the
three kinds by any very exact or definite ideas.

An action which ended happily to the principal persons, however serious
or distressful through its intermediate incidents, in their opinion,
constituted a comedy. This idea of a comedy continued long amongst us;
and plays were written, which, by changing the catastrophe, were
tragedies to-day, and comedies to-morrow[7].

Tragedy was not in those times a poem of more general dignity or
elevation than comedy; it required only a calamitous conclusion, with
which the common criticism of that age was satisfied, whatever lighter
pleasure it afforded in its progress.

History was a series of actions, with no other than chronological
succession, independent of each other, and without any tendency to
introduce or regulate the conclusion. It is not always very nicely
distinguished from tragedy. There is not much nearer approach to unity
of action in the tragedy of Anthony and Cleopatra, than in the history
of Richard the second. But a history might be continued through many
plays, as it had no plan, it had no limits.

Through all these denominations of the drama, Shakespeare's mode of
composition is the same; an interchange of seriousness and merriment, by
which the mind is softened at one time, and exhilarated at another. But
whatever be his purpose, whether to gladden or depress, or to conduct
the story, without vehemence or emotion, through tracts of easy and
familiar dialogue, he never fails to attain his purpose; as he commands
us, we laugh or mourn, or sit silent with quiet expectation, in
tranquillity without indifference.

When Shakespeare's plan is understood, most of the criticisms of Rymer
and Voltaire vanish away. The play of Hamlet is opened, without
impropriety, by two centinels; Iago bellows at Brabantio's window,
without injury to the scheme of the play, though in terms which a modern
audience would not easily endure; the character of Polonius is
seasonable and useful; and the Gravediggers themselves may be heard with
applause.

Shakespeare engaged in dramatick poetry with the world open before him;
the rules of the ancients were yet known to few; the publick judgment
was unformed; he had no example of such fame as might force him upon
imitation, nor criticks of such authority as might restrain his
extravagance: he, therefore, indulged his natural disposition, and his
disposition, as Rymer has remarked, led him to comedy. In tragedy he
often writes, wit