mirers 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 unfkilful curiosity.

Our author's plots are generally borrowed from novels; and it is reasonable to fuppofe, that he chofe 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 supposed to be copied from Chaucer's Gamelyn, was a little pamphlet of thofe times; and old Mr. Cibber remembered the tale of Hamlet in plain English prose, which the criticks have now to feek in Saxo Grammaticus.

His English hiftories he took from English 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 crouded 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

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ftrongly feized by the tragedies of Shakspeare than of any other writer; others please us by particular fpeeches, 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 reflefs and unquenchable curiofity, and compelling him that reads his work to read it through.

The flows and buftle with which his plays abound have the fame original. As knowledge advances, pleafute 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 thani in poetical language, and perhaps wanted fomé vifible and difcriminated events, as comments on the dialogue. He knew how he should 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 muft 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 extravagancies are endured by a nation, which has feen the tragedy of Cato. Let him be answered, that Addison speaks the language of poets, and Shakspeare, 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 thé fairest and the nobleft progeny which judgment propagates by conjunction with learning; but Othello is the vigorous and vivacious offspring of obfervation impregnated by genius. Cato affords

VOL. I.

Q

a fplendid exhibition of artificial and fictitious manners, and delivers juft and noble fentiments, in diction eafy, elevated, and harmonious, but its hopes and fears communicate no vibration to the heart; the composition refers us only to the writer; we pronounce the name of Cato, but we think on Addifon.

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 Shakspeare is a foreft, in which oaks extend their branches, and pines tower in the air, interfperfed fometimes with weeds and brambles, and fometimes giving fhelter to myrtles and to rofes; filling the eye with awful pomp, and gratifying the mind with endless diverfity. Other poets difplay cabinets of precious rarities, minutely finifhed, wrought into fhape, and polished into brightness. Shakspeare opens a mine which contains gold and diamonds in unexhauftible plenty, though clouded by incruftations, debased by impurities, and mingled with a mafs of meaner minerals.

It has been much difputed, whether Shakspeare owed his excellence to his own native force, or whether he had the common helps of fcholaftick education, the precepts of critical science, and the examples of ancient authors.

There has always prevailed a tradition, that Shakspeare wanted learning, that he had no regular education, nor much fkill 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 Shakspeare were known to multitudes. His evidence ought therefore to decide the controverfy, unlefs fome teflimony of equal force could be oppofed.

Some have imagined, that they have difcovered deep learning in imitations of old writers; but the examples which I have known urged, were drawn from books tranflated in his time; or were fuch eafy coincidences of thought, as will happen to all who confider the fame subjects; or such remarks on life or axioms of morality as float in converfation, and are tranfmitted through the world in proverbial fentences.

I have found it remarked, that, in this important fentence, Go before, I'll follow, we read a tranflation of, I prae, fequar. I have been told, that when Caliban, after a pleafing dream, fays, I cry'd to Aleep again, the author imitates Anacreon, who had, like every other man, the fame wifh on the fame occafion.

There are a few paffages which may pass 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 thofe 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 easily 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 Englifh tranflation, 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 skill in modern languages, I can find no fufficient ground of determination; but as no imitations of French or Italian authors have been difcovered, 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 translated.

That much knowledge is fcattered over his works is very juftly obferved by Pope, but it is often fuch knowledge as books did not fupply. He that will underftand Shakspeare, muft not be content to ftudy him in the clofet, he muft look for his meaning fometimes among the fports of the field, and fometimes among the manufactures of 'the fhop.

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

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