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Rome, fhould play the buffoon; and Voltaire perhaps thinks decency violated when the Danish ufurper is reprefented as a Drunkard. But Shakfpeare always makes nature predominate over accident; and if he preferves the effential character, is not very careful of diftinctions fuperinduced and adventitious. His ftory requires Romans or kings, but he thinks only on men. He knew that Rome, like every other city, had men of all difpofitions; \and wanting a buffoon, he went into the fenatehoufe for that which the fenate-houfe would certainly have afforded him. He was inclined to fhew an ufurper and a murderer not only odious, but defpicable; he therefore added drunkenness to his other qualities, knowing that kings love wine like other men, and that wine exerts its natural power upon kings. Thefe are the petty cavils of petty minds; a poet overlooks the cafual diftinction of country and condition, as a painter, fatisfied with the figure, neglects the drapery.

The cenfure which he has incurred by mixing comick and tragick scenes, as it extends to all his works, deferves more confideration. Let the fac be firft ftated, and then examined.

Shakspeare's plays are not in the rigorous and critical fenfe either tragedies or comedies, but compofitions of a diftinct kind; exhibiting the real ftate of fublunary nature, which partakes of good and evil, joy and forrow, mingled with endless variety of proportion and innumerable modes of combination; and expreffing the courfe of the world, in which the lofs of one is the gain of another; in which, at the fame time, the reveller is hafting to his wine, and the mourner burying his

friend; in which the malignity of one is fometimes defeated by the frolick of another; and many mifchiefs and many benefits are done and hindered without defign.

Out of this chaos of mingled purposes and cafualties, the ancient poets, according to the laws which custom had prescribed, felected, fome the crimes of men, and fome their abfurdities; fome the momentous viciffitudes of life, and fome the lighter occurrences; fome the terrors of distress, and fome the gayeties of profperity. Thus rofe the two modes of imitation, known by the names of tragedy and comedy, compofitions intended to promote different ends by contrary means, and confidered as fo little allied, that I do not recollect among the Greeks or Romans a fingle writer who attempted both.'

Shakspeare has united the powers of exciting laughter and forrow not only in one mind, but in one compofition. Almost all his plays are divided between ferious and ludicrous characters, and, in the fucceffive evolutions of the defign, fometimes produce ferioufnefs and forrow, and fometimes levity and laughter.

That this is a practice contrary to the rules of criticifm will be readily allowed; but there is always an appeal open from criticifm to nature. The end of writing is to inftruct; the end of poetry is to inftruct by pleafing. That the mingled drama may convey all the inftruction of tragedy or comedy cannot be denied, becaufe it includes

From this remark it appears that Dr. Johnfon was unacquainted with the Cyclops of Euripides. STEEVENS.

both in its alternations of exhibition, and approaches nearer than either to the appearance of life, by fhowing how great machinations and flender designs may promote or obviate one another, and the high and the low co-operate in the general fyftem by unavoidable concatenation.

It is objected, that by this change of scenes the paffions are interrupted in their progreffion, and that the principal event, being not advanced by a due gradation of preparatory incidents, wants at laft the power to move, which conftitutes the perfection of dramatick poetry. This reafoning is fo fpecious, that it is received as true even by those who in daily experience feel it to be falfe. The interchanges of mingled fcenes feldom fail to produce the intended viciffitudes of paffion. Fiction cannot move fo much, but that the attention may be cafily transferred; and though it must be allowed that pleafing melancholy be fometimes interrupted by unwelcome levity, yet let it be confidered likewife, that melancholy is often not pleafing, and that the difturbance of one man may be the relief of another; that different auditors have different habitudes; and that upon the whole, all pleasure confifls in variety.

The players, who in their edition divided our author's works into comedies, hiftories, and tragedies, feem not to have diftinguifhed the three kinds, by any very exact or definite ideas.

An action which ended happily to the principal perfons, however ferious or diftrefsful through its intermediate incidents, in their opinion conftituted a comedy. This idea of a comedy continued long

amongst us, and plays were written, which, by changing the catastrophe, were tragedies to-day, and comedies to-morrow.

Tragedy was not in thofe times a poem of more general dignity or elevation than comedy; it required only a calamitous conclufion, with which the common criticifm of that age was fatisfied, whatever lighter pleasure it afforded in its progrefs.

Hiftory was a feries of actions, with no other than chronological fucceffion, independent on each other, and without any tendency to introduce or regulate the conclufion. It is not always very nicely diftinguished from tragedy. There is not much nearer approach to unity of action in the tragedy of Antony and Cleopatra, than in the hiftory of Richard the Second. But a hiftory might be continued through many plays; as it had no plan, it had no limits.

Through all thefe denominations of the drama, Shakspeare's mode of compofition is the fame; an interchange of ferioufirefs and merriment, by which the mind is foftened at one time, and exhilarated at another. But whatever be his purpose, whether to gladden or deprefs, or to conduct the ftory, without vehemence or emotion, through tracts of eafy and familiar dialogue, he never

The tragedy

6 Thus fays Downes the Prompter, p. 22: of Romeo and Juliet was made fome time after [1662] into a tragi-comedy, by Mr. James Howard, he preferving Romeo and Juliet alive; fo that when the tragedy was revived again, 'twas play'd alternately, tragical one day, and tragi-comical another, for feveral days together." STEEVENS.

fails to attain his purpose; as he commands us, we laugh or mourn, or fit filent with quiet expectation, in tranquillity without indifference.

When Shakspeare's plan is understood, moft of the criticifms of Rymer and Voltaire vanish away. The play of Hamlet is opened, without impropriety, by two centinels; Iago bellows at Brabantio's window, without injury to the fcheme of the play, though in terms which a modern audience would not easily endure; the character of Polonius is feasonable and ufeful; and the Gravediggers themselves may be heard with applause.

Shakspeare engaged in dramatick poetry with the world open before him; the rules of the ancients were yet known to few; the publick judgment was unformed; he had no example of fuch fame as might force him upon imitation, nor criticks of fuch authority as might reftrain his extravagance: he therefore indulged his natural difpofition, and his difpofition, as Rymer has remarked, led him to comedy. In tragedy he often writes with great appear ance of toil and ftudy, what is written at laft with little felicity; but in his comick scenes, he feems to produce without labour, what no labour can improve. In tragedy he is always firuggling after fome occafion to be comick, but in comedy he seems to repofe, or to luxuriate, as in a mode of thinking congenial to his nature. In his tragick fcenes there is always fomething wanting, but his comedy often furpaffes expectation or defiré. His comedy pleases by the thoughts and the language, and his tragedy for the greater part by incident and action. His tragedy feems to be fkill, his comedy to be inftin&t.

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