expence to ourselves, and most com- to perceive he was unobfervant of monly much mifchief to our neigh-fome eftablished rules of compofition; bours. the facility with which he performs

Your opinion, Madam, on this fub- what no rules can teach, escapes him. ject is defired by,

Your constant reader,

And very humble fervant,

S. M.

Happily for Shakespeare, Dr. Johnfon, whofe genius and learning render him fuperior to a fervile ufe of pedantic inftitutions, in his ingenious preface to his edition of Shakespeare, has greatly obviated all that can be objected to our author's neglect of the

The Matron will return an anfwer to this letter in her next Num-unities of time and place.

ber.

(To be continued.)

Shakefpeare's felicity has been renM. G. dered complete in this age. His ge nius produced works that time could not destroy; but fome of the lighter characters were become illegible; thefe have been reftored by critics, FJ-whofe learning and penetration traced back the veftiges of fuperannuated opinions and cuftoms. They are now no longer in danger of being effaced, and the teftimonies of thefe learned commentators to his merit, will guard our author's great monument of human wit, from the prefumptuous invafions of our rafh critics, and the fquibs of our witlings; fo that the bays will flourish unwithered and inviolate round his tomb; and his very fpirit seems to come forth and animate" his characters, as often as Mr. Garrick, who acts with the fame infpiration with which he wrote, affumes them on of the flage.

General Obfervations on SHAKESPEARE, by Mrs. MONTAGU. [From her Jay on bis Writings and Genius.] HAKESPEARE wrote at a time when learning was tinctured with pedantry; wit was unpolifhed, and mirth ill-bred. The court of Elizabeth fpoke a fcientific jargon, and a certain obfcurity of flyle was univerfally affected; James brought an addition of pedantry, accompanied by indecent and indelicate manners and language. By contagion, or from complaifance to the taste of the public, Shakespeare falls fometimes into the fashionable mode of writing, but this is only by fits; for many parts of all his plays are written with the molt Shakespeare was born in a rank of noble, elegant, and uncorrupted fim-life in which men indulge themfelves plicity. Such is his merit, that the in a free expreffion of their paffions, more just and refined the taste of the with little regard to their exterior apage has become, the more he has enpearance. This, perhaps, made him creased in reputation. He was ap- more acquainted with the movements proved by his own age, admired by the of the heart, and lefs knowing or obnext, and is revered, and almost adored fervant of outward forms: again the by the prefent. His merit is difputed one he often offends; he very rarely by little wits, and his errors are the mifreprefents the other. jets of little critics; but there has not Thofe dramas of Shakespeare which been a great poet or great critic, fince he diftinguishes by the name of Hifbis time, who has not spoken of him tories, being of an original kind, and with the higheft veneration, Mr. Vol- peculiar conftruction, cannot come taire excepted. His tranflations of-within any rules which are prior to ten, his criticisms ftill oftener, prove their exiftence. The office of the he did not perfectly understand the critic, in regard to poetry, is like that werds of the author, and therefore it of the grammarian and rhetorician in is certain he could not enter into his refpect to language; it is their bufi-, meaning. He comprehended enough nels to fhew why fuch and fuch modes

7

of fpeech are proper and graceful. cthers improper and graceful; but they pronounce on fuch words and expreffions only as are actually ex

tant.

mon fame had divulged of them, mult have engaged the attention of the pectator, and affifted in that delufion of the imagination, from whence his fympathies with the ftory muft arife.

We are apt to confider Shakespeare only as a poet; but he is certamly one of the greatefl moral philofophers that ever lived".

Nothing great is to be expected from any fet of artists, who are to give only copies of copies. The treafures of nature are inexhaullible, as well in moral as in physical fubjects. The talents of Shakespeare were univerfal: his penetrating mind faw thro' all characters, and, as Mr. Pope fays of him, he was not more a matter of our strongest emotions, than of our idleft fenfations.

If it be the chief ufe of history, that it teaches philofophy by examples, this fpecies of history must be allowed to be the best preceptor. The fentiments and the manners, the paffions and their confequence, are openly expofed, and immediately united the force and luftre of poetical language joins with the weight and authority, of bitory to imprefs the moral leffon on the heart. The poet collects, as it were into a focus, thofe truths which lie fcattered in the diffufe volume of the historian, and kindles the flame of virtue while he fhews the miferies and calamities of vice. The common interefts of humanity make us attentive to every flory that has an air of reality, but we are more affected if we know it to be true; and the intereft is ftill heightened if we have any rela-He perceived the fertility of the subtion to the perfons concerned. Our noble countryman, Percy, engages us much more than Achilles, or any Grecian hero. The people, for whofe ule thefe public entertainments fhould be chiefly intended, know the battle of Shrewsbury to be a fact: they are informed of what has paffed on the banks of the Severn: all that hap pened on the fore of the Scamander has to them the appearance of a

fiction.

One cannot wonder, that endued with fo great and various powers, he broke down the barriers that had before confined the dramatic writers to the regions of comedy or tragedy.

jects that lay between the two extremes; he faw, that in the historical play, he could reprefent the manners of the whole people, give the general temper of the times, and bring in view incidents that affected the common fate of his country. The Gothic mufe had a rude spirit of liberty, and delighted in painting popular tumults, the progrefs of civil wars, and the revolutions of government, rather than a catastrophe within the walls of a The nature of the hiftorical play palace. At the time he wrote, the gave fcope to the extenfive talents of wars of the houfes of York and LanShakespeare. He had an uncommon cafter were fresh in men's minds.felicity in painting manners, and de- They had received the tale from fome veloping characters, which he could Neftor in their family or neighbouremploy with peculiar grace and pro- hood, who had fought in the battle priety, when he exhibited the chiefs he related. Every fpectator's affecin our civil wars. The great earl of tions were ranged under the white or Warwick, cardinal Beaufort, Humph-red rofe, in whofe contentions fome ry duke of Gloucefter, the renowned Hotspur, were very interesting objects to their countrymen. Whatever fhewed them in a ftrong light, and reprefented them with fentiments and manners agreeable to their historical characters, and to thofe things com

had loft their parents and friends,

The truth of this affertion the ingenious Mrs. Griffiths, has ftrongly fupported by nnmerous proofs, in a volume which does equal credit to her underflanding and her tafle.

others

others had gained establishments and

honours.

The tragedians who took their fubjects from Homer, had all the advantage a painter would have, who was to draw a picture from a ftatue of Phidias or Praxiteles. Poor Shakefpeare, from the wooden images in our mean chronicles, was to form his portraits. What judgment was there in difcovering, that by moulding them to an exact resemblance, he fhould en gage and please, and what difcernment and penetration into characters, and what amazing skill in moral painting, to be able, from fuch uncouth models, to bring forth not only a perfect, but, when occafion required, a graceful likenefs!

No

Oh! miferable thought! and more unlikely,
Than to accomplish twenty golden crowns."
Why, love for fwores me in my mother's womb,
She did corrupt frail nature with fome bribe,
To fhrink my arm up with a withered fhrub;
To make an envious mountain on my back,
Where fi's Deformity to mock my body:
To disproport on me in ev'ry part ;
To fhape my legs of an unequal fize,
Like to a chaos, or unlicked bear-whelp,
That carries no impreffion like the dam.
And am I then a man to be belov'd?
Oh! monftros fault, to harbour fuch a
thought!
Then fine: the world affords no joy to me,
But to command, to check, to o'erbear fuch
as are of better perfon than myself;

And, for I fhould not deal in her foft laws,

make my heav'n to dream upon the crown, Until the mishap'd trunk that been this head And while I live to account this world a hell, 3: round impaled with a glorious crown.

Henry VI. A&. 1. Scene 3, GLOUCESTER.

The patterns from whence he drew, were not only void of poetical fpirit and ornament, but also of all hiftorical dignity. The hiftories of these times were a mere heap of rude indigefted annals, coarfe in their ftyle, and erouded with trivial anecdotes. Tacitus had inveftigated the obliquities of our ftatefmen, or, by diving into the profound fecrets of policy, had dragged into light the latent motives, Oh Jefus blefs us, he is born with teeth! the fecret machinations of our politi-And fo I was, which plainly fignified cians; yet how does he enter into the That I fhould fnarl, and bite, and play the deepest mysteries of the ftate? There cannot be a ftronger proof of the fuperiority of his genius over the hiftoens of the times than the following inftance.

The midwife wonder'd, and the woman cry'd,

dog:

Then fince the heav'ns have fhap'd my body
fo,

I have no bro her, I am like no brother,
Let hell make crook'd my mind to answer it.
And that word, love, which grey-beards call
divine,

Be refident in men like one another,
And not in me: I am myself alone.

Henry VI. A&t. 5. Scene 7.

The learned Sir Thomas More, in his History of Crookback Richard, tells, with the garrulity of an old Durfe, the current ftories of this king's deformity, and the monftrous appear- Our author, by following minutely ances of his infancy, which he feems the chronicles of the times, has emwith fuperftitious credulity to believe barraffed his dramas with too great to have been the omens and prognof- a number of perfons and events. The tics of his future villany. Shake hurley-burley of thefe plays recomfpeare, with a more philofophic turn of mended them to a rade, illiterate aumind, confiders them, not as prefag-dience, who, as he fays, loved a noise ing, but as inftigating his cruel ambi- of targets. His poverty, and the low tion; and finely accounts in the fol. condition of the ftage (which at that lowing fpeeches, for the afperity of time was not frequented by persons of his temper, and his fierce and unmiti- rank) obliged him to this complaifance; gated defire of dominion, from his be- and unfortunately he had not been tu ing by his perfon difqualified for the tored by any rules of art, or informed fofter engagements of fociety. by acquaintance with juft and regular

drana

dramas. Even the politer fort, by reading books of chivalry, which were the polite literature of the times, were accustomed to bold adventures and atchievements.

Shakespeare's dramatis perfona are men, frail by conftitution, hurt by ill habits, faulty and unequal; but they fpeak with human voices, are ac'tuated by human paffions, and are engaged in the common affairs of human life. We are interested in what they do, or fay, by feeling every moment that they are of the fame nature with ourfelves. Their precepts, therefore, are an inftruction, their fates and for tunes an experience, their teftimony an authority, and their misfortunes a warning.

Shakespeare, in various nature wife, does not confine himself to any particular paffion. When he writes from history, he attributes to the perfons fuch fentiments as agree with their characters.

He calls up all the stately phantoms in the regions of fuperftition, which our faith will receive with reverence. He throws into their manners and language a mysterious folemnity, favourable to fuperftition in general, with fomething highly characteristic of each particular being which he exhibits. His witches, his ghoits, and his fairies, feem fpirits of health or goblins damn'd; bring with them airs from heav'n, or blafts from hell.” His ghofts are fullen, melancholy, and terrible. Every fentence, uttered by the witches, is a prophecy or a charm ; their manners are malignant, their phrafes ambiguous, their promises delufive.

The witches cauldron is a collection of all that is moft horrid in their fuppofed incantations. Ariel is a fpirit mild, gentle, and fweet, poffeffed of fupernatural powers, but fubject to the command of a great magician.

The fairies are fportive and gay; the innocent artificers of harmlefs frauds, and mirthful delufions. Puck's enumeration of the feats of a fairy is the molt agreeable recital of their fuppofed gambols.

As the genius of Shakespeare, thro' the whole extent of the poet's province, is the object of our enquiry, we fhould do him great injuftice, if we did not attend to his peculiar felicity in thefe fictions and inventions from To all these beings our poet has afwhich poetry derives its higheft dif- figned tasks, and appropriated mantinction, and from whence it firft af-ners adapted to their imputed difpofifamed its pretenfions to divine infpira- tions and characters, which are contition, and appeared the affociate of re-nually developing through the whole ligion. piece, in a feries of operations conducive to the catastrophe. They are not brought in as fubordinate, or cafual agents, but lead the action, and govern the fable.

Shakespeare faw how useful the popular fuperftitions had been to the ancient poets: he felt that they were neceffary to poetry itself. Ghofts, fairies, goblins, elves, were as propitious, were as affiftant to Shakefpeare, and gave as much of the fublime, and of the marvellous, to his fictions, as nymphs, fatyrs, fauns, and even the triple Gorgon, to the works of ancient bards. Our poet never carries his preternatural beings beyond the limits of the popular tradition. It is true, that he boldly exerts his poetic genius and fascinating powers in that magic circle" in which none ere durft walk but he;" but as judicious as bold, he contains himself within it.

i

The genius of Shakespeare informed him that poetic fable must rise above the fimple tale of the nurse; therefore he adorns the beldame, Tradition, with flowers gathered on claffic ground, but ftill wifely fuffering thofe fimples of her native foil, to which the eftablifhed fuperftition of her country has attributed a magic fpell, to be predominant. Can any thing be more poetical than Profpero's address to his attendant fpirits before he difmiffes them?

PROS

L

Here are agreeably collected the popular ftories concerning the power of magicians. The incantations in Macbeth are more folemn and terrible than thofe of the Erichto of Lucan, or of the Canidia of Horace. It may be faid, indeed, that Shakespeare had an advantage derived from the more direful character of his natural fuperftitions.

of his genius, was defirous to give a metaphyfical air to his compofitions. He compofed many pieces of the allegorical kind, eftablished on the Grecian mythology, and rendered his play-houfe a perfect Pantheon. Shak.. fpeare difdained thefe quaint devices; an admirable judge of human nature, with a capacity most extensive, and an invention moft happy, he contented himfelf with giving dramatic manners to history; fublimity, and its appropriated powers and charms, to fiction; and in both thefe arts he is unequalled.

To the EDITOR of the LADY's Ma

SIR,

TH

GAZINE.

HOUGH I do not pretend to be a critic by profeffion, efpecially when the English language comes under my confideration, I will venture to reflore a certain compound word in it, which is greatly abufed by common ufe, to its original and beautiful fimplicity. The attempt has been made before, I grant, but the abufe fill contirnes. I fear, indeed, I fhali prove unfaccessful; but there are certain forts which will even be deemed laudable, though they never anfwer the expectations of thofe who make them.

Shakespeare, in the dark fhades of Gothic barbariím, had no refources but in the very phantoms that walked the night of ignorance and fuperftition; or in touching the latent pallions of The word in queftion is good-nature. civil rage and difcord; fure to please Can the abufe of fuch an expreffion beit his fierce and barbarous audience be daily heard, without being correctwhen he raifed the bloody ghoit, ored by thofe whofe ears are pained by reared the warlike ftandard. His choice of thefe fubjects was judicious, if we confider the times in which he lived; his management of them fo mafterly, that he will be admired in all times.

In the fame age, Ben Johnson, more proud of his learning than confident

The pagan necromancers had a hundred lirtle tricks by which they pretended to cal up the ghofts, or thadows of the dead; but thefe, in the ideas of paganifm, were quite another thing from Shaketpeare's Jeepers. HURD, VOL. XII.

it? By the common ufe of the word good-nature, one would be led to imagine that it fignified folly: but without a violent perverfion of language, folly and good-nature can never be deemed infeparable by the true judges of verbal propriety. As every fool is not a good-natured man, neither is every good-natured man a fool. By the word good-nature, according to my conception of its meaning, is implied a goodness of difpofition, which has not an immediate connection with the intellectual powers: for do we not fee men with very good understan

E