Imatges de pàgina
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title fhould be, The troubles and death of King John. For John having unjustly feized the crown, and excluded the rightful heir, his nephew Arthur Plantagenet, the king of France efpouses the intereft of the young prince. Hence arife king John's troubles, his punishment and death. The life of K. Henry VIII. would not improperly be entitled, The fall of cardinal Woolfey. The cardinal is fhewn in the fummit of his power and pride; and his fall was in a good measure owing to the king's marriage with Anna Bullen. Here therefore the play should have ended; but flattery to princes has hurt the nothing for the whole, cannot be any part of that whole. Again in chap. xxiii. Ταύτη θεσπέσιος ἂν φανείη Ὅμηρο παρὰ τὰς ἄλλες, τῷ μηδὲ τὸν πόλεμον καίπερ ἔχοντα ἀρχὴν καὶ τέλω, ἐπιχειρῆσαι ποιεῖν ὅλον λίαν γὰρ ἂν μέγας, καὶ ἐκ εὐσύνοπλο ἔμελλεν ἔσεσθαι· ἢ τῷ μεγέθει μετριάζοντα καλαπε πλεμένον τῇ ποικιλίᾳ. Νῦν δ ̓ ἓν μέρω. ἀπολαβῶν, ἐπεισοδίοις κέχρηται αὐτῶν πολλοῖς. The latter part is corrupted, aurar is got out of its place, and should be changed into αὐτῇ ; viz. πολέμω, And placed after μέρα, thus ; Νῦν δ ̓ ἐν μέρω. αὐτῷ ἀπολαβῶν, ἐπεισοδίοις κέχρηαι πολλοῖς. Homer, in refpect to other poets, herein appears divine, in that he treats not of the whole war, though it has a beginning, and an end☀ for it would be too great, and not to be comprehended at one view: or fuppofe he could have reduced it to a juft extent, yet it would have been perplexed with fuch a variety of incidents. But now taking one part only of the war, he introduces a great number of episodes.

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best poems and of this, I shall speak after. Other plays of our poet are called, First and fecond parts, as The first and fecond parts of king Henry IV. But these plays are independent each of the other. The first part, as 'tis named, ends with the fettlement in the throne of king Henry IV. when he had gained a compleat victory over his rebellious fubjects. The fecond part contains king Henry's death; fhewing his fon, afterwards Henry V, in the various lights of a good-natured rake, 'till he comes to the crown; when 'twas neceffary for him to affume a more manlike character, and princely dignity. To call these two plays, first and fecond parts, is as injurious to the author-character of Shakefpeare, as it would be to Sophocles, to call his two plays on Oedipus, first and fecond parts of King Oedipus. Whereas the one is Oedipus King of Thebes, the other, Oedipus at Athens.

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Julius Caefar is as much a whole, as the Ajax of Sophocles which does not end at the death of Ajax, but when the fpectators are made acquainted with fome confequences, that might be expected after his death; as the reconciliation 5 See below fect. XIV.

6. Οἰδίπος τύραννο». Οἰδίπες ἐπὶ κολωνῷ. viz. a hilloc near Athens, where his daughter Antigone conducted him after his expulfion from Thebes.

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between Teucer and the Grecian chieftains, and the honourable interment of Ajax. Nor does our poet's play end, at the death of Julius Caefar, but when the audience are let into the knowledge of what befel the confpirators, being the confequences of the murder of the hero of the play. The story hangs together as in a heroic poem.

The fable is one in The Tempest, viz. the reftoration of Profpero to the dukedom of Milan : and the poem hastens into the midst of things, prefenting the ufurping duke fhipwrecked on the inchanted island, where Profpero had long refided.

The unity of action is very vifible in Measure for Meafure. That reflection of Horace,

Quid leges fine moribus

Vanae proficiunt ?

is the chief moral of the play. How knowing in the characters of men is our poet, to make the fevere and inexorable Angelo incur the penalty of that fanguinary law, which he was fo forward to revive?

The three plays containing feveral historical tranfactions in the reign of K. Henry VI. (if entirely written by Shakespeare, which I fome

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what fufpect) are only rude and rough draughts; and tho' they have in them many fine paffages, yet I shall not undertake to justify them according to the strict rules of criticifm.

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SECT. IX.

ROM what has been already observed, it becomes lefs difficult to fee into the art and defign of Shakespeare, in forming and planing his dramatic poems. The unity of action he feems to have thought himfelf obliged to regard; but not at all the unities of time and place; no more, than if he were writing an epic poem. Ariftotle (our chief authority, because he drew his obfervations from the most perfect models) tells us, that the epic poem has no determined time, but the dramatic he fixes to a 'fingle day: the former is to be red, the latter to be seen. Now a man cannot easily impofe on himself, that what he fees represented in a continued action, at a certain period of time, and in

1 Ον μάλισα πειρᾶται ὑπὸ μίαν περίοδον ἡλία εἶναι, ἢ μικρὸν ἐξαλλάττειν· ἡ δὲ ἐποποιΐα, αόρις τῷ χρόνῳ. Tragedy as much as poffible tries to confine itself to one period of the fun, [fpeaking with refpect to it's fuppofed diurnal motion] or to exceed it as little as may be the epopaeia is unlimiteď as to time. Arift. megi woint.

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a certain place, should take up feveral years, and be tranfacted in feveral places. But dramatic poetry is the art of imposing; and he is the best poet, who can best impose on his audience; and he is the wifeft man, who is eafieft impofed on. The story therefore (which is the principal part, and as it were the very foul of tragedy) being made a whole, with natural dependance and connexion; the fpectator feldom confiders the length of time neceffary to produce all these incidents, but paffes all that over; as in Julius Caefar, Macbeth, Hamlet, and in other plays of our poet.

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2 The real length of time in Julius Caefar is as follows, A. U. C. 709. a frantic festival, facred to Pan and called Lupercalia, was held in honour of Caefar, about the middle of february, when the regal crown was offered him by Antony March 15, he was flain. A. U. C. 710. Nov. 27. the triumvirs met at a small island, formed by the river Rhenus, near Bononia, and there adjusted their cruel profcription. A. U. C. 711. Brutus and Caffius were defeated near Philippi.- -Macbeth reigned seventeen years. So Johan. de Fordin Scoticron. L. iv. c. 45. Machabeus malignorum vallatus turmis et opibus praepotens regali dignitate potitus an. dom. MXL. regnavit annis XVII. the time is so artfully paffed over, and the incidents fo connected, that the fpectator imagines all continued, and without interruption.

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