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Town. I cannot help being a little apt to distrust the Authority of this Tradition; because as his Wife surviv'd him seven Years, and as his Favourite Daughter Susanna furviv'd her twenty fix Years, 'tis very improbable, they should fuffer such a Treasure to be remov'd, and translated into a remoter Branch of the Family, without a Scrutiny first made into the Value of it. This, I say, inclines me to distrust the Authority of the Relation: but, notwithstanding such an apparent Improbability, if we really lost such a Treasure, by whatever Fatality or Caprice of Fortune they came into such ignorant and neglectful Hands, I agree with the Relater, the Miffortune is wholly irreparable.

To these Particulars, which regard his Perfon and private Life, some few more are to be glean'd from Mr. ROWE'S Account of his Life and Writings: Let us now take a short His ChaView of him in his publick Capacity, as a ter Writer: and, from thence, the Tranfition will be easy to the State in which his Writings have been handed down to us.

No Age, perhaps, can produce an Author more various from himself, than Shakespeare has been universally acknowledg'd to be. The Diversity in Stile, and other Parts of Composition, so obvious in him, is as variously to be accounted for. His Education, we find, was at best but begun: and he started early into a Science from the Force of Genius, unequally

racter as a

equally affisted by acquir'd Improvements. His Fire, Spirit, and Exuberance of Imagination gave an Impetuosity to his Pen: His Ideas flow'd from him in a Stream rapid, but not turbulent; copious, but not ever overbearing its Shores. The Ease and Sweetness of his Temper might not a little contribute to his Facility in Writing: as his Employment, as a Player, gave him an Advantage and Habit of fancying himself the very Character he meant to delineate. He used the Helps of his Function in forming himself to create and express that Sublime, which other Actors can only copy, and throw out, in Action and graceful Attitude. But Nullum fine Venia placuit Ingenium, says Seneca. The Genius, that gives us the greatest Pleasure, sometimes stands in Need of our Indulgence. Whenever this happens with regard to Shakespeare, I would willingly impute it to a Vice of his Times. We fee Complaisance enough, in qur own Days, paid to a bad Taste. His Clinches, false Wit, and descending beneath himself, seem to be a Deference paid to reigning Barbarism. He was a Sampson in Strength, but he fuffer'd fome such Dalilah to give him up to the Philistines.

As I have mention'd the Sweetness of his Disposition, I am tempted to make a Reflexi on or two on a Sentiment of his, which, I am perfuaded, came from the Heart.

The

The Man, that hath no Mufick in himself,
Nor is not mov'd with Concord of fweet

Sounds,

Is fit for Treasons, Stratagems, and Spoils :
The Motions of his Spirit are dull as Night,
And bis Affections dark as Erebus:

Let no Juch Man be trusted.

Shakespeare was all Openness, Candour, and A Lover of Complacence; and had fuch a Share of Har- Musick. mony in his Frame and Temperature, that we have no Reason to doubt, from a Number of fine Passages, Allufions, Similies, &c. fetch'd from Musick, but that He was a pafsionate Lover of it. And to this, perhaps, we may owe that great Number of Sonnets, which are sprinkled thro' his Plays. I have found, that the Stanza's fung by the Gravedigger in Hamlet, are not of Shakespeare's own Compofition, but owe their Original to the old Earl of Surrey's Poems. Many other of his Occafional little Songs, I doubt not, but he purposely copied from his Contemporary Writers; sometimes, out of Banter; sometimes, to do them Honour. The Manner of their Introduction, and the Uses to which he has affigned them, will easily determine for which of the Reafons they are respectively employ'd. In As you like it, there are several little Copies of Verses on Rosalind, which are faid to be the right Butter-woman's Rank to Market, and the very false Gallop of Verses. Dr. Tho

mas

mas Lodge, a Physician who flourish'd early in Queen Elizabeth's Reign, and was a great Writer of the Pastoral Songs and Madrigals, which were so much the Strain of those Times, composed a whole Volume of Poems in Praise of his Mistress, whom he calls Rofalinde. I never yet could meet with this Collection; but whenever I do, I am perfuaded, I shall find many of our Author's Canzonets on this Subject to be Scraps of the Doctor's amorous Muse: as, perhaps, those by Biron too, and the other Lovers in Love's Labour's loft, may prove to be.

It has been remark'd in the Course of my Notes, that Musick in our Author's time had a very different Use from what it has now. At this Time, it is only employ'd to raise and inflame the Paffions; it, then, was apply'd to calm and allay all kinds of Perturbations. And, agreeable to this Obfervation, throughout all Shakespeare's Plays, where Musick is either actually used, or its Powers defcrib'd, it is chiefly said to be for these Ends. His Twelfth-Night, particularly, begins with a fine Reflexion that admirably marks its foothing Properties.

That Strain again; - It had a dying Fall. Oh, it came d'er my Ear like the sweet South, That breathes upon a Bank of Violets, Stealing and giving Odour!

This Similitude is remarkable not only for the Beauty of the Image that it presents, but likewife for the Exactness to the Thing compared. This is a way of Teaching peculiar to the Poets; that, when they would defcribe the Nature of any thing, they do it not by a direct Enumeration of its Attributes or Qualities, but by bringing something into Comparison, and defcribing those Qualities of it that are of the Kind with those in the Thing compared. So, here for instance, the Poet willing to instruct in the Properties of Mufick, in which the fame Strains have a Power to excite Pleasure, or Pain, according to that State of Mind the Hearer is then in, does it by presenting the Image of a sweet South Wind blowing o'er a Violet-bank; which wafts away the Odour of the Violets, and at the fame time communicates to it its own Sweetness: by This infinuating, that affecting Musick, tho' it takes away the natural sweet Tranquillity of the Mind, yet, at the same time, communicates a Pleasure the Mind felt not before. This Knowledge, of the same Objects being capable of raising two contrary Affections, is a Proof of no ordinary Progress in the Study of human Nature. The general Milton an Beauties of those two Poems of MILTON, him. intitled, L'Allegro and Il Penforoso, are obvious to all Readers, because the Descriptions are the most poetical in the World; yet there is a peculiar Beauty in those two excellent Pieces,

Imitator of.

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