Had Shakespear made one unsuccessful attempt in the manner of the ancients (that he had any knowledge of their rules, remains to be proved) it would certainly have been recorded by contemporary writers, among whom Ben Jonson would have been the first. Had his darling ancients been unskilfully imitated by a rival poet, he would at least have preserved the memory of the fact, to shew how unsafe it was for any one, who was not as thorough a scholar as himself, to have meddled with their facred remains. "Within that circle none durfst walk but he." He has represented Inigo Jones as being ignorant of the very names of those claffic authors, whose architecture he undertook to correct: in his Poetafter he has in several place hinted at our poet's injudicious use of words, and seems to have pointed his ridicule more than once at some of his descriptions and characters. It is true that he has praised him, but it was not while that praise could have been of any service to him; and posthumous applause is always to be had on easy conditions. Happy it was for Shakespear, that he took nature for his guide, and, engaged in the warm pursuit of her beauties, left to Jonfon the repofitories of learning: fo has he escaped a contest which might have rendered his life uneasy, and bequeathed to our poffeffion the more valuable copies from nature herself: for Shakespear was (says Dr. Hurd, in his notes on Horace's Art of Poetry) "the first that broke through the bondage of claffical superstition. And he owed this felicity, as he did some others, to his want of what is called the advantage of a learned education. Thus, uninfluenced by the weight of early prepossession, he struck at once into the road of nature and common sense: and without designing, without knowing it, hath left us in his historical plays, with all their anomalies, an exact resemblance of the Athenian stage, than is any where to be found in its most professed admirers and copyists." Again, ibid. "It is poffible, there are, who think a want of reading, as well as vast superiority of genius, hath contributed to lift this astonishing man, to the ! the glory of being esteemed the most original THINKER and SPEAKER, fince the times of Homer. To this extract I may add the sentiments of Dr. Edward Young on the fame occafion. "Who knows whether Shakespear might not have thought less, if he had read more? Who knows if he might not have-laboured under the load of Jonson's learning, as Enceladus under Ætna? His mighty genius, indeed, through the most mountainous oppreffion would have breathed out some of his inextinguishable fire; yet poffibly, he might not have risen up into that giant, that much more than common man, at which we now gaze with amazement and delight. Perhaps he was as learned as his dramatic province required; for whatever other learning he wanted, he was master of two books, which the last conflagration alone can destroy; the book of nature, and that of man. These he had by heart, and has tranfcribed many admirable pages of them into his immortal works. These are the fountain-head, whence the Castalian treams of original compofition flow; and these are often mudded by other waters, though waters, in their distinct channel, most wholesome and pure: as two chemical liquors, separately clear as crystal, grow foul by mixture, and offend the fight. So that he had not only as much learning as his dramatic province required, but, perhaps, as it could fafely bear. If Milton had fpared fome of his learning, his muse would have gained more glory than he would have lost by it." Conjectures on Original Compofition. THE first remark of Voltaire on this tragedy, is that the former king had been poisoned by his brother and bis queen. The guilt of the latter, however, is far from being afcertained. The Ghost forbears to accuse her as an accessary, and very forcibly recommends her to the mercy of her fon. I may add, that her conscience appears undisturbed during the exhibition of the mock tragedy, which produces so visible a diforder in her husband who was really criminal. The last observa. tion tion of the fame author has no greater degree of veracity to boast of; for now, fays hc, all the actors in the pieče are swept away, and one Monfieur Fortenbras is introduced to conclude it. Can this be true, when Horatio, Ofrick, Voltimand, and Cornelius survive? These, together with the whole court of Denmark, are fuppofed to be present at the catastrophe, fo that we are not indebted to the Norwegian chief for having kept the stage from vacancy. Monfieur de Voltaire has fince tranfmitted, in an Epistle to the Academy of Belles Lettres, fome remarks on the late French tranflation of Shakespear; but alas! no traces of genius or vigour are difcoverable in this crambe repetita, which is notorious only for its infipidity, fallacy, and malice. It ferves indeed to shew an apparent decline of talents and spirit in its writer, who no longer relies on his own ability to depreciate a rival, but appeals, in a plaintive strain, to the queen, and princesses of France for their affistance to stop the further circulation of Shakespear's renown. 66 : Impartiality, nevertheless, must acknowledge that his private correfpondence displays a fuperior degree of animation. Perhaps an ague shook him when he appealed to the public on this fubject; but the effects of a fever feem to predominate in his subsequent letter to Monfieur D'Argenteuil on the fame occafion; for fuch a letter it is as our John Dennis (while his frenzy lasted) might be supposed to have written. C'est moi qui autrefois parlai le premier de ce Shakespear: c'est moi qui le premier montrai aux François quelques perles quels j'avois trouvé dans fon enorme fumier." Mrs. Montague, the justly celebrated authoress of the Effay on the genius and writings of our author, was at Paris, and in the circle where these ravings of the Frenchman were first publicly recited. On hearing the illiberal expreffion already quoted, with no less elegance than readiness the replied" ("eit un fumier qui a fertilizé une terre bien ingrate." - mshort, the author of Zayre, Mahomet, and Semiramis, potiefles all the mischievous qualities
qualities of a midnight felon, who, in the hope to con- As for Messieurs D'Alembert and Marmontet, they STEEVENS. END OF THE SECOND VOLUME, INDEX. |