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" own candor, (for I lov'd the man, and do honour "his memory, on this fide idolatry, as much as "any.) He was, indeed, honeft, and of an open " and free nature, had an excellent fancy, brave "notions, and gentle expreffions; wherein he "flow'd with that facility, that sometimes it was " neceffary he should be stopp'd: Sufflaminandus erat, as Augustus said of Haterius. His wit " was in his own power, would the rule of it "had been fo too. Many times he fell into " those things which could not escape laughter; as when he faid in the perfon of Cafar, one

"speaking to him,

" Cæfar thou doft me wrong.

" He reply'd;

" Cæfar did never wrong, but with just cause.

" and fuch like, which were ridiculous. But he " redeem'd his vices with his virtues: There was " ever more in him to be prais'd than to be par" don'd.

As for the passage which he mentions out of Shakespear, there is somewhat likeit in Julius Cafar, but without the absurdity; nor did I ever meet with it in any edition I that have seen, as quoted by Mr. Johnson. Besides his plays in this edition, there are two or three afcrib'd to him by Mr. Langbain, which I have never feen, and know nothing of. He writ likewise, Venus and Adonis, and Tarquin and Lucrece, in stanza's, which have been printed in a late collection of Poems. As to the character given of him by Ben Johnson there is a good deal true in it: But I believe it may be as well express'd by what Horace says of the first Romans, Romans, who wrote Tragedy upon the Greek models, (or indeed translated 'em) in his epistle to Augustus.

- Natura fublimis & Acer, Nam Spirat Tragicum fatis & feliciter Audet, Sed turpem putat in Chartis metuitque Lituram.

As I have not propos'd to my felf to enter into a large and compleat Criticifm upon Shakespear's Works, fo I will only take the liberty, with all due fubmiffion to the judgment of others, to observe fome of those things I have been pleas'd with in looking him over.

His Plays are properly to be diftinguish'd only into Comedies and Tragedies. Those which are called Hiftories, and even some of his Comedies, are really Tragedies, with a run or mixture of Comedy amongst 'em. That way of Trage-comedy was the common mistake of that age, and is indeed become so agreeable to the English tafte, that tho' the severer Critics among us cannot bear it, yet the generality of our audiences feem to be better pleas'd with it than with an exact Tragedy. The Merry Wives of Windfor, the Comedy of Errors, and the Taming of the Shrew, are all pure Comedy; the rest, however they are call'd, have fomething of both kinds. 'Tis not very easy to determine which way of writing he was most excellent in. There is certainly a great deal of entertainment in his comical humours; and tho they did not then strike at all ranks of people, as the Satire of the present age has taken the Liberty to do, yet there is a pleasing and a well-diftinguifh'd variety in those characters which he thought fit to meddle with. Falstaff is allow'd by every body to be a master-piece; the Character is always

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ways well-sustain'd, tho' 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 V. tho' 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 tho' he has made him a thief, lying, cowardly, vain-glorious, and in short every way vicious, yet he has given him so much wit as to make him almost too agreeable; and I don't know whether fome people have not, in remembrance of the diverfion he had formerly afforded 'em, been forry to see his friend Hal use him so scurvily, when he comes to the crown, in the end of the second part of Henry the fourth. Amongst other extravagances, 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 name of Justice Shallow; he has given him very near the fame coat of arms which Dugdale, in his antiquities of that county, describes for a family there, and makes the Welsh parson descant very pleasantly upon 'em. That whole fplay is admirable; the humours are various and well oppos'd; the main design, which is to cure e Ford of his unreasonable jealousy, is extremely well conducted. In Twelfth Night there is fomething fingularly ridiculous and pleasant in the fantastical steward 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. Petruchio, in The Taming of the Shrew, is an uncommon piece of humour. The conversation of Benedick and Beatrice, in Much Ado about Nothing, and of Rosalind in As you like it, have much wit and sprightliness all along.

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