and has, perhaps, excelled all but Homer in fecuring the firft purpose of a writer, by exciting restless and unquenchable curiofity, and compelling him that reads his work to read it through.

The shows and bustle, with which his plays abound, have the fame original. As knowledge advances, pleafure 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 than in poetical language, and perhaps wanted fome vifible and difcriminated events, as comments on the dialogue. He knew how he should moft 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 must 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 fpeaks the language of poets; and Shakespeare, 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 the faireft and the nobleft progeny which judgment propagates by conjunction with learning; but Othello is the vigorous and vivacious offspring of observation im-pregnated by genius. Cato affords a fplendid exhibition of artificial and fictitious manners, and delivers juft and noble sentiments, in diction eafy, elevated, and harmonious; but its hopes and fears communicate no vibration to the heart; the compofition 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 composition of Shakespeare is a foreft, in which oaks extend their branches, and pines tower in the air, interspersed sometimes with weeds and brambles, and fometimes giving shelter to myrtles and to rofes; filling the eye with awful pomp, and gratifying the mind with endlefs diverfity. Other poets difplay cabinets of precious rarities, minutely finished, wrought into fhape, and polished unto brightness. Shakefpeare 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 Shakespeare 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 Shakespeare wanted learning; that he had no regular education, nor much skill in the dead languages. Jonfon, his friend, affirms, that be bad 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 Shakespeare were known to multitudes. His evidence ought therefore to decide the controverfy, unless fome teftimony of equal force could be opposed.

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

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

There are few paffages which may pafs for imitations, but so 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 Manachmi 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 those 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 eafily procure them to be written, and

probably, even though he had known the fanguage in the common degree, he could not have written it without affistance. In the story of Romeo and Juliet, he is obferved to have followed the English translation, where it deviates from the Italian; but this, on the other part, proves nothing againft 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 eafy perufal of the Roman authors. Concerning his fkill in modern languages, I can find no fufficient ground of determination; but as no imitations of French or Italian authors have been discovered, though the Italian poetry was then high in efteem, I am inclined to believe, that he read little more than English, and chose for his fables only such tales as he found tranflated.

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 understand Shakespeare, muft not be content to study him in the clofet; he muft look for his meaning fometimes among the fports of the field, and fometimes among the manufactures of the shop.

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 indulge his curiofity without excurfion into foreign literature. Many of the Roman authors were tranflated, and fome of the. Greek; the Reformation had filled the kingdom with theological learning; moft of the topicks of human difquifition had found English writers; and poetry had been cultivated, not only with diligence, but fuccefs. This was a flock of knowledge fufficient for a mind fo capable of appropriating and improving it.

But the greater part of his excellence was the product of his own genius. He found the English stage in a state of the utmoft rudenefs; no effays, either in tragedy or comedy, had appeared, from which it could be difcovered to what degree of delight either one or other might be carried. Neither character nor dialogue were yet understood. Shakespeare may be truly faid to have introduced them amongft us, and in fome of his happier scenes to have carried them both to the utmost height.

By what gradations of improvement he proceeded, is not eafily known; for the chronology of his works is yet unfettled. Rowe is of opinion, that perhaps we are not to look for bis beginning, like thofe of other writers, in his leaft perfect works; art had fo little, and nature fo large a fhare in what he did, that for aught I know, says he, the performances of his youth, as they were the most vigorous, were the best. But the power of nature is only the power of ufing, to any certain purpose, the materials which diligence procures, or opportunity fupplies. Nature gives no man knowledge, and, when images are collected by ftudy and experience, can only affift in combining or applying them. Shakespeare, however favoured by nature, could impart only what he had learned; and as he muft increase his ideas, like other mortals, by gradual acquifition, he, like them, grew wifer as he grew older, could display life better, as he knew it more, and inftruct with more efficacy, as he was himself more amply inftructed.

There is a vigilance of obfervation, and accuracy of diftinction, which books and precepts cannot confer; from this, almost all original and native excellence proceeds. Shakespeare must have looked upon mankind with perfpicacity, in the highest degree curious and attentive. Other writers borrow their characters from preceding writers, and diverfify them only by the accidental appendages of present manners; the drefs is a little varied, but the body is the fame. Our author had both matter and form to provide; for, except the characters of Chaucer, to whom I think he is not much indebted, there were no writers in English, and perhaps not many in other mod ern languages, which fhewed life in its native colours.

The contest about the original benevolence or malignity of man, had not yet commenced. Speculation had not yet attempted to analyse the mind, to trace the paffions to their fources, to unfold the feminal principles of vice and virtue, or found the depths of the heart for the motives of action. All thofe inquiries, which, from that time that human nature became the fashionable study, have been made fometimes with nice difcernment, but often with idle fubtilty, were yet unattempted. The tales, with which the infancy of learning was satisfied, exhibited only the fuperficial appearances of action, related the events, but omitted the caufes, and were formed

for fuch as delighted in wonders rather than in truth. Mankind was not then to be ftudied in the closet; he that would know the world, was under the neceffity of gleaning his own remarks, by mingling, as he could, in its bufinefs and amusements.

Boyle congratulated himself upon his high birth, because it favoured his curiofity, by facilitating his accefs. Shakespeare had no fuch advantage; he came to London a needy adventurer, and lived for a time by very mean employments. Many works of genius and learning have been performed in ftates of life that appear very little favourable to thought, or to inquiry: fo many, that he who confiders them, is inclined to think that he fees enterprize and perfeverance predominating over all external agency, and bidding help and hindrance vanish before them. The genius of Shakespeare was not to be depreffed by the weight of poverty, nor limited by the narrow converfation to which men in want are inevitably condemned; the incumbrances of his fortune were shaken from his mind, as dew-drops from a lion's mane.

Though he had fo many difficulties to encounter, and fo little affiftance to furmount them, he has been able to obtain an exact knowledge of many modes of life, and many cafts of native difpofitions; to vary them with great multiplicity; to mark them by nice diftinctions; and to fhew them in full view by proper combinations. In this part of his performances he had none to imitate, but has himself been imitated by all fucceeding writers; and it may be doubted whether, from all his fucceffors, more maxims of theoretical knowledge, or more rules of practical prudence, can be collected, than he alone has given to his country.

Nor was his attention confined to the actions of men ; he was an exact surveyor of the inanimate world; his defcriptions have always fome peculiarities, gathered by contemplating things as they really exift. It may be obferved, that the oldeft poets of many nations preserve their reputation, and that the following generations of wit, after a short celebrity, sink into oblivion. The first, whoever they be, muft take their fentiments and defcriptions immediately from knowledge; the resemblance is therefore juft; their defcriptions are verified by every eve. and their fentiments acknowledged by every breast. pier fcenes to their fame invites to the fame ftudies, copy