It is from this wide extension of design that so much instruction is derived. It is this which fills the plays of Shakspeare with practical axioms and domestic wisdom. It is said of Euripides, that every verse was a precept; and it may be said of Shak speare, that from his works may be collected a system of civil and economical prudence. Vet his real pow er is not shown in the splendour of particular passages but by the progress of his fable, and the tenor of his dialogue; and he that tries to recommend him by se lect quotations, will succeed like the pedant in Hie rocles, who, when he offered his house for sale, car ried a brick in his pocket as a specimen.
Upon every other stage the universal agent is love, by whose power all good and evil is distributed, and every action quickened or retarded. But love is only one of many passions; and as it has no great influence upon the laws of life, it has little operations on the dramas of a poet who caught his ideas from the liv ing world, and exhibited only what he saw before him. He knew that any other passion, as it was re gular or exorbitant, was a cause of happiness or ad versity.
Characters thus ample and general were not easily discriminated and preserved; yet perhaps no poet ever kept his personages more distinct from each other.
Other dramatists can only gain attention by hyper bolical or aggravated characters, by fabulous and un exampled excellence or depravity, as the writers of romances invigorated the reader by a giant and a dwarf; and he that should form his expectations of human affairs from the play or from the tale, would be equally deceived. Shakspeare has no heroes, his scenes are occupied only by men, who act and speak as the reader thinks that he should himself have spo ken and acted on the same occasion: even where the agency is supernatural, the dialogue is level with life. Other writers disguise the most natural passions and most frequent incidents; so that he who contemplates them in the book will not know them in the world: Shakspeare approximates the remote, and familiari zes the wonderful. The event which he represents 1‘ ill not happen, but if it were possible, its effects would probably be such as he has assigned; and it may be said, that he has not only shown human na ture as it acts in real exigence, but as it would be found in trials to which it cannot be exposed.
This, therefore, is the praise of Shakspeare, that his drama is the mirror of life; that he who has sway ed his imagination in following the phantoms which other writers raise up before him, may here be cured of his delirious ecstacies by reading human senti ments in human language, by views from which a hermit may estimate the transactions of the world, and a confessor predict the progress of the passions." Those who wish for farther information respecting the life and writings of Shakspeare, may consult, in addition to the works mentioned in the course of the preceding outline, the following:—,1 Guide to Streit ford-upon-4ron, by R. R. Wheler. 1314, 12mo. Criti cal, Historical, and E Iplanalmy -Voles on S'hakspeare, with Emendations of the Text and Melee, by Zachary Gray, L. L. D. 1755, 2 vols. 8vo. Observations and Coitjectutes on some passages of Shakspcare, by Thom as Ty rw hi tt, Esq. 1764, 8vo. .in Essay on the Learn ing of Shakspeare, by the Rev. Dr. Richard Farmer. Three editions of this work were published by the au thor himself, and it has been since frequently reprint ed in different editions of Shakspeare. .1n Essay on the and Genius of Shakspare, compared With the Greek and Trench DramaIic Poets, with some re mark, on the Misrepresentations of .31. de Voltaire, by Mrs. Montague, 8vo. A sixth edition of the work appeared in 1810. Essays on Shakspearc's Dramatic Character by W. Richardson, M. 1). 1312, 8vo. Re marks, critical and illustrative,onlhe Tex! and Notes of the last edition of Shaksprare, (1779) by Mr. Ritson, 1783. 8vo. Enquiry into the ,luthcnticit y of certain Iili rellanrons Papers, published Dec. 24, 1775, by Edmond Malone, Esq. 1796, 8vo. This volume gave rise to the two following works. dis ./poiogy for the believers in the Shaksp•are papers, by George Chal mers, 1797, 8vo. S'upplemental Jpolatry for the be lievers. ,S•r. by the same Author, 1799, 8vo. Illustra tions of Shaksprare and of 4ncienl Manners, by Francis Dolled, 1807, 2 vols. tiro. and Simk•periana, Lund. 1827.