" redeemed his vices with his virtues; there was " ever more in him to be praised than to be par

"doned."

As for the passage which he mentions out of Shakspeare, there is somewhat like it in Julius Cæfar, but without the absurdity; nor did I ever meet with it in any edition that I have seen as quoted by Mr. Jonfon.3

Besides his plays in this edition, there are two or three ascribed to him by Mr. Langbaine, which

3

- nor did I ever meet with it in any edition that I have Seen, as quoted by Mr. Jonfon.] See Mr. Tyrwhitt's note on Julius Cæfar, Act III. sc. i. Vol. XVI. MALONE.

I have never feen, and know nothing of. He writ likewise Venus and Adonis, and Tarquin and Lucrece, in stanzas, which have been printed in a late collection of poems.5 As to the character given of him by Ben Jonson, there is a good deal true in it : but I believe it may be as well expressed by what Horace says of the first Romans, who wrote tragedy upon the Greek models, (or indeed translated them,) in his epistle to Augustus:

naturâ fublimis & acer :

"Nam spirat tragicum fatis, et feliciter audet,
"Sed turpem putat in chartis metuitque lituram."

As I have not proposed to myself to enter into a large and complete criticism upon Shakspeare's works, so I will only take the liberty, with all due fubmiffion to the judgment of others, to observe fome of those things I have been pleased with in looking him over.

His plays are properly to be distinguished only into comedies and tragedies. Those which are called histories, and even fome of his comedies, are really tragedies, with a run or mixture of come

make still more free. "This book (says Anthony Wood, speaking of a work to which the name of Sir Philip Sydney was prefixed) coming out so late, it is to be inquired whether Sir Philip Sydney's name is not fet to it for fale-fake, being a usual thing in these days to fet a great name to a book or books, by sharking booksellers, or snivelling writers, to get bread." Athen. Oxon. Vol. I. p. 208. MALONE.

5

- in a late collection of poems.] In the fourth volume of State Poems, printed in 1707. Mr. Rowe did not go beyond A Late Collection of Poems, and does not seem to have known that Shakspeare also wrote 154 Sonnets, and a poem entitled ALover's Complaint. MALONE.

:

6

dy amongst them. That way of tragi-comedy was the common mistake of that age, and is indeed be

are really tragedies, with a run or mixture of comedy amongst them.] Heywood, our author's contemporary, has stated the best defence that can be made for his intermixing lighter with the more ferious scenes of his dramas :

"It may likewise be objected, why amongst sad and grave histories I have here and there inserted fabulous jests and tales favouring of lightness. I answer, I have therein imitated our historical, and comical poets, that write to the stage, who, lest the auditory should be dulled with ferious courses, which are merely weighty and material, in every act present some Zany, with his mimick action to breed in the less capable mirth and laughter; for they that write to all, must firive to please all. And as such fashion themselves to a multitude diversely addicted, so I to an universality of readers diversely disposed." Pref. to History of Women, 1624. MALONE.

The criticks who renounce tragi-comedy as barbarous, I fear, speak more from notions which they have formed in their closets, than any well-built theory deduced from experience of what pleases or displeases, which ought to be the foundation of all rules.

Even supposing there is no affectation in this refinement, and that those criticks have really tried and purified their minds till there is no dross remaining, still this can never be the case of a popular audience, to which a dramatick representation is referred.

Dryden in one of his prefaces condemns his own conduct in The Spanish Friar; but, says he, I did not write it to please myself, it was given to the publick. Here is an involuntary confeffion that tragi-comedy is more pleasing to the audience; I would ask then, upon what ground it is condemned?

This ideal excellence of uniformity refts upon a fuppofition that we are either more refined, or a higher order of beings than we really are: there is no provision made for what may be called the animal part of our minds.

Though we should acknowledge this paffion for variety and contrarieties to be the vice of our nature, it is still a propensity which we all feel, and which he who undertakes to divert us must find provifion for.

We are obliged, it is true, in our pursuit after science, or excellence in any art, to keep our minds steadily fixed for a long continuance; it is a task we impose on ourselves: but I do not wish to task myself in my amusements.

If the great object of the theatre is amusement, a dramatick come so agreeable to the English taste, that though the severer criticks among us cannot bear it, yet the generality of our audiences feem to be better pleased with it than with an exact tragedy. The Merry Wives of Windfor, The Comedy of Errors, and The Taming of a Shrew, are all pure comedy; the rest, however they are called, have something of both kinds. It is not very easy to determine which way of writing he was most excellent in. There is certainly a great deal of entertainment in his comical humours; and though they did not then strike at all ranks of people, as the fatire of the present age has taken the liberty to do, yet there is a pleasing and a well-diftinguished variety in those characters which he thought fit to meddle with. Falstaff is allowed by every body to be a mafierpiece; the character is always well sustained, though drawn out into the length of three plays; and even the account of his death given by his old landlady Mrs. Quickly, in the first Act of Henry the Fifth, though it be extremely natural, is yet as diverting as any part of his life. If there be any fault in the draught he has made of this lewd old fellow, it is, that though he has made him a thief, lying, cowardly, vain-glorious, and in short every way vicious, yet he has given him so much wit as to make him almoft too agreeable; and I do not know whether

some people have not, in remembrance of the diverfion he had formerly afforded them, been forry to see his friend Hal use him so scurvily, when he comes to the crown in the end of The Second Part of Henry the Fourth. Amongst other extravagancies, in The Merry Wives of Windfor he has made him a deer-stealer, that he might at the same time remember his Warwickshire profecutor, under the name of Justice Shallow; he has given him very near the same coat of arms which Dugdale, in his Antiquities of that county, describes for a family there, and makes the Welsh parson descant very pleasantly upon them. That whole play is admirable; the humours are various and well opposed; the main design, which is to cure Ford of his unreasonable jealousy, is extremely well conducted. In Twelfth-Night there is something fingularly ridiculous and pleasant in the fantastical steward Malvolio. The parafite and the vain-glorious in Parolles, in All's well that ends well, is as good as any thing of that kind in Plautus or Terence. Petruchio, in The Taming of the Shrew, is an uncommon piece of humour. The conversation of Benedick and Beatrice, in Much Ado about Nothing, and of Rosalind, in As you like it, have much wit and prightliness all along. His clowns, without which character there was hardly any play writ in that time, are all very entertaining: and, I believe,

7

-the same coat of arms which Dugdale, in his Antiquities of that county, describes for a family there,] There are two coats, I observe, in Dugdale, where three filver fithes are borne in the name of Lucy; and another coat to the monument of Thomas Lucy, fon of Sir William Lucy, in which are quartered in four several divisions, twelve little fishes, three in each divifion, probably luces. This very coat, indeed, seems alluded to in Shallow's giving the dozen white luces; and in Slender's faying he may quarter. THEOBALD.