plications for preventing any hard thips their country might fuffer from England, wifely confidering that their own fortunes and honours were embarked in the fame bottom.

Letter from the dean to lord treasurer Oxford on the death of his daughter, the marchioness of Caermarthen.

My lord,

YOUR

Nov. 21, 1713. YOUR lordship is the perfon in the world to whom every body ought to be filent upon fuch an occafion as this, which is only to be fupported by the greatest wifdom and ftrength of mind; wherein, God knows, the wifeft and beft of us, who would prefume to offer their thoughts, are far your inferiors. It is true, indeed, that a great misfortune is apt to weaken the mind, and disturb the under ftanding. This, indeed, might be fome pretence to us to adminifter our confolations, if we had been wholly ftrangers to the perfon gone. But my lord, whoever had the honour to know her, wants a comforter as much as your lordfhip; becaufe, though their lofs is not fo great, yet they have not the fame firmnefs and prudence, to support the want of a friend, a patronefs, a benefactor, as you have to fupport that of a daughter. My lord, both religion and reason forbid me to have the leaft con. cern for that lady's death, upon her own account; and he must be an ill chriftian, or a perfect stranger to her virtues, who would not with himself, with all fubmiffion to God Almighty's will, in her

condition. But, your lordship, who hath loft fuch a daughter, and we, who have loft fuch a friend, and the world, which have loft fuch an example; have, in our feveral degrees, greater caufe to lament, than, perhaps, was ever given by any private perfon before. For, my lord, I have fat down to think of every amiable quality that could enter into the compofition of a lady, and could not fingle out one, which she did not poffefs in as high a perfection as human nature is capable of. But, as to your lordship's own particular, as it is an unconceivable misfortune to have loft fuch a daughter, fo it is a poffeffion which few can boaft of, to have had fuch a daughter. I have often faid to your lordship, that I never knew any one, by many degrees, fo happy in their domeftic as you; and I affirm you are fo ftill, though not by fo many degrees; from whence it is very obvious, that your lordship fhould reflect upon what you have left, and not upon what you have loft.

To fay the truth, my lord, you began to be too happy for a mortal; much more happy than is ufual with the difpenfations of Providence long to continue. You had been the great inftrument of preferving your country from foreign and domeftic ruin : you have had the felicity of eftablifhing your family in the greatest luftre, without any obligation to the bounty of your prince, or any induftry of your own; you have triumphed over the violence and treachery of your enemies, by your courage and abilities: and, by the Readiness of your temper, over the inconftancy and caprice of your friends. Perhaps your lordship

has felt too much complacency within yourfelf, upon this univerfal fuccefs; and God Almighty, who would not disappoint your endea. vours for the public, thought fit to punish you with a domeftic lofs, where, he knew your heart was most expofed, and, at the fame time, has fulfilled his own wife purposes, by rewarding, in a better life, that excellent creature he has taken from you.

I know not, my lord, why I write this to you, nor hardly what I am writing. I am fure it is not from any compliance with form; it is not from thinking that I can give your lordship any cafe. I think it was an impulfe upon me that I fhould fay fomething: and whether I fhall fend you what I have written, I am yet in doubt, &c.

Reliques of ancient English poetry: confifting of old Heroic Ballads, Songs, and other pieces of our earlief Poets (chiefly of the Lyric kind), together with fome few of later date; in 3 volumes o&tavo, London, 1765

IF the works of literature are to

be estimated by the variety and richness of the entertainment they afford, the reverend Mr. Percy, collector of the pieces now before us, has a better title to the thanks of the public, than most of the authors who have gone before hira in the fame walk. The people of England are particularly indebted to him, fince he has prevented the charge, to which a longer filence, after the late pub. lications of Runic, Erfe, and Welfh poems, would have expofed their

ancestors, of having been, for a long time, lefs favoured by the Mufes, under the fame degrees of cultivation, than any of their neighbours at a lefs or greater distance from the fuppofed abode of these goddeffes, fo as to make their country appear in maps of the human understanding, the chosen feat of dulnefs and indifference, and the inhabitants as deficient in mental, as they have ever been allowed to be accomplished in bodily perfections.

Thefe pieces confift chiefly of fuch very fcarce ballads, or extracts from larger works, as are not only extremely valuable in themselves, but ferve to exhibit, by the manner in which the judicious author has arranged them, and the notes and differtations with which he has enriched them, the history of thought as well as fpeech in England, and that amongst all ranks; fince, whilft nations are in an improving ftate, thofe literary compofitions, thofe modes of thinking and fpeaking, which were peculiar to the highest ranks in one age, like fashions, generally defcend, by the next age, to the loweft. Much light, befides, as they may borrow from ancient writers of almost every denomination, and which Mr. Percy has fpared no pains to confult, by means of his curious additions they caft a great deal more upon them upon Shakespeare especially, who now appears to have not only alluded to many paffages in them not to be found in other works, but to have even taken from them the fubject of fome of his best pieces.

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than humanity poffeffes; and he that exercifes it with most praife, has very frequent need of indulgence.

It is, therefore, by thefe rules that Mr. Johnfon's merit in this edition of Shakespeare is to be tried; and, trying it by thefe rules, we are ftill of opinion, that notwith. ftanding the long delay of the work, and his not complying altogether with the expectation of the public, the public will be found confiderably indebted to him; at leaft, till it can be proved, that the delay and deficiency have been owing to any wilful negligence on his part; a charge which it may not be fo eafy to prove, confidering thofe viciffitudes to which, with regard to ftudy, though not difcernible, the mind of man is even more fubject than his body is, with regard to labour; and from which the minds of the greatest geniufes are often lefs exempt than thofe of the meaneft. The moft, we think, that can be faid of Mr. Johnson on this occafion, is, that he was rather rafh in promifing than backward in performing. It is, however, happy for the republic of letters, that he promifed as he did; fince, other wife, we fhould, probably, never have received Shakespeare through his hands.

Mr. Johnfon fets out by a preface, in which he difcuffes the title of Shakespeare, and Shakefpeare's works, to that veneration now univerfally paid them; gives a fhort hiftory of the feveral editi. ons these works have gone through; delivers his opinion of the feveral editors in the capacity of collators and commentators; and acquaints us with the ufe he has

made of thefe editions, and what additions he has made to them. He then gives us Hemminge and Condell's dedication and preface to their edition. These are followed by Mr. Pope's, Mr. Theobald's, Sir Thomas Hanmer's, and Dr. Warburton's preface to theirs ; Mr. Rowe's life of Shakespeare ; an anecdote relating to Shakefpeare communicated by Mr. Rowe to Mr. Pope; and Ben Johnson's poem to his memory. We next have the plays themselves, with fuch notes of others as he has thought proper to retain, interfperfed with his own notes upon them, as well as on the text itself. In these notes it was expected that Mr. Johnson would have been particular in his examination of Shakespeare's poetical beauties and blemishes; but he follows the example he had fet himself in his preface to the whole, by doing little elfe, in this refpect, than giving the general character of every piece. But in these general characters he is univerfally allowed to have been peculiarly happy.

This is far from being the cafe with regard to his preface, to which many objections have been raised; but most of them on fuch different accounts, that they ferve only to juftify the common obfervation concerning the great difficulty of equally pleafing all taftes. For our part, we think, that if there is any fault in this piece, it is the almoft paradoxical manner into which Mr. Johnfon has contrived to throw his fentiments. Read first, what he fays of Shakespeare's beauties, and you will be apt to think he can have no blemishes, or only such as muft vanish in the blaze of his beau

ties. Read firft, what he fays of his blemishes, and you will be equally apt to conclude, that he can have no beauties, or only fuch as his blemishes muft eclipfe. Of this the reader may form fome judgment, by the following extract of what Mr. Johnson fays in favour of his poet:

"Shakespeare is, above all writers, at leaft above all modern - writers, the poet of nature; the poet that holds up to his readers a faithful mirrour of manners and of life. His characters are not mo. dified by the customs of particular places, unpractised by the reft of the world; by the peculiarities of ftudies or profeffions, which can operate but upon fmall numbers; or by the accidents of tranfient fashions or temporary opinions; they are the genuine progeny of common humanity, fuch as the world will always fupply, and obfervation will always find. His perfons act and fpeak by the influence of thofe general paffions and principles by which all minds are agitated, and the whole fyftem of life is continued in motion. In the writings of other poets, a character is too often an individual; in those of Shakespeare, it is commonly a fpecies.

fplendour of particular paffages, but by the progrefs of his fable, and the tenor of his dialogue; and he that tries to recommend him by felect quotations, will fucceed like the pedant in Hierocles, who, when he offered his houfe to fale, carried a brick in his pocket as a fpecimen.

It will not eafily be imagined how much Shakespeare excels in accommodating his fentiments to real life, but by comparing him with other authors. It was ob-. ferved of the ancient schools of declamation, that the more diligently they were frequented, the more was the ftudent difqualified for the world, because he found nothing there which he should ever meet in any other place. The fame remark may be applied to every stage but that of Shakespeare. The theatre, when it is under any other direction, is peopled by fuch characters as were never feen, converfing in a language which was never heard, upon topics which never arife in the commerce of mankind. But the dialogue of this author is often fo evidently determined by the incident which produces it, and is purfued with fo much eafe and fimplicity, that it feems fcarcely to claim the merit of fiction, but to have been gleaned by diligent felection out of common converfation, and common occur rences.

oppofitions