admirable genius pierced into the neceffity of fuch a rule. Servetur ad imum Qualis ab incoepto pracefferit, & fibi conflet. For what can be more ridiculous, than, in our modern writers, to make a debauched young man, immersed in all the vices of his age and time, in a few hours take up, confine himself in the way of honour to one woman, and moralize in good earneft on the follies of his paft behaviour? Nor can, that great examplar of Comic writing, Terence be altogether excused in this regard; who, in his Adelphi, has left Demea in the laft fcenes fo unlike himfelf: whom, as ShakeSpeare expreffes it, he has turn'd with the feamy fide of his wit outward.' This conduct, as errors are more readily imitated than perfections, Beaumont and Fletcher feem to have followed in a character in their Scornful Lady. It may be objected, perhaps, by fome who do not go to the bottom of our Poet's conduct, that he has likewife tranfgreffed against the rule himself, by making Prince Harry at once, upon coming to the crown, throw off his former diffolutenefs, and take up the practice of a fober morality and all the kingly virtues. But this would be a miftaken objection. The Prince's reformation is not fo fudden, as not to be prepared and expected by the audience. He gives, indeed, a loose to vanity, and a light unweighed behaviour, when he is trifling among his diffolute companions; but the fparks fparks of innate honour and true nobleness break from him upon every proper occafion, where we would hope to fee him awake to fentiments fuiting his birth and dignity. And our Poet has fo well, and artfully, guarded his character from the fufpicions of habitual and unreformable profiigatenefs; that even from the firft fhewing him upon the ftage, in the Firft Part of Henry IV. when he made him consent to join with Falstaff in a robbery on the highway, he has taken care not to carry him off the scene, without an intimation that he knows them all, and their unyoked humour; and that, like the fun, he will permit them only for a while to obfcure and cloud his brightnefs; then break through the mist, when he pleases to be himself again; that his luftre, when wanted, may be the more wondered at. Another of Shakespeare's grand touches of nature, and which lies ftill deeper from the ken of common obfervation, has been taken notice of in a note upon The Tempeft; where Profpero at once interrupts the mafque of spirits, and starts into a fudden paffion and diforder of mind. As the latent cause of his emotion is there fully inquired into, I fhall no farther dwell upon it here. Such a conduct in a poet (as Shakespeare has manifefted on many like occafions ;) where the turn of action arifes from reflections of his characters, where the reafon of it is not expreffed in words, but drawn from the inmoft refources of nature, fhews him truly capable of that art, which is more in rule than practice: Ars eft celare artem. 'Tis the foible of your worfer poets to make a parade and oftentation of that little fcience they have; and to throw it out in the most ambitious colours. And whenever a writer of this clafs fhall attempt to copy thefe artful concealments of our author, and fhall either think them eafy, or practifed by a writer for his eafe, he will foon be convinced of his mistake by the difficulty of reaching the imitation of them. Speret idem, fudet multùm, fruftráque laboret, Another grand touch of nature in our author, (not lefs difficult to imitate, tho' more obvious to the remark of a common reader) is, when he brings down at once any character from the ferment and height of paffion, makes him correct himfelf for the unruly difpofition, and fall into reflections of a fober and moral tenour. An exquifite fine inftance of this kind occurs in Lear, where that old King, hafty and intemperate in his paffions, coming to his fon and daughter Cornwall, is told by the Earl of Gloucefter that they are not to be fpoken with and thereupon throws himself into a rage, fuppofing the excuse of sickness and weariness in them to be a purpofed contempt: Gloucefter begs him to think of the fiery and unremoveable quality of the Duke: And this, which was defigned to qualify his paffion, ferves to exaggerate the transports of it. As As the conduct of Prince Henry in the firft inftance, the fecret and mental reflections in the cafe of Profpero, and the inftant detour of Lear from the violence of rage to a temper of reafoning, do so much honour to that surprising knowledge of human nature, which is certainly our author's masterpiece, I thought, they could not be fet in too good a light. Indeed, to point out, and exclaim upon, all the beauties of ShakeSpeare, as they come fingly in review, would be as infipid, as endless; as tedious, as unnecessary: But the explanation of those beauties, that are lefs obvious to common readers, and whose illustration depends on the rules of juft criticism, and an exact knowledge of human life, should defervedly have a share in a general critic upon the author. I fhall difmifs the examination into thefe his latent beauties, when I have made a fhort comment upon a remarkable paffage from Julius Gafar, which is inexpreffibly fine in itself, and greatly discovers our Author's knowledge and researches into nature. Between the acting of a dreadful thing, It has been allowed on all hands, how far our author was indebted to nature: it is not fo well agreed, how much he owed to languages and acquired learning. The decifions on this subject were certainly fet on foot by the hint from Ben Johnson, that he had fmall Latin and lefs Greek: And from this tradition, as it were, Mr. Rowe has thought fit peremptorily to declare, that, “It is "without controverfy, he had no knowledge of "the writings of the ancient poets, for that in his "works we find no traces of any thing which "looks like an imitation of the ancients. For the "delicacy of his tafte (continues he,) and the "natural bent of his own great genius (equal, "if not fuperior, to fome of the best of theirs ;) "would certainly have led him to read and study "them with fo much pleasure, that fome of their fine images would naturally have infinuated "themfelves into, and been mixed with, his own "writings: fo that his not copying, at least, fomething from them, may be an argument of "his never having read them." I fhall leave it to the determination of my learned readers, from the numerous paffages, which I have occafionally quoted in my notes, in which our Poet feems closely to have imitated the claffics, whether Mr. Rowe's affertion be fo abfolutely to be depended on. The refult of the controverfy muft certainly, either way, terminate to our Author's honour; how happily he could imitate them, if that point be allowed; or how gloriously he could |