foon as he had found his ftrength, of reftoring the chafteness and regularity of the ancient ftage: and therefore compofed this tragedy on the model of the Greek drama, as may be seen by throwing fo much action into relation. But his attempt proved fruitless; and the raw, unnatural tafte, then prevalent, forced him back again into his old Gothic manner. For which he took this revenge upon his audience. WARBURTON.

I formerly thought that the lines which have given rife to the foregoing obfervations, were extracted from fome old play, of which it appeared to me probable that Chriftopher Marlowe was the author; but whatever Shakspeare's view in producing them may have been, I am now decidedly of opinion they were written by himself, not in any former unfuccefsful piece, but exprefsly for the play of Hamlet. It is obfervable that what Dr. Warburton calls the fine fimilitude of the storm," is likewise found in our poet's Venus and Adonis. MALONE.

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 neceffary 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 just 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 paffages to atone for them. The player knew his trade, and spoke the lines in an affecting manner, becaufe Hamlet had declared them to be pathetick, 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 raifed in us, as a lefs engine will raise a lefs 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 Shak speare has employed the fame thoughts clothed in the fame expreffions, in his beft plays. If he bids the falfe hufwife Fortune break her 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 immeasurable caft. Though if what Dr. Warburton has faid fhould be found in any inftance to be exactly true, what can we infer from thence, but that Shakfpeare was fometimes wrong in fpite of conviction, and in the hurry of writing committed thofe very faults which his judgement could detect in others? Dr. Warburton is inconfiftent in his allertions concerning the literature of Shakspeare. In a note on Troilus and Crefida, 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 Æneid, even though the work had been carried to that perfection which the Roman poet had conceived,*

Had Shakspeare made one unsuccessful 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 first. Had his darling ancients been unfkilfully imitated by a rival poet, he would at least have preferved the memory of the fact, to fhow 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 those claffick authors, whofe architecture he undertook to correct; in his Poetafter he has in feveral places hinted at our poet's injudicious use of words, and feems to have pointed his ridicule more than once at fome of his descriptions and characters. It is true that he has praised him, but it was not while that praise could have been of any service 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 escaped a conteft which might have rendered his life uneafy, and bequeathed to our poffeffion the more valuable copies from nature herfelf: 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 professed admirers and copyifts." Again, ibid: "It is poffible, there are, who think a want of reading, as well as vaft fuperiority of genius, hath con

It appears to me not only that Shakspeare had the favourable opinion of these fines which he makes Hamlet exprefs, but that they were extracted from fome play which he, at a more early period, had either produced or projected upon the itory of Dido and Æneas. The verfes recited are far fuperior to thofe of any coeval writer: the parallel passage in Marlowe and Nafhe's Dido will not bear the comparifon. Poffibly, indeed, it might have been his first attempt, before the divinity that lodg'd within bim had inftructed him to defpife the tumid and unnatural ftyle fo much and fo unjustly admired in his predeceffors or contemporaries, and which he afterward fo happily ridiculed in the fwaggering vaine of Ancient Pistol." RITSON.

tributed to lift this astonishing man, to the glory of being efteemed 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 Etna? 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 dramatick province required; for whatever other learning he wanted, he was mafter of two books, which the laft conflagration alone can destroy; 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 the Caftalian ftreams of original compofition flow; and thefe are often mudded by other waters, though waters in their diftinct channel, most 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 dramatick province required, but, perhaps as it could fafely bear. If Milton had fpared fome of his learning, his muse 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 his queen. The guilt of the latter, however, is far from being ascertained. The Ghoft forbears to accufe her as an acceffary, 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 fo vifible a diforder in her husband who was really criminal. The laft obfervation of the fame author has no greater degree of veracity to boast 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? Thefe, together with the whole court of Denmark, are fuppofed to be prefent at the cataftrophe, so that we are not indebted to the Norwegian chief for having kept the ftage from vacancy.

Monfieur de Voltaire has fince tranfmitted, 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 fhow an appa

rent decline of talents and spirit 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, must acknowledge that his private correfpondence 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 fubfequent 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 fuppofed to have written. "C'eft moi qui autrefois parlai le premier de ce Shakspeare: c'eft moi qui le premier montrai aux François quelques perles quels j'avois trouvé dans fon enorme fumier." Mrs. Montague, the justly celebrated authorefs of the Efay on the genius and writings of our author, was in Paris, and in the circle where thefe ravings of the Frenchman were first publickly recited. On hearing the illiberal expreffion already quoted, with no less elegance than readiness she replied—“ C'est un fumier qui a fertilizé une terre bien ingrate."-In fhort, the author of Zayre, Mahomet, and Semiramis, poffeffes all the mischievous qualities of a midnight felon, who, in the hope to conceal his guilt, fets the house he has robbed on fire.

As for Meffieurs D'Alembert and Marmontel, they might fafely be paffed over with that neglect which their impotence of criticifm deferves. Voltaire, in fpite of his natural difpofition to vilify an English poet, by adopting fentiments, characters, and fituations. from Shakspeare, has bestowed on him involuntary praise. Happily, he has not been disgraced by the worthless encomiums or diffigured by the aukward imitations of the other pair, who "follow in the chace not like hounds that hunt, but like those who fill up the cry." When D'Alembert declares that more fterling fenfe is to be met with in ten French verfes than in thirty English ones, contempt is all that he provokes,-such contempt as can only be exceeded by that which every fcholar will exprefs, who may chance to look into the profe tranflation of Lucan by Marmontel, with the vain expectation of difcovering either the sense, the spirit or the whole of the original. STEVENS.