The ftudy of those who then afpired to plebeian learning was laid out upon adventures, giants, dragons, and enchantments. The Death of Arthur was the favourite volume. The mind, which was feafted on the luxurious wonders of fiction, has no tafte of the infipidity of truth. A play, which imitated only the common occurrences of the world, would, upon the admirers of Palmerin and Guy of Warwick, have made little impreffion; he that wrote for fuch an audience was under the neceffity of looking round for ftrange events and fabulous tranfactions; and that incredibility, by which maturer knowledge is offended, was the chief recommendation of writings to unskilful curiofity. Our author's plots are generally borrowed from novels; and it is reasonable to fuppofe, that he chose the most popular, fuch as were read by many, and related by more; for his audience could not have followed him through the intricacies of the drama, had they not held the thread of the story in their hands. The ftories, which we now find only in remoter authors, were in his time acceffible and familiar. The fable of As you like it, which is fuppofed to be copied from Chaucer's Gamelyn, was a little pamphlet of those times; and old Mr. Cibber remembered the tale of Hamlet in plain English profe, which the critics have now to feek in Saxo Grammaticus. His English hiftories he took from Englith chronicles and English ballads; and as the ancient writers were made known to his countrymen by verfions, they fupplied him with new fubjects; he dilated fome of Plutarch's lives into plays, when they had been tranflated by North. His plots, whether hiftorical or fabulous, are always crowded with incidents, by which the attention of a rude people was more eafily caught than by fentiment or argumentation; and fuch is the power of the marvellous, even over those who defpife it, that every man finds his mind more strongly feized by the tragedies of Shakespeare than of any other writer: others pleafe us by particular speeches; but he always makes us anxious for the event, and has, perhaps, excelled all but Homer in fecuring the first purpose of a writer, by exciting reftlefs and unquenchable curiofity, and compelling him that reads his work to read it through. The fhows and buftle, with which his plays abound have the fame original. As knowledge advances, pleasure paffes from the eye to the ear, but returns, as it declines, from the ear to the eye. Thofe to whom our author's labours were exhibited, had more skill in pomps or proceffions than in poetical language, and perhaps wanted fome vifible and difcriminated events, as comments on the dialogue. He knew how he fhould most please; and whether his practice is more agreeable to nature, or whether his example has prejudiced the nation, we ftill find, that on our ftage fomething must be done as well as faid, and inactive declamation is very coldly heard, however mufical or elegant, paffionate or fublime. Voltaire expreffes his wonder, that our author's author's extravagancies are endured by a nation, which has feen the tragedy of Cato. Let him be answered, that Addifon fpeaks the language of poets, and Shakespeare of men. We find in Cato innumerable beauties which enamour us of its author, but we fee nothing that acquaints us with human fentiments or human actions; we place it with the fairest and the noblest progeny which judgment propagates by conjunction with learning; but Othello is the vigorous and vivacious offspring of obfervation impregnated by genius. Cato affords a fplendid exhibition of artificial and fictitious manners, and delivers just and noble sentiments, in diction eafy, elevated and harmonious, but its hopes and fears communicate no vibration to the heart; the compofition refers us only to the writer; we pronounce the name of Cato, but we think on Addison. eye The work of a correct and regular writer is a garden accurately formed and diligently planted, varied with fhades, and fcented with flowers; the compofition of Shakespeare is a forest, in which oaks extend their branches, and pines tower in the air, interfperfed sometimes with weeds and brambles, and fometimes giving fhelter to myrtles and to rofes; filling the with awful pomp, and gratifying the mind with endless diverfity. Other poets difplay cabinets of precious rarities, minutely finished, wrought into shape, and polished into brightness. Shakespeare opens a mine which contains gold and diamonds in inexhaustible plenty, though clouded by incruftations, debafed by impurities, and mingled with a mafs of meaner minerals. It has been much difputed whether Shakespeare owed his excellence to his own native force, or whether he had the common helps of scholastic education, the precepts of critical science, and the examples of ancient authors. There has always prevailed a tradition, that Shakespeare wanted learning, that he had no regular education, nor much skill in the dead languages. Jonfon, his friend, affirms, that he had fmall Latin and lefs Greek; who, befides that he had no imaginable temptation to falfehood, wrote at a time when the character and acquifitions of Shakespeare were known to multitudes. His evidence ought therefore to decide the controversy, unless some teftimony of equal force could be opposed. Some have imagined, that they have difcovered deep learning in many imitations of old writers; but the examples which I There are a few paffages which may pafs for imitations, but fo few, that the exception only confirms the rule; he obtained them from accidental quotations, or by oral communication; and as he used what he had, would have used more if he had obtained it. The Comedy of Errors is confeffedly taken from the Menæchmi of Plautus; from the only play of Plautus which was then in English. What can be more probable, than that he who copied that would have copied more; but that those which were not tranflated were inacceffible? Whether he knew the modern languages is uncertain. That his plays have fome French fcenes, proves but little; he might eafily procure them to be written, and probably, even though he had known the language in the common degree, he could not have written it without affiftance. In the ftory of Romeo and Juliet, he is obferved to have followed the English translation, where it deviates from the Italian; but this, on the other part, proves nothing against his knowledge of the original. He was to copy, not what he knew himself, but what was known to his audience. It is most likely that he had learned Latin fufficiently to make him acquainted with conftruction, but that he never advanced to an easy perusal of the Roman authors. Concerning his fkill in modern languages, I can find no fufficient ground of determination; but, as no imitations of French or Italian authors have been discovered, though the Italian poetry was then high in efteem, I am inclined to believe, that he read little more than English, and chofe for his fables only fuch tales as he found tranflated. That much knowledge is fcattered over his works is very juftly obferved by Pope, but but it is often fuch knowledge as books did not fupply. He that will understand Shakespeare must not be content to study him in the closet, he must look for his meaning fometimes among the fports of the field, and fometimes among the manufactures of the shop. There is, however, proof enough that he was a very diligent reader, nor was our language then fo indigent of books, but that he might very liberally indulge his curiofity without excurfion into foreign literature. Many of the Roman authors were tranflated, and fome of the Greek; the Reformation had filled the kingdom with theological learning; moft of the topics of human difquifition had found English writers; and poetry had been cultivated, not only with diligence, but fuccefs. This was a stock of knowledge fufficient for a mind fo capable of appropriating and improving it. But the greater part of his excellence was the product of his own genius. He found the English ftage in a ftate of the utmoft rudeness; no effays either in tragedy or comedy had appeared, from which it could be discovered to what degree of delight either one or other might be carried. Neither character nor dialogue were yet understood. Shakespeare may be truly faid to have introduced them both amongit us, and in fome of his happier fcenes to have carried them both to the utmost height. By what gradations of improvement he proceeded, is not eafily known; for the chronology of his works is yet unfettled. Rowe is of opinion, that perhaps we are not to look for his beginning, like thoje of ather writers, in his least perfect works; art bad fo little, and nature jo large a fhare in what he did, that for aught I know, fays he, the performances of his youth, as they were the most vigorous, were the best. But the power of nature is only the power of ufing, to any certain purpose, the materials which diligence procures, or opportunity fupplies. Nature gives no man know. ledge, and, when images are collected by study and experience, can only affift in combining or applying them. Shakefpeare, however favoured by nature, could impart only what he had learned; and, as he muft increase his ideas, like other mortals, by gradual acquifition, he, like them, grew wiler as he grew older, could difplay life better, as he knew it more, and inftruct with more efficacy, as he was himself more amply inftructed. There is a vigilance of obfervation, and accuracy of diftinction, which books and precepts cannot confer; from this, almost all original and native excellence proceeds, Shakespeare must have looked upon mankind with perfpicacity, in the highest degree curious and attentive. Other writers borrow their characters from preceding writers, and diverfify them only by the accidental appendages of prefent manners; the drefs is a little varied, but the body is the fame. Our author had both matter and form to provide; for, except the characters of Chaucer, to whom I think he is not much indebted, there were no writers in English, and perhaps not many in other modern languages, which fhewed life in its native colours. The contest about the original benevolence or malignity of man, had not yet commenced. Speculation had not yet attempted to analyse the mind, to trace the paffions to their fources, to unfold the feminal principles of vice and virtue, or found the depths of the heart for the motives of action. All thofe inquiries, which from the time that human nature became the fashionable study, have been made fometimes with nice difcernment, but often with idle fubtilty, were yet unattempted. The tales, with which the infancy of learning was fatisfied, exhibited only the fuperficial appearances of action, related the events, but omitted the caufes, and were formed for fuch as delighted in wonders rather than in truth. Mankind was not then to be ftudied in the clofet; he that would know the world, was under the neceflity of gleaning his own remarks, by mingling, as he could, in its business and amufements. Boyle congratulated himself upon his high birth, because it favoured his curiofity, by facilitating his access. Shakefpeare had no fuch advantage; he came to London a needy adventurer, and lived for a time by very mean employments. Many works of genius and learning have been performed in states of life that appear very little favourable to thought, or to enquiry: fo many, that he who confiders them, is inclined to think that he fees enterprize and perfeverance predominating over all external agency, and bidding help and hindrance vanish before them. The genius of Shakefpeare was not to be depreffed by the weight of * of poverty, nor limited by the narrow converfation to which men in want are inevitably condemned; the incumbrances of his fortune were fhaken from his mind, as dewdrops from a lion's mane. Though he had fo many difficulties to encounter, and fo little affiftance to furmount them, he has been able to obtain an exact knowledge of many modes of life, and many cafts of native difpofitions; to vary them with great multiplicity; to mark them by nice diftinctions; and to fhew them in full view by proper combinations. In this part of his performances he had none to imitate, but has been himself imitated by all fucceeding writers; and it may be doubted whether, from all his fucceffors, more maxims of theoretical knowledge, or more rules of practical prudence, can be collected, than he alone has given to his country. Nor was his attention confined to the actions of men; he was an exact furveyor of the inanimate world; his descriptions have always fome peculiarities, gathered by contemplating things as they really exift. It may be observed, that the oldeft poets of many nations preferve their reputation, and that the following generations of wit, after a fhort celebrity, link into oblivion. The firft, whoever they be, must take their fentiments and defcriptions immediately from knowledge; the refemblance is therefore juft; their defcriptions are verified by every eye, and their fentiments acknowledged by every breast. Those whom their fame invites to the fame ftudies, copy partly them, and partly nature, till the books of one age gain fuch authority, as to ftand in the place of nature to another; and imitation, always deviating a little, becomes at laft capricious and cafual. Shake fpeare, whether life or nature be his fubject, fhews plainly that he has feen with his own eyes; he gives the image which he receives, not weakened or distorted by the intervention of any other mind; the ignorant feel his reprefentations to be juft, and the learned fee that they are complete. Perhaps it would not be eafy to find any author, except Homer, who invented fo much as Shakespeare, who fo much advanced the ftudies which he cultivated, or effufed fo much novelty upon his age or country. The form, the characters, the language, and the fhows of the Englifh drama are his. He feems, fays Dennis, to have been the very original of our English ragical harmony, that is, the harmony of blank verfe, diverfified often by dissyllable and triffyllable terminations. For the diverfity diftinguishes it from heroic harmony, and by bringing it nearer to common ufe, makes it more proper to gain attention, and more fit for action and dialogue. Such verfe we make when we are writing profe; we make fuch verfe in common conversation. I know not whether this praife is rigoroufly juft. The diffyllable termination, which the critic rightly appropriates to the drama, is to be found, though, I think, not in Gorboduc, which is confeffedly before our author; yet in Hieronymo, of which the date is not certain, but which there is reason to believe at least as old as his ear. lieft plays. This however is certain, that he is the first who taught either tragedy or comedy to please, there being no theatrical piece of any older writer, of which the name is known, except to antiquaries and collectors of books, which are fought be cause they are scarce, and would not have been scarce had they been much efteemed. To him we must ascribe the praise, unlefs Spenfer may divide it with him, of having firft difcovered to how much smoothnefs and harmony the English language could be foftened. He has fpeeches, perhaps fometimes fcenes, which have all the delicacy of Rowe, without his effeminacy. He endeavours, indeed, commonly to ftrike by the force and vigour of his dialogue, but he never executes his purpose better, than when he tries to footh by foftnefs. Yet it must be at last confeffed, that as we owe every thing to him, he owes fomething to us; that, if much of his praife is paid by perception and judgment, much is likewife given by cuftom and veneration. We fix our eyes upon his graces, and turn them from his deformities, and endure in hira what we should in another loath or defpife. If we endured without praifing, refpect for the father of our drama might excufe us; but I have seen, in the book of fome modern critic, a collection of anomalies, which fhew that he has corrupted language by every mode of depravation, but which his admirer has accumulated as a monument of honour. He has scenes of undoubted and perpetual excellence, but perhaps not one play, which if it were now exhibited as the work of a contemporary writer, would be heard to the conclufion. I am indeed far from It appears, from the induction of Ben Jonfon's Bartholomew-Fair, to have been acted before the year 1590. STEEVENS. thinking, |