from Mr. RoWE's account of his Life and Writings: Let us now take a short view of him in his publick capacity, as a Writer: and, from thence, the tranfition will be eafy to the State in which his Writings have been handed down to us.

No age, perhaps, can produce an author more various from himself, than Shakespeare has been universally acknowledged to be. The diverfity in ftile, and other parts of compofition, so obvious in him, is as varioufly to be accounted for. His education, we find, was at beft but begun and he ftarted early into a fcience from the force of genius, unequally affifted by acquir'd improvements. His fire, fpirit, and exuberance of imagination gave an impetuofity to his pen: His ideas flowed from him in a stream rapid, but not turbu lent; copious, but not ever overbearing its fhores. The ease and sweetness of his temper might not a little contribute to his facility in writing: as his employment, as a Player, gave him an advantage and habit of fancying himself the very character he meant to delineate. He ufed the helps of his function in forming himself to create and exprefs that Sublime, which other actors can only copy, and throw out, in action and graceful attitude. But nullum fine veniâ placuit ingenium, fays Seneca. The genius, that gives us the greatest pleasure, fometimes ftands in need of our indulgence. Whenever this happens with regard to Shakespeare, I would willingly impute it to a vice of his times. We fee complaifance enough, in our own days,

paid to a bad tafte. His clinches, falfe wit, and defcending beneath himself, feem to be a deference paid to reigning barbarifm. He was a Sampfon in ftrength, but he fuffer'd fome fuch Dalilah to give him up to the Philistines.

As I have mention'd the sweetness of his difpofition, I am tempted to make a reflection or two on a fentiment of his, which, I am perfuaded, came from the heart.

The man, that hath no mufic in himself,
Nor is not mov'd with concord of sweet sounds,
Is fit for treasons, ftratagems, and spcils:
The motions of his fpirit are dull as night,
And his affections dark as Erebus:
Let no fuch man be trufted.-

Shakespeare was all opennefs, candour, and complacence; and had such a share of harmony in his frame and temperature, that we have no reason to doubt from a number of fine paffages, allufions, fimilies, &c. fetched from mufick, but that he was a paffionate lover of it. And to this, perhaps, we may owe that great number of fonnets, which are fprinkled thro' his plays. I have found, that the tanza's fung by the Grave-digger in Hamlet, are not of Shakespeare's own compofition, but owe their original to the old Earl of Surrey's poems. Many other of his occafional little fongs, I doubt not, but he purpofely copied from his contemporary writers; fometimes, out of banter; fometimes, to do them honour. The manner of their

introduction, and the ufes to which he has affigned them, will eafily determine for which of the reasons they are respectively employed. In As you like it, there are feveral little copies of verfes on Rofalind, which are faid to be the right Butterwoman's rank to market, and the very falfe gallop of verfes. Dr. Thomas Lodge, a physician who flourished early in Queen Elizabeth's reign, and was a great Writer of the Paftoral Songs and Madrigals, which were fo much the ftrain of thofe times, compofed a whole volume of poems in praise of his miftrefs, whom he calls Rofalinde. I never yet could meet with this collection; but whenever I do, I am perfuaded, I fhall find many of our Author's Canzonet's on this fubject to be fcraps of the Doctor's amorous Mufe: as, perhaps, thofe by Biron too, and the other lovers in Love's Labour's loft, may prove to be.

It has been remarked in the courfe of my notes, that mufick in our author's time had a very different ufe from what it has now. At this time, it is only employed to raise and inflame the paffions; it, then, was applyed to calm and allay all kinds of perturbations. And, agreeable to this obfervation, throughout all Shakespeare's plays, where mufick is either actually used, or its powers defcribed, it is chiefly faid to be for these ends. His Twelfth Night, particularly, begins with a fine reflection that admirably marks its foothing properties.

That train again;-It had a dying fall.
Oh, it came o'er my ear like the fweet South,

That breathes upon a bank of violets,
Stealing and giving odour !

This fimilitude is remarkable not only for the beauty of the image that it presents, but likewise for the exactness to the thing compared. This is a way of teaching peculiar to the Poets; that, when they would defcribe the nature of any thing, they do it not by a direct enumeration of its attributes or qualities, but by bringing something into comparison, and describing those qualities of it that are of the kind with those in the thing compared. So, here for inftance, the Poet willing to inftruct in the properties of mufick, in which the fame ftrains have a power to excite pleasure, or pain, according to that state of mind the hearer is then in, does it by presenting the image of a sweet South wind blowing o'er a violet-bank; which wafts away the odour of the violets, and at the fame time communicates to it its own fweetness: by this infinuating, that affecting mufick, tho' it takes away the natural fweet tranquillity of the mind, yet, at the fame time, communicates a pleasure the mind felt not before. This knowledge, of the fame objects being capable of raifing two contrary affections, is a proof of no ordinary progrefs in the study of human nature. The general beauties of thofe two poems of MILTON, intitled, L' Allegro and Il Penforofo, are obvious to all readers, because the defcriptions are the most poetical in the world; yet there is a peculiar beauty in those two excellent pieces, that will

much

much enhance the value of them to the more capable readers; which has never, I think, been obferved. The images, in each poem, which he raises to excite mirth and melancholy, are exactly the fame, only fhewn in different attitudes. Had a writer, lefs acquainted with nature, given us two poems on thefe fubjects, he would have been fure to have fought out the most contrary images to raise these contrary paffions. And, particularly, as Shakespeare, in the paffage I am now commenting, fpeaks of thefe different effects in mufick; fo Milton has brought it into each poem as the exciter of each affection: and left we should mistake him, as meaning that different airs had this different power, (which every fidler is proud to have you understand,) he gives the image of those self-fame ftrains that Orpheus used to regain Eurydice, as proper both to excite mirch and melancholy. But Milton most industriously copied the conduct of our Shakespeare, in paffages that fhewed an intimate acquaintance with nature and science.

I have not thought it out of my province, whenever occafion offered, to take notice of some of our Poet's grand touches of nature: Some, that do not appear fuperficially fuch; but in which he seems the moft deeply inftructed; and to which, no doubt, he has fo much owed that happy prefervation of his Characters, for which he is juftly celebrated. If he was not acquainted with the rule as delivered by Horace, his own admi

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