the common mistake of that age, and is indeed become fo agreeable to the English tafte, that though The criticks who renounce tragi-comedy as barbarous, I fear, speak more from notions which they have formed in their clofets, than any well-built theory deduced from experience of what pleafes or difpleafes, which ought to be the foundation of all rules. Even fuppofing there is no affectation in this refinement, and that thofe criticks have really tried and purified their minds till there is no drofs remaining, ftill this can never be the cafe of a popular audience, to which a dramatick reprefentation is referred. Dryden in one of his prefaces condemns his own conduct in The Spanish Friar; but, fays he, I did not write it to please myself, it was given to the publick. Here is an involuntary confeffion that tragi-comedy is more pleafing to the audience; I would afk then, upon what ground it is condemned? This ideal excellence of uniformity refts upon a fuppofition that we are either more refined, or a higher order of beings than we really are: there is no provision made for what may be called the animal part of our minds. Though we fhould acknowledge this paffion for variety and contrarieties to be the vice of our nature, it is ftill a propenfity which we all feel, and which he who undertakes to divert us muft find provifion for. We are obliged, it is true, in our pursuit after science, or excellence in any art, to keep our minds fteadily fixed for a long continuance; it is a task we impofe on ourselves : but I do not wish to task myself in my amusements. If the great object of the theatre is amufement, a dramatick work muft poffefs every means to produce that ef fect; if it gives inftruction, by the by, fo much its merit is the greater; but that is not its principal object. The ground on which it ftands, and which gives it a claim to the protection and encouragement of civilifed fociety, is not because it enforces moral precepts, or gives inftruction of any kind; but from the general advantage that it produces, by habituating the mind to find its amufement in intellectual pleasures; weaning it from fenfuality, and by degrees filing off, fmoothing, and polishing, its rugged corners. SIR J. REYNOLDS the feverer criticks among us cannot bear it, yet the generality of our audiences feems to be better pleafed with it than with an exact tragedy. The Merry Wives of Windfor, The Comedy of Errors, and The Taming of a Shrew, are all pure comedy; the reft, however they are called, have fomething of both kinds. It is not very easy to determine which way of writing he was moft excellent in. There is certainly a great deal of entertainment in his comical humours; and though they did not then ftrike at all ranks of people, as the fatire of the prefent age has taken the liberty to do, yet there is. a pleafing and a well-diftinguifhed variety in those characters which he thought fit to meddle with. Falstaff is allowed by every body to be a masterpiece; the character is always well sustained, though drawn out into the length of three plays; and even the account of his death, given by his old landlady Mrs. Quickly, in the first act of Henry the Fifth, though it be extremely natural, is yet as diverting as any part of his life. If there be any fault in the draught he has made of this lewd old fellow, it is, that though he has made him a thief, lying, cowardly, vain-glorious, and in fhort every way vicious, yet he has given him fo much wit as to make him almost too agreeable; And I do not know whether fome people have not, in remembrance of the diverfion he had formerly afforded them, been forry to fee his friend Hal ufe him fo fcurvily, when he comes to the crown in the end of The Second Part of Henry the Fourth. Amongst other extravagancies, in The Merry Wives of Windfor he has made him a deer-stealer, that he might at the fame time remember his Warwickshire profecutor, under the 8 name of Juftice Shallow; he has given him very near the fame coat of arms which Dugdale, in his Antiquities of that county, defcribes for a family there, and makes the Welfh parfon defcant very pleasantly upon them. That whole play is admirable; the humours are various and well opposed; the main defign, which is to cure Ford of his unreafonable jealoufy, is extremely well conducted. In Twelfth-Night there is fomething fingularly ridiculous and pleasant in the fantastical fteward Malvolio. The parafite and the vain-glorious in Parolles, in All's Well that Ends Well, is as good as any thing of that kind in Plautus or Terence. Pctruchio, in The Taming of the Shrew, is an uncommon piece of humour. The converfation of Benedick and Beatrice, in Much Ado about Nothing, and of Rofalind, in As you like it, have much wit and fprightliness all along. His clowns, without which character there was hardly any play writ in that time, are all very entertaining: and, I believe, Therfites in Troilus and Crefida, and Apemantus in Timon, will be allowed to be mafter-pieces of illnature, and fatirical fnarling. To thefe I might add, that incomparable character of Shylock the Jew, in The Merchant of Venice; but though we have 8 the fame coat of arms which Dugdale, in his Antiquities of that county, defcribes for a family there, ] There are two coats, I obferve in Dugdale, where three filver fishes are borne in the name of Lucy; and another coat to the monument of Thomas Lucy, fon of Sir William Lucy, in which are quartered in four feveral divifions, twelve little fishes, three in each division, probably luces. This very coat, indeed, feems alluded to in Shallow's giving the dozen white luces, and in Slender's faying he may quarter. THEOBALD. feen that play received and acted as a comedy," and the part of the Jew performed by an excellent comedian, yet I cannot but think it was defigned tragically by the author. There appears in it fuch a deadly fpirit of revenge, fuch a favage fiercenefs and fellnefs, and fuch a bloody defignation of cruelty and mifchief, as cannot agree either with the ftile or characters of comedy. The play itself, take it altogether, feems to me to be one of the most finished of any of Shakspeare's. The tale indeed, in that part relating to the cafkets, and the extravagant and unufual kind of bond given by Antonio, is too much removed from the rules of probability; but taking the fact for granted, we muft allow it to be very beautifully written. There is something in the friendship of Antonio to Baffanio very great, generous, and tender. The whole fourth act (fuppofing, as I faid, the fact to be probable) is extremely fine. But there are two paffages that deferve a particular notice. The firft is, what Portia fays in praise of mercy, and the other on the power of inufick. The melancholy of Jaques, in As you like it, is as fingular and odd as it is diverting. And if, what Horace fays, "Difficile eft proprie communia dicere." 9 but though we have feen that play received and acted as a comedy,] In 1701 Lord Lanfdown produced his alteration of The Merchant of Venice, at the theatre in Lincoln's-InnFields, under the title of The Jew of Venice, and exprefsly calls it a comedy. Shylock was performed by Mr. Dogget. REED. And fuch was the bad tafle of our ancestors that this piece continued to be a flock-play from 1701 to Feb. 14, 1741, when The Merchant of Venice was exhibited for the first time at the theatre in Drury-Lane, and Mr. Macklin made his first appearance in the character of Shylock. MALONE. it will be a hard task for any one to go beyond him in the defcription of the feveral degrees and ages of man's life, though the thought be old and common enough. All the world's a ftage, And all the men and women merely players; They have their exits and their entrances, And one man in his time plays many parts, Made to his miftrefs' eye-brow. Then, a foldier; "Ev'n in the cannon's mouth. And then, the juftice "With spectacles on nofe, and pouch on fide; Is fecond childish nefs, and mere oblivion; Sans teeth, fans eyes, fans tafte, fans every thing." His images are indeed every where fo lively, that the thing he would represent ftands full before you, and you poffefs every part of it. I will venture to point out one more, which is, I think, as flrong and as uncommon as any thing I ever faw; it is an image of Patience. Speaking of a maid in love, he lays, "But let concealment, like a worm i' th' bud, Smiling at Grief." |