oetical inspiration, which many
lyrical poets have brought into circulation, as if they were not in
their senses, and, like Pythia when possessed by the divinity,
delivered oracles unintelligible to themselves--this notion (a mere
lyrical invention) is least of all applicable to dramatic composition,
one of the most thoughtful productions of the human mind. It is
admitted that Shakespeare has reflected, and deeply reflected, on
character and passion, on the progress of events and human destinies,
on the human constitution, on all the things and relations of the
world; this is an admission which must be made, for one alone of
thousands of his maxims would be a sufficient refutation of any who
should attempt to deny it. So that it was only for the structure of
his own pieces that he had no thought to spare? This he left to the
dominion of chance, which blew together the atoms of Epicurus. But
supposing that, devoid of any higher ambition to approve himself to
judicious critics and posterity, and wanting in that love of art which
longs for self-satisfaction in the perfection of its works, he had
merely labored to please the unlettered crowd; still this very object
alone and the pursuit of theatrical effect would have led him to
bestow attention to the structure and adherence of his pieces. For
does not the impression of a drama depend in an especial manner on the
relation of the parts to one another? And, however beautiful a scene
may be in itself, if yet it be at variance with what the spectators
have been led to expect in its particular place, so as to destroy the
interest which they had hitherto felt, will it not be at once
reprobated by all who possess plain common sense and give themselves
up to nature? The comic intermixtures may be considered merely as a
sort of interlude, designed to relieve the straining of the mind after
the stretch of the more serious parts, so long as no better purpose
can be found in them; but in the progress of the main action, in the
concatenation of the events, the poet must, if possible, display even
more expenditure of thought than in the composition of individual
character and situations, otherwise he would be like the conductor of
a puppet-show who has so entangled his wires that the puppets receive
from their mechanism quite different movements from those which he
actually intended.

The English critics are unanimous in their praise of the truth and
uniform consistency of his characte