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When one confiders, that there is not one Play before him of a Reputation good enough to entitle it to an Appearance on the present Stage, it cannot but be a Matter of great Wonder that he should advance Dramatick Poetry fo far as he did. The Fable is what is generally plac'd the first, among those that are reckon'd the constituent Parts of a Tragick or Heroick Poem; not, perhaps, as it is the most Difficult or Beautiful, but as it is the first properly to be thought of in the Contrivance and Courfe of the whole; and with the Fable ought to be confider'd, the fit Difpofition, Order and Conduct of its feveral Parts. As it is not in this Provice of the Drama that the Strength and Mastery of Shakespear lay, fo I fhall not undertake the tedious and ill-natur'd Trouble to point out the feveral Faults he was guilty of in it. His Tales were feldom invented, but rather taken either from true History, or Novels and Romances: And he commonly made use of 'em in that Order, with those Incidents, and that extent of Time in which he found 'em in the Authors from whence he borrow'd them. So The Winter's Tale, which is taken from an old Book, call'd, The Delectable HiStory f Doraftus and Faunia, contains the space of fixteen or feventeen Years, and the Scene

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is fometimes laid in Bohemia, and fometimes in Sicily, according to the original Order of the Story. Almost all his Historical Plays comprehend a great length of Time, and very different and diftinct Places: And in his Antony and Cleopatra, the Scene travels over the greatest Part of the Roman Empire. But in Recompence for his Carelessnefs in this Point, when he comes to another Part of the Drama, The Manners of his Characters, in Acting or Speaking what is proper for them, and fit to be Shown by the Poet, he may be generally justify'd, and in very many places greatly commended. For those Plays which he has taken from the English or Roman History, let any Man compare 'em, and he will find the Character as exact in the Poet as the Hiftorian. - He feems indeed fo far from propofing to himself any one Action for a Subject, that the Title very often tells you, 'tis The Life of King John, King Richard, &c. What can be more agrecable to the Idea our Historians give of Henry the Sixth, than the Picture ShakeSpear has drawn of him! His Manners are ! every where exactly the fame with the Story; one finds him ftill defcrib'd with Simplicity, paffive Sanctity, want of Courage, weakness of Mind, and eafic Submiffion to the Gover

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nance of an imperious Wife, or prevailing Faction: Tho' at the fame time the Poet do's Juftice to his good Qualities, and moves the Pity of his Audience for him, by fhowing him Pious, Difinterested, a Contemner of the Things of this World, and wholly refign'd to the feverest Difpenfations of God's Providence. There is a fhort Scene in the Second Part of Henry VI. Vol. III. pag. 1504. which I cannot but think admirable in its Kind. Cardinal Beaufort, who had murder'd the Duke of Gloucester, is fhewn in the last Agonies on his Death-Bed, with the good King praying over him. There is fo much Terror in one, so much Tenderness and moving Piety in the other, as must touch any one who is capable either of Fear or Pity. In his Henry VIII. that Prince is drawn with that Greatness of Mind, and all thofe good Qualities which are attributed to him in any Account of his Reign. If his Faults are not fhewn in an equal degree, and the Shades in this Picture do not bear a juft Proportion to the Lights, it is not that the Artist wanted either Colours or Skill in the Difpofition of 'em; but the truth, I believe, might be, that he forbore doing it out of regard to Queen Elizabeth, fince it could have been no very great Respect to the Me

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mory of his Mistress, to have expos'd fome certain Parts of her Father's Life upon the Stage. He has dealt much more freely with the Minister of that Great King, and certainly nothing was ever more justly written, than the Character of Cardinal Wolfey. He has fhewn him Tyrannical, Cruel, and Infolent in his Profperity; and yet, by a wonderful Addrefs, he makes his Fall and Ruin the Subject of general Compaffion. The whole Man, with his Vices and Virtues, is finely and exactly defcrib'd in the fecond Scene of the fourth Act. The Distreffes likewise of Queen Katherine, in this Play, are very movingly touch'd; and tho' the Art of the Poet has skreen'd King Henry from any grofs Imputation of Injustice, yet one is inclin'd to with, the Queen had met with a Fortune more worthy of her Birth and Virtue. Nor are the Manners, proper to the Perfons reprefented, less justly obferv'd, in thofe Characters taken from the Roman History; and of this, the Fiercenefs and Impatience of Coriolanus, his Courage and Difdain of the common People, the Virtue and Philofophical Temper of Brutus, and the irregular Greatness of Mind in M. Antony, are beautiful Proofs. For the two last especially, you find 'em exactly as they are defcrib'd by

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Plutarch, from whom certainly Shakespear copy'd 'em. He has indeed follow'd his Original pretty close, and taken in feveral little Incidents that might have been spar'd in a Play. But, as I hinted before, his Design seems most commonly rather to defcribe those great Men in the feveral Fortunes and Accidents of their Lives, than to take any fingle great Action, and form his Work fim ply upon that. However, there are fome of his Pieces, where the Fable is founded upon one Action only. Such are more especially, Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet, and Othello. The Defign in Romeo and Juliet, is plainly the Punishment of their two Families, for the unreafonable Feuds and Animofities that had been fo long kept up between 'em, and occafion'd the Effufion of fo much Blood. In the management of this Story, he has fhewn fomething wonderfully Tender and Paffionate in the Love-part, and very Pitiful in the Distress. Hamlet is founded on much the fame Tale with the Electra of Sophocles. In each of 'em a young Prince is engag'd to revenge the Death of his Father, their Mothers are equally Guilty, are both concern'd in the Murder of their Husbands, and are afterwards married to the Murderers. There is in the first

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