it is every thing we can wish; is it otherwise, like Hamlet, it is productive of equal admiration. Action produces one mode of excellence, and inaction another: the chronicle, the novel, or the ballad; the king or the beggar; the hero, the madman, the sot or the fool; it is all one;-nothing is worse, nothing is better: the same genius pervades and is equally admirable in all. Or, is a character to be shown in progressive change, and the events of years comprised within the hour;-with what a magic hand does he prepare and scatter his spells! The understanding must, in the first place, be subdued; and lo! how the rooted prejudices of the child spring up to confound the man! The Weird Sisters rise, and order is extinguished. The laws of nature give way, and leave nothing in our minds but wildness and horror. No pause is allowed us for reflection. Horrid sentiment, furious guilt and compunction, air-drawn daggers, murders, ghosts, and inchantment, shake and 'possess us wholly.' In the meantime the process is completed. Macbeth changes under our eye, 'the milk of human kindness is converted to gall ;' 'he has supped full of horrors,' and his 'May of life is fallen into the sear, the yellow leaf;' whilst we, the fools of amazement, are insensible to the shifting of place and the lapse of time, and, till the curtain drops, never once wake to the truth of things, or recognize the laws of existence. On such an occasion, a fellow like Rymer, waking from his trance, shall lift up his constable's

staff, and charge this great magician, this daring 'practicer of arts inhibited,' in the name of Aristotle, to surrender; whilst Aristotle himself, disowning his wretched officer, would fall prostrate at his feet, and acknowledge his supremacy.-O supreme of dramatic excellence! (might he say,) not to me be imputed the insolence of fools. The bards of Greece were confined within the narrow circle of the chorus, and hence they found themselves constrained to practise, for the most part, the precision, and copy the details of nature. I followed them, and knew not that a larger circle might be drawn, and the drama extended to the whole reach of human genius. Convinced, I see that a more compendious nature may be obtained; a nature of effects only, to which neither the relations of place, nor continuity of time, are always essential. Nature, condescending to the faculties and apprehensions of man, has drawn through human life a regular chain of visible causes and effects; but poetry delights in surprise, conceals her steps, seizes at once upon the heart, and obtains the sublime of things without betraying the rounds of her ascent: true poesy is magic, not nature; an effect from causes hidden or unknown. To the Magician I prescribed no laws; his law and his power are one; his power is his law. Him, who neither imitates, nor is within the reach of imitation, no precedent can or ought to bind, no limits to contain. If his end be obtained, who shall question his

course? Means, whether apparent or hidden, are justified in poesy by success; but then most perfect and most admirable when most concealed."P

After quoting this passage, which rivals in its tone and manner what has since been so eloquently expressed by Schlegel and other German critics on the character of Shakspeare, and which seemed to me so analogous to the primary object of my volume as to warrant its insertion here as a prefatory portrait, I proceed to notice, though necessarily very briefly, those who have since contributed to enrich this pleasing province of Shakspearian criticism.

In 1785 were printed some ingenious remarks on the characters of Richard the Third and Macbeth, written by Mr. Whately, and controverted the succeeding year by the celebrated actor John Philip Kemble under the title of "Macbeth Reconsidered;" the former attributing the scruples and remorse of Macbeth to constitutional timidity, and the latter denying the charge. Nearly at the same time appeared the Rev. Martin Sherlock's 'Fragment on Shakspeare, extracted from Advice to a young Poet;" a little work originally written by the author in Italian, with the view of counteracting on the continent the prejudices so widely circulated against our great bard by Voltaire. The Fragment on Shakspeare was soon translated into French, and from French into English, and cer

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P Pages 58 ad 62, and 66 ad 71.

tainly, though written in a peculiar warmth of style, displays a correct estimate of the powers of a poet whom, to adopt the language of Mr. Sherlock, Nature made, and then broke the mould.

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In the course of the two succeeding years, 1787 and 1788, Mr. Felton presented the public with his Imperfect Hints towards a new Edition of Shakspeare;" a work written chiefly in the year 1782, with the object of recommending and furnishing instructions for a splendid and highly embellished edition of the poet; and brought forward at a period when Boydell's magnificent Shakspeare was in preparation, and in the hope of contributing some useful hints towards that national undertaking.

Mr. Felton has displayed in this production a very intimate acquaintance with all that has been effected for the Bard of Avon, through the medium of the painter and engraver, from the first prints connected with the page of Shakspeare in the edition by Rowe in 1709, to the era of the noble picture-gallery in Pall Mall. It is, indeed, a work of considerable interest, written with great judgment and knowledge of the various branches of the art of design, and with a deep and enthusiastic feeling for the beauties of the admirable poet whom its author is so anxious to illustrate. That the strictures of Mr. Felton have contributed towards promoting a correct taste and increased love for graphic embellishment, as connected with the dramas of Shakspeare, there can be little doubt; and how gratifying is it to reflect on the splendid

homage which, during the last forty years, has been paid to the genius of our immortal bard by the pencils of the most accomplished of our artists, by such men as Reynolds, West, Romney, Fuseli, and Smirke!

The next publication in this department, which, from the novelty of its object, has a claim to our attention, proceeds from the pen of the Rev. James Plumptre, M. A., who, in the year 1796, printed "Observations on Hamlet, and on the Motives which most probably induced Shakspeare to fix upon the Story of Amleth, from the Danish Chronicle of Saxo Grammaticus, for the Plot of that Tragedy. Being an Attempt to prove that he designed it as an indirect Censure on Mary Queen of Scots." This was followed the succeeding year by an Appendix, containing some farther arguments in support of the hypothesis.. Much ingenuity and research, and perhaps some play of fancy, have been exhibited by the author of these pamphlets in maintaining the fresh ground on which he has ventured to take his stand; and it will, I think, be allowed that, notwithstanding several assaults, and some of them powerful ones, have been brought against his position, he has by no means been compelled to relinquish it. Indeed I have some reason to believe that he meditates by additional proofs a farther corroboration of his opinion, assuredly not lightly assumed, nor illogically supported."

The editor has much pleasure in placing before his readers the following summary of the age of Shakspeare from the pen of the very ingenious author of these pamphlets, viz. :