Of this play the light or comick part is very natural and pleafing, but the grave fcenes, if a few paffages be excepted, have more labour than elegance. The plot is rather intricate than artful. The time of the action is indefinite; fome time, we know not how much, must have elapfed between the recefs of the duke and the imprisonment of Claudio; for he must have learned the ftory of Mariana in his difguife, or he delegated his power to a man already known to be corrupted. The unities of action and place are fufficiently preferved.

LOVE'S LABOUR'S LOST.

In this play, which all the editors have concurred to cenfure, and fome have rejected as unworthy of our poet, it must be confeffed that there are many paffages mean, childish, and vulgar; and fome which ought not to have been exhibited, as we are told they were, to a maiden queen. But there are scattered through the whole many fparks of genius; nor is there any play that has more evident marks of the hand of Shakespeare.

MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM.

Wild and fantaftical as this play is, all the parts in their various modes are well written, and give the kind of pleasure which the author defigned. Fairies in his time were much in fashion; common tradition had made them familiar, and Spenfer's poem had made them great.

VOL. II.

L

MERCHANT

MERCHANT OF VENICE.

It has been lately discovered, that this fable is taken from a story in the Pecorone of Giovanni Fiorentino, a novelist, who wrote in 1378. The story has been published in English, and I have epitomized the translation. The tranflator is of opinion, that the choice of the cafkets is borrowed from a tale of Boccace, which I have likewife abridged, though I believe that Shakespeare muft have had fome other

novel in view.

Of the MERCHANT OF VENICE the ftyle is even and eafy, with few peculiarities of diction, or anomalies of conftruction. The comick part raises laughter, and the ferious fixes expectation. The probability of either one or the other ftory cannot be maintained. The union of two actions in one event is in this drama eminently happy. Dryden was much pleased with his own addrefs in connecting the two plots of his Spanish Friar, which yet, I believe, the critick will find excelled by this play.

AS YOU LIKE IT.

Of this play the fable is wild and pleafing. I know not how the ladies will approve the facility with which both Rofalind and Celia give away their hearts. To Celia much may be forgiven for the heroilm of her friendship. The character of Jaques is natural and well preferved. The comick dialogue is very fprightly, with lefs mixture of low buffoonery than in fome other plays: and the graver part is elegant and harmonious. By haftening to the end of his work, Shakespeare fuppreffèd the dialogue 6 between

between the ufurper and the hermit, and loft an opportunity of exhibiting a moral leffon in which he might have found matter worthy of his highest powers.

TAMING OF THE SHREW.

Of this play the two plots are fo well united, that they can hardly be called two without injury to the art with which they are interwoven. The attention is entertained with all the variety of a double plot, yet is not diffracted by unconnected incidents.

The part between Katharine and Petruchio is eminently sprightly and diverting. At the marriage of Bianca the arrival of the real father, perhaps, produces more perplexity than pleasure. The whole

play is very popular and diverting.

ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL.

This play has many delightful fcenes, though not fufficiently probable, and fome happy characters, though not new, nor produced by any deep know. ledge of human nature. Parolles is a boafter and a coward, fuch as has always been the fport of the stage, but perhaps never raised more laughter or contempt than in the hands of Shakespeare.

I cannot reconcile my heart to Bertram; a man noble without generofity, and young without truth; who marries Helen as a coward, and leaves her as a profligate when he is dead by his unkindness, fueaks home to a fecond marriage, is accufed by a

woman whom he has wronged, defends himself by falfehood, and is difmiffed to happiness.

The story of Bertram and Diana had been told before of Mariana and Angelo, and, to confess the truth, scarcely merited to be heard a fecond time.

ous.

This play is in the graver part elegant and eafy, and in fome of the lighter fcenes exquifitely humourAgue-cheek is drawn with great propriety, but his character is, in a great meafure, that of natural fatuity, and is therefore not the proper prey of a fatirift. The foliloquy of Malvolio is truly comick; he is betrayed to ridicule merely by his pride. The marriage of Olivia, and the fucceeding perplexity, though well enough contrived to divert on the ftage, wants credibility, and fails to produce the proper inftruction required in the drama, as it exhibits no juft picture of life.

WINTER'S TALE.

The ftory of this play is taken from the pleafant Hiftory of Doraftus and Farenia, written by Robert Greene.

This play, as Dr. Warburton juftly obferves, is, with all its abfurdities, very entertaining. The character of Autolycus is very naturally conceived, and ftrongly reprefented.

MACK BETH.

This play is defervedly celebrated for the propriety of its fictions, and folemnity, grandeur, and variety of its action, but it has no nice difcriminations of

character;

character; the events are too great to admit the influence of particular difpofitions, and the course of the action neceffarily determines the conduct of the agents.

The danger of ambition is well defcribed; and I 'know not whether it may not be faid, in defence of fome parts which now feem improbable, that, in Shakespeare's time it was neceffary to warn credulity against vain and illufive predictions.

The paffions are directed to their true end. Lady Macbeth is merely detefted; and though the courage of Macbeth preferves fome efteem, yet every reader rejoices at his fall.

The tragedy of King John, though not written with the utmost power of Shakespeare, is varied with a very pleafing interchange of incidents and characters. The lady's grief is very affecting; and the character of the baftard contains that mixture of greatness and levity which this author delighted to exhibit.

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KING RICHARD II.

This play is extracted from the Chronicle of Holingfhed, in which many paffages may be found which Shakespeare has, with very little alteration, tranfplanted into his scenes; particularly a speech of the bishop of Carlisle in defence of king Richard's unalienable right, and immunity from human jurifdiction.

Fonfon who, in his Catiline and Sejanus, has inferted many fpeeches from the Roman hiftorians, was