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Telepbus & Peleus, cùm pauper & exul uterque,
Projicit ampullas, & fefquipedalia verba.

Not that I would deny, that very bad lines in bad tragedies have had this effect. But then it always proceeds from one or other of thefe caufes :

1. Either when the subject is domeftic, and the fcene lies at home; the fpectators in this cafe, become interested in the fortunes of the diftreffed; and their thoughts are so much taken up with the fubje&t, that they are not at liberty to attend to the poet; who otherwife, by his faulty fentiments and diction, would have ftifled the emotions fpringing up from a sense of the distress. But this is nothing to the cafe in hand. For, as Hamlet fays,

What's Hecuba to bim, or be to Hecuba?

2. When bad lines raife this affection, they are bad in the other extreme; low, abject, and groveling, instead of being highly figurative and welling; yet, when attended with a natural fimplicity, they have force enough to ftrike illiterate and fimple minds. The tragedies of Banks will justify both thefe obfervations.

But if any one will ftill fay, that Shakspeare intended to reprefent a player unnaturally and fantaftically affected, we must appeal to Hamlet, that is, to Shakípeare himself in this matter; who, on the reflection he makes upon the player's emotion, in order to excite his own revenge, gives not the least hint that the player was unnatu rally or injudiciously moved. On the contrary, his fine defcription of the actor's emotion fhews, he thought just otherwife:

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And indeed had Hamlet esteemed this emotion any thing unnatural, it had been a very improper circumftance to fpur him to his purpose.

As Shakspeare has here fhewn the effects which a fine defcription of nature, heightened with all the ornaments of art, had upon an intelligent player, whofe bufinefs habituates him to enter intimately and deeply into the characters of men and manners, and to give nature its free workings on all occafions; fo he has artfully fhewn what effects the very fame scene would have upon a quite different man, Polonius; by nature, very weak and very artificial [two qualities, though commonly enough joined in life, yet generally fo much difguifed as not to be feen by common eyes to be together; and which an ordinary poet durft not have brought fo near one another]; by difcipline, practifed in a fpecies of wit and eloquence, which was ftiff, forced, and pedantic; and by trade a politician, and therefore, of confequence, without any of the affecting notices of humanity. Such is the man whom Shakespeare has judiciously chofen to reprefent the falfe tafte of that audience which had condemned the play here reciting. When the actor comes to the finest and most pathetic part of the speech, Polonius

cries out, This is too long; on which Hamlet, in contempt of his ill judgment, replies, It shall to the barber's with thy beard; [intimating that, by this judgment, it appeared that all his wifdom lay in his length of beard,] Pr'ythee, fay on. He's for a jig or a tale of bawdry [the common entertainment of that time, as well as this, of the people] or be fleeps; fay on. And yet this man of modern tafte, who food all this time perfectly unmoved with the forcible imagery of the relator, no fooner hears, amongst many good things, one quaint and fantastical word, put in, I fuppofe, purpofely for this end, than he profeffes his approbation of the propriety and dignity of it. That's good. Mobled queen is good. On the whole then, I think, it plainly appears, that the long quotation is not given to be ridiculed and laughed at, but to be admired. The character given of the play, by Hamlet, cannot be ironical. The paffage itself is extremely beautiful. It has the effect that all pathetic relations, naturally written, fhould have; and it is condemned, or regarded with indifference, by one of a wrong, unnatural tafte. From hence (to obferve it by the way) the actors, in their reprefentation of this play, may learn how this Speech ought to be fpoken, and what appearance Hamlet ought to aflume during the recital.

That which fupports the common opinion, concerning this paffage, is the turgid expreffion in fome parts of it; which, they think, could never be given by the poet to be commended. We fhall therefore, in the next place, examine the lines moft obnoxious to cenfure, and fee how much, allowing the charge, this will make for the induction of their conclufion.

Pyrrbus at Priam drives, in rage frikes wide,
But with the whiff and wind of bis fell fword
The unnerved faiber falls.

And again,

Out, out, thou Arumpet fortune! All you gods,
In general fynod, take away ber power:
Break all the fpokes and fellies from her wheel,

And bowl the round nave down the bill of heaven,
As low as to the fiends.

Now whether these be bombaft or not, is not the question; but whether Shakespeare efteemed them fo. That he did not fo esteem them appears from his having ufed the very fame thoughts in the fame expressions, in his best plays, and given them to his principal characters, where he aims at the fublime. As in the following paffages.

Troilus, in Troilus and Creffida, far outftrains the execution of Pyrrhus's fword, in the character he gives of Hector's:

When many times the caitive Grecians fall

Even in the fan and wind of your fair sword,
You bid them rife and live.

Cleopatra, in Antony and Cleopatra, rails at fortune in the fame

manner:

No,

No, let me fpeak, and let me rail fo bigb,

That the falfe hufwife Fortune break her wheel,
Provok'd at my offence.

But another ufe may be made of these quotations; a discovery of this recited play: which, letting us into a circumftance of our author's life (as a writer) hitherto unknown, was the reafon I have been fo large upon this question. I think then it appears, from what has been faid, that the play in difpute was Shakspeare's own; and that this was the occafion of writing it. He was defirous, as foon as he had found his ftrength, of restoring the chaftenefs and regularity of the ancient stage: and therefore compofed this tragedy on the model of the Greek drama, as may be feen by throwing fo much action into relation. But his attempt proved fruitlefs; and the raw, unnatural taste, then prevalent, forced him back again into his old Gothic manner. For which he took this revenge upon his audience. WARBURTON.

The praife which Hamlet beftows on this piece is certainly dif fembled, and agrees very well with the character of madness, which, before witneffes, he thought it neceliary to fupport. The fpeeches before us have fo little merit, that nothing but an affectation of fingularity could have influenced Dr. Warburton to undertake their defence. The poet, perhaps, meant to exhibit a juft resemblance of fome of the plays of his own age, in which the faults were too general and too glaring to permit a few fplendid paflages to atone for them. The player knew his trade, and spoke the lines in an affecting manner, becaufe Hamlet had declared them to be pathetic, or might be in reality a little moved by them; for, "There are "lefs degrees of nature (fays Dryden) by which fome faint emotions "of pity and terror are railed in us, as a lefs engine will raise a less "proportion of weight, though not fo much as one of Archimedes "making." The mind of the prince, it must be confeffed, was fitted for the reception of gloomy ideas, and his tears were ready at a flight folicitation. It is by no means proved, that Shakspeare has employed the fame thoughts cloathed in the fame expreffions, in bis beft plays. If he bids the falfe buswife Fortune break ber wheel, he does not defire her to break all its spokes; nay, even its periphery, and make ufe of the nave afterwards for fuch an immeafureable caft. Though if what Dr. Warburton has faid thould be found in any inftance to be exactly true, what can we infer from thence, but that Shakspeare was fometimes wrong in fpite of conviction, and in the hurry of writing committed those very faults which his judgment could detect in others? Dr. Warburton is inconfiftent in his affertions concerning the literature of Shakspeare. In a note on Troilus and Creffida, he affirms, that his want of learning kept him from being acquainted with the writings of Homer; and, in this inftance, would fuppofe him capable of producing a complete tragedy written on the ancient rules; and that the speech before us had fufficient merit to entitle it to a place in the fecond book of Virgil's Eneid, even though the

work

twork bad been carried to that perfection which the Roman poet bad conceived.

Had Shakspeare made one unfuccessful 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 Jonfon would have been the firft. Had his darling ancients been unfkilfully imitated by a rival poet, he would at leaft have preferved the memory of the fact, to fhew how unfafe 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 durft walk but he." He has reprefented Inigo Jones as being ignorant of the very names of thofe claffick au thors, whofe architecture he undertook to correct: in his Poetafter he has in feveral places hinted at our poet's injudicious ufe of words, and feems to have pointed his ridicule more than once at fome of his defcriptions and characters. It is true that he has praised him, but it was not while that praise could have been of any fervice to him; and pofthumous applaufe is always to be had on eafy conditions. Happy it was for Shakspeare, that he took nature for his guide, and, engaged in the warm purfuit of her beauties, left to Jonfon the repofitories of learning: fo has he efcaped a conteftwhich might have rendered his life unealy, and bequeathed to our pofleflion the more valuable copies from nature herself: for Shakspeare was (fays Dr. Hurd, in his notes on Horace's Art of Poetry)" the first that broke through the bondage of claffical fuperftition. And he owed this felicity, as he did fome others, to his want of what is called the advantage of a learned education. Thus, uninfluenced by the weight of early prepoffeffion, he ftruck at once into the road of nature and common fenfe: and without defigning, without knowing it, hath left us in his hiftorical plays, with all their anomalies, an exacter resemblance of the Athenian ftage, than is any where to be found in its most profeffed admirers and copyifts.” Again, ibid. "It is poffible, there are, who think a want of reading, as well as vaft fuperiority of genius, hath contributed to lift this aftonishing man, to the glory of being esteemed the most original THINKER and SPEAKER, fince the times of Homer."

To this extract I may add the fentiments of Dr. Edward Young on the fame occafion. "Who knows whether Shakspeare might not have thought lefs, if he had read more? Who knows if he might not have laboured under the load of Jonfon's learning, as Enceladus under Ætna? His mighty genius, indeed, through the moft mountainous oppreffion would have breathed out fome of his inextinguishable fire; yet poffibly, he might not have rifen 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 mafter of two books, which the last conflagration alone can deftroy; the book of nature, and that of man. Thefe he had by heart, and has tranfcribed many admirable pages of them into his immortal works. These are the fountain-head, whence

VOL. IX.

Ff

the

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the Caftalian ftreams of original compofition flow; and these are often mudded by other waters, though waters in their distinct channel moit wholefome and pure; as two chemical liquors, feparately clear as cryftal, 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 musc would have gained more glory, than he would have loft by it."

Conjectures on Original Compofition.

The first remark of Voltaire on this tragedy, is that the former king had been poifoned by his brother and bis queen. The guilt of the latter, however, is far from being afcertained. The Ghoft forbears to accufe her as an accefiary, and very forcibly recommends her to the mercy of her fon. I may add, that her confcience appears undisturbed during the exhibition of the mock tragedy, which produces so visible a diforder in her husband, who was really criminal. The laft obfervation of the fame author has no greater degree of veracity to boaft of; for now, fays he, all the actors in the piece are swept away, and one Monfieur Fortenbras is introduced to conclude it. Can this be true, when Horatio, Ofrick, Voltimand, and Cornelius, furvive? These, together with the whole court of Denmark, are supposed to be present at the cataftrophe ; so that we are not indebted to the Norwegian chief for having kept the stage from vacancy.

Monfieur de Voltaire has fince transmitted in an Epiftle to the Academy of Belles Lettres fome remarks on the late French translation of Shakspeare; but alas! no traces of genius or vigour are discoverable in this crambe repetita, which is notorious only for its infipidity, fallacy, and malice. It ferves indeed to fhew an apparent decline of talents and fpirit in its writer, who no longer relies on his own ability to depreciate a rival, but appeals in a plaintive ftrain to the queen and princeffes of France for their affiftance to stop the further circulation of Shakspeare's renown.

Impartiality, nevertheless, muft acknowledge that his private corre fpondence difplays a fuperior degree of animation. Perhaps an ague fhook him when he appealed to the publick 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 lafted) might be supposed to have written. "C'est moi qui autrefois parlai le premier de ce Shakspeare: c'est moi qui le premier montrai aux François quelques perles quela j'avois trouvé dans fon enorme fumier." Mrs. Montague, the juftly celebrated authorets of the Elay on the genius and writings of our author, was at Paris, and in the circle where these ravings of the Frenchman were first publickly recited. On hearing the illiberal expreffion already quoted, with no lefs elegance than readiness the replied "C'eft un fumier qui a fertilizé une terre bien ingrate."-In fhort, the author of Zayre, Mabomet, and Semiramis, poffeffes all the mischievous qualities of a midnight felon, who, in the hope to conceal his guilt, fets the house which he has robbed on fire.

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