Hamlet. Oh, that this too too folid flefh would melt,

Thaw, and refolve itself into a dew!

Or that the Everlasting had not fix'd

His cannon 'gainst felf-flaughter? O God! O
God!

How weary, ftale, flat, and unprofitable
Seem to me all the ufes of this world!

Fie on't! O fie! 'tis an unweeded garden,

That grows to feed: things rank and grofs in na

ture

Poffefs it merely. That it fhould come to this!
But two months dead, nay not so much; not two
So excellent a king, that was, to this,
Hyperion to a fatyr: fo loving to my mother,
That he permitted not the winds of heav'n
Vifit her face too roughly. Heav'n and earth!
Muft I remember,-why, fhe would hang on
him,

As if increase of appetite had grown

By what it fed on; yet, within a month

Let me not think

man!

Frailty, thy name is Wo

A little month, or ere those fhoes were old,
With which she follow'd my poor father's body,
Like Niobe, all tears- why fhe, ev'n fhe
(O Heav'n! a beast that wants discourse of reason

Would have mourn'd longer-) married with mine uncle,

My father's brother; but no more like my father Than I to Hercules Within a month

Ere

yet the falt of most unrighteous tears Had left the flufhing in her gauled eyes, She married Oh, moft wicked speed, to poft With fuch dexterity to incestuous sheets!

It is not, nor it cannot come to good.

But break, my heart, for I must hold my tongue. Hamlet, act. fc. 3.

Ford. Hum! ha! is this a vifion? is this a dream? do I fleep? Mr Ford, awake; awake Mr Ford; there's a hole made in your best coat, Mr Ford! this 'tis to be married! this 'tis to have linen and buck baskets! Well, I will proclaim myself what I am; I will now take the leacher; he is at my house, he cannot 'scape me; 'tis impoffible he should; he cannot creep into a halfpenny purse, nor into a pepper-box. But left the devil that guides him should aid him, I will search impoffible places; though what I am I cannot avoid, yet to be what I would not, shall not make

me tame.

Merry Wives of Windsor, a&t 3. fc.last.

These foliloquies are accurate copies of nature. In a paífionate foliloquy one begins

with thinking aloud; and the strongest feelings only, are expreffed. As the speaker warms, he begins to imagine one listening, and gradually flides into a connected dif

course.

How far diftant are foliloquies generally from these models? They are indeed for the most part fo unhappily executed, as to give disgust instead of pleasure. The first fcene of Iphigenia in Tauris discovers that princess, in a foliloquy, gravely reporting to herself her own history. There is the fame impropriety in the first scene of Alceftes, and in the other introductions of Euripides, almost without exception. Nothing can be more ridiculous. It puts one in mind of that ingenious device in Gothic paintings, of making every figure explain itself by a written label iffuing from its mouth. The defcription a parafite, in the Eunuch of Terence*, gives of himself in the form of a foliloquy, is lively; but against all the rules of propriety; for no man, in his ordinary ftate of mind, and upon a familiar

* Act 2. fc. 2.

fubject,

fubject, ever thinks of talking aloud to himself. The fame objection lies against à foliloquy in the Adelphi of the fame author *. The foliloquy which makes the third scene, act third, of his Heicyra, is infufferable; for there Pamphilus, foberly and circumstantially, relates to himself an adventure which had happened to him a moment before.

Corneille is not more happy in his foliloquies than in his dialogue. Take for a fpecimen the firft fcene of Cinna.

Racine alfo is extremely faulty in the fame respect. His foliloquies, almost without exception, are regular harangues, a chain completed in every link, without interruption or interval. That of Antiochus in Berenice + resembles a regular pleading, where the parties pro and con difplay their arguments at full length. The following foliloquies are equally deftitute of propriety: Bajazet, act 3. fc. 7. Mithridate, act 3. fc. 4. & act 4. fc. 5. Iphigenia, act 4. fc. 8. Soliloquies upon lively or interesting sub

*Act I. fc. I.

+ Act 1. fc. 2.

jects,

jects, but without any turbulence of paffion, may be carried on in a continued chain of thought. If, for example, the nature and sprightliness of the subject prompt a man to fpeak his thoughts in the form of a dialogue, the expreffion must be carried on without break or interruption, as in a dialogue betwixt two perfons. This juftifies Falstaff's foliloquy upon honour:

What need I be fo forward with Death, that calls not on me? Well, 'tis no matter, Honour pricks me on. But how if Honour prick me off, when I come on? how then? Can Honour set a leg? No: or an arm? No: or take away the grief of a wound? No: Honour hath no skill in furgery then? No. What is Honour? A word. What is that word honour? Air; a trim reckoning. Who hath it? He that dy'd a Wednesday. Doth he feel it? No. Doth he hear it? No. Is it infenfible then? Yea, to the dead. But will it not live with the living? No: Why? Detraction will not fuffer it. Therefore, I'll none of it; honour is a mere fcutcheon; and fo ends my catechifm.

First part Henry IV. aît 5. sc. 2.

And even without dialogue, a continued discourse may be justified, where the folilo

quy