and adapting them to the taft of their audience; by stripping off their antique and proper tragic drefs, and by introducing in these mock-tragedies, not only gallantry to women, but an endeavour to raise a serious diftrefs from the difappointment of lovers; not confidering that the paffion of love, which one would think they should understand something of, is a comic paffion. 5 Love is a paffion, in which the great and the little, the earthly and the heavenly, (to speak a little myfteriously) is fo blended and mixed together, as to make it the fitteft fubject in the world for ridicule. Totus verò ifte, qui vulgo appellatur Amor, (nec hercule invenio, quo nomine alio poffit appellari) tantae levitatis eft, ut nihil videam, quod putem conferendum. O praeclaram emendationem vitae, Poeticam! quae Amorem, flagiti et levitatis auctorem, in concilio deorum conlocandum putet: DE COMOEDIA loquar: quae, fi haec flagitia non probaremus, nulla effet omnino. Cicero Tufcul. difp. iy, 32. Romeo and Juliet is a ftory of real distress; fo is that, in Otway's Venice preferv'd, between Jaffier and his wife. In Shakespeare you have nothing of what we call gallantry; nothing of that whining love introduced, (as in Addison's Cato, in the Siege of Damafcus by Hughes, and in Rymer's Edgar, a play ftolen, or murdered from Shakespeare) which, one would think, by the dignity of the stories, ought to have been excluded. But Dryden, in his epilogue to the second part of the conqueft of Granada, speaks out. If LOVE and HONOUR now are higher rais'd, *** Our LADIES and our men now speak more wit In conversation, than THOSE POETS writ. meaningShakespeare and Johnfon. Very gallant truly, Mr. Bay's! In fhort they make up a poet of fhreds and patches; fo that the ancient robe of our tragedian, by this miferable darning, and threadbare patchwork, refembles the long motley coat of the Fool, in our old plays, introduced to raise the laughter of the fpectators. And I am afraid, if the matter was minutely examined into, we should find, that many paffages, in fome late editions of our poet, have been altered, or added, or lopped off, entirely thro' modern, and French refine ment. THE SECT. III. HE misfortune feems to be, that scarcely any one pays a regard to what Shakespeare does write, but they are allways gueffing at what he fhould write; nor in any other light is he look'd on, than as a poor mechanic; a fellow, 'tis true, of genius, who fays, now and then, very good things, but wild and uncultivated; and as one by no means proper company for lords, and ladies, maids of honour, and court-pages, 'till fome poet or other, who knows the world better, takes him in hand, and introduces him in this modern drefs to good company. Whatever be the opinion of the vulgar, whether the great vulgar or the fmall, is of no great concern concernment; but indeed it was a matter of some surprise to read the following account in a noble writer of a better taft: "Our old dra"matick poet may witness for our good ear " and manly relish [notwithstanding his natural rudeness, bis unpolish'd ftile, bis antiquated phrafe " and wit, bis want of method and coberence, and "bis deficiency in almost all the graces and orna"ments of this kind of writing;] yet by the juftness of his moral, the aptness of many of "his descriptions, and the plain and natural turn "of feveral of his characters; he pleases his au"dience, and often gains their ear, without a fingle bribe from luxury or vice." Thofe lines, that I have placed between two hooks, ought certainly to have been omitted, as they with them reflections false in every particarry cular. Or fhall we play the critic, and fuppofe them fome marginal obfervation, not written by the learned Antony Ashley Cooper; and from hence by the blundering transcriber foisted into the context? 2 'Twas thro' fuch wrong notions of refinement, that bishop Burnet was led into no lefs mistakes. 1. Characteristicks. vol. I. Advice to an author. p. 275. 2. Burnet's hiftory of his own times. vol. I. p. 163. Mr Richardfon tells us, that Sir William Davenant procured Milton's pardon. See his remarks, p. LXXXIX. C Perhaps mistakes concerning. Milton." He was not "excepted out of the act of indemnity; and "afterwards he came out of his concealment, " and lived many years, much vifited by all ftrangers, and much admired by all at home "for the poems he writ, tho' he was then blind, "chiefly that of Paradife loft, in which there is "a nobleness both of contrivance and execution, "that [tho be affected to write in blank verse with"out rhyme, and made many new and rough words] "yet it was esteemed the beautifulleft and per"fecteft poem that ever was writ, at least in our language." This cenfure falls equally on Shakespeare; for he too wrote in blank verfe without rhyme, and made many new and rough words. But let Milton fpeak for himself and his admired Shakespeare, for doubtlefs he means him, in his apology prefixed to the Paradife loft. "The "measure is English heroic verse without rime, ડ as that of Homer in Greek and Virgil in "Latin; rime being no neceffary adjunct or "true Perhaps bishop Burnet took his cenfure from Dryden's dedication before the translation of Juvenal; where he says, that Milton" runs into a flat of thought fometimes for a hundred lines together that he was transported too "far in the use of obfolete words: and that he can by 66 no means approve of his choice of blank verfe." Dryden might be willing the world should think this true, in order that his own wares might go off the better. The folly is to વંદ 'true ornament of poem or good verse, in long "works efpecially, but the invention of a bar barous age, to fet off wretched matter and lame metre; grac'd indeed fince by the ufe "of fome famous modern poets, carried away by cuftom, but much to their own vexation, «hindrance, and conftraint to exprefs many "things otherwise, ard for the most part worfe "than elfe they would have exprefs'd them. Not "without cause therefore fome both Italian and to be caught. But Burnet was not particular in his opinion, 'twas the reigning taft of the age: to comply with which, Dryden turned the Paradise loft into rime, calling it, The State of Innocence, and Fall of Man. For which he received the complements of his poetical brothers: hear one of them. For Milton did the wealthy mine difclofe And RUDELY caft what you cou'd well difpofe. He ROUGHLY drew, on an OLD FASHION'D ground Till thro' the heap, your mighty genius frin'd, He was the golden ore which you refin'd. And to a place of ftrength the prize convey'd ; There spoke the courtiers and poets of Charles's reign; this was their taft and exactly fo did, they serve, and judge of Shakespeare. C 2 "Spanish |