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Page 4
Through all these denominations of the drama, Shakespeare's mode
of composition is the same; an interchange of seriousness and
merriment, by which the mind is softened at one time, and exhilarated
at another. But whatever be his purpose, whether to gladden or
depress, or to conduct the story, without vehemence or emotion,
through tracts of easy and familiar dialogue, he never fails to
attain his purpose; as he commands us, we laugh or mourn, or sit
silent with quiet expectation, in tranquillity without indifference.
When Shakespeare's plan is understood, most of the criticisms of
Rhymer and Voltaire vanish away. The play of "Hamlet" is opened,
without impropriety, by two sentinels; Iago bellows at Brabantio's
window, without injury to the scheme of the play, though in terms
which a modern audience would not easily endure; the character of
Polonius is seasonable and useful; and the Grave-diggers themselves
may be heard with applause.
Shakespeare engaged in dramatick poetry with the world open before
him; the rules of the ancients were yet known to few; the publick
judgment was unformed; he had no example of such fame as might
force him upon imitation, nor criticks of such authority as might
restrain his extravagance: He therefore indulged his natural
disposition, and his disposition, as Rhymer has remarked, led him
to comedy. In tragedy he often writes with great appearance of
toil and study, what is written at last with little felicity; but
in his comick scenes, he seems to produce without labour, what no
labour can improve. In tragedy he is always struggling after some
occasion to be comick, but in comedy he seems to repose, or to
luxuriate, as in a mode of thinking congenial to his nature. In his
tragick scenes there is always something wanting, but his comedy
often surpasses expectation or desire. His comedy pleases by the
thoughts and the language, and his tragedy for the greater part by
incident and action. His tragedy seems to be skill, his comedy to
be instinct.
The force of his comick scenes has suffered little diminution from
the changes made by a century and a half, in manners or in words.
As his personages act upon principles arising from genuine passion,
very little modified by particular forms, their pleasures and
vexations are communicable to all times and to all places; they are
natural, and therefore durable; the adventitious peculiarities of
personal habits, are only superficial dies, bright and pleasing
for a little while, yet soon fading to a dim tinct, without any
remains of former lustre; but the discriminations of true passion
are the colours of nature; they pervade the whole mass, and can only
perish with the body that exhibits them. The accidental compositions
of heterogeneous modes are dissolved by the chance which combined
them; but the uniform simplicity of primitive qualities neither
admits increase, nor suffers decay. The sand heaped by one flood is
scattered by another, but the rock always continues in its place.
The stream of time, which is continually washing the dissoluble
fabricks of other poets, passes without injury by the adamant of
Shakespeare.
If there be, what I believe there is, in every nation, a stile which
never becomes obsolete, a certain mode of phraseology so consonant
and congenial to the analogy and principles of its respective
language as to remain settled and unaltered; this stile is probably
to be sought in the common intercourse of life, among those who
speak only to be understood, without ambition of elegance. The
polite are always catching modish innovations, and the learned
depart from established forms of speech, in hope of finding or
making better; those who wish for distinction forsake the vulgar,
when the vulgar is right; but there is a conversation above grossness
and below refinement, where propriety resides, and where this poet
seems to have gathered his comick dialogue. He is therefore more
agreeable to the ears of the present age than any other authour
equally remote, and among his other excellencies deserves to be
studied as one of the original masters of our language.
These observations are to be considered not as unexceptionably constant,
but as containing general and predominant truth. Shakespeare's
familiar dialogue is affirmed to be smooth and clear, yet not wholly
without ruggedness or difficulty; as a country may be eminently
fruitful, though it has spots unfit for cultivation: His characters
are praised as natural, though their sentiments are sometimes
forced, and their actions improbable; as the earth upon the whole
is spherical, though its surface is varied with protuberances and
cavities.
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