produce any Thing by their own Imagination would require too much of that Time, which your Lordship employs in nobler Studies. Of all the Novels and Romances that Wit or Idleness, Vanity or Indigence, have pushed into the World, there are very few, of which the End cannot be conjectured from the Beginning; or where the Authors have done more, than to tranfpofe the Incidents of other Tales, or ftrip the Circumftances from one. Event for the Decoration of another.

In the Examination of a Poet's Character it is therefore first to be enquired what Degree of Invention has been exerted by him. With this View I have very diligently read the Works of Shakespear, and now prefume to

lay

lay the Result of my Searches before your Lordship, before that Judge whom Pliny himself would have wifhed for his Affeffor to hear a literary Cause.

How much the Tranflation of the following Novels will add to the Reputation of Shakespear, or take away from it, You, my Lord, and Men learned and candid like You, if any fuch can be found, muft now determine. Some Danger, as I am informed, there is, left his Admirers fhould think him injured by this Attempt, and clamour as at the Dimi-nution of the Honour of that Natizon, which boasts herself the Parent of fo great a Poet.

arife a

That no fuch Enemies may gainst me (though I am unwilling

to

to believe it) I am far from being too confident, for who can fix Bounds to Bigotry and Folly? My Sex, my Age, have not given me many Opportunities of mingling in the World; there may be in it many a Species of Abfurdity which I have never feen, and among them fuch Vanity as pleafes itself with false Praise bestowed on another, and fuch Superftition as worships Idols, without fuppofing them to be Gods.

But the Truth is, that a very small Part of the Reputation of this mighty Genius depends upon the naked Plot, or Story of his Plays. He lived in an Age when the Books of Chivalry were yet popular, and when therefore the Minds of his Auditors were not accustomed to balance Probabilities, or to examine nicely the

Pro

Proportion between Caufes and Effects. It was fufficient to recommend a Story, that it was far removed from common Life, that its Changes were frequent, and its Close pathetic.

This Difpofition of the Age concurred fo happily with the Imagination of Shakespear that he had no Defire to reform it, and indeed to this he was indebted for the licentious Variety, by which he has made his Plays more entertaining than thofe of any other Author.

He had looked with great Attention on the Scenes of Nature; but his chief Skill was in Human Actions, Paffions, and Habits; he was therefore delighted with fuch Tales as afforded numerous Incidents, and

exhibited many Characters, in many Changes of Situation. These Characters are fo copiously diverfified, and fome of them fo juftly purfued, that his Works may be confidered as a Map of Life, a faithful Miniature of human Tranfactions, and he that has read Shakespear with Attention, will perhaps find little new in the crouded World.

Among his other Excellencies it ought to be remarked, because it has hitherto been unnoticed, that his Heroes are Men, that the Love and Hatred, the Hopes and Fears of his chief Personages are fuch as are common to other human Beings, and not like those which later Times have exhibited, peculiar to Phantoms that ftrut upon the Stage.