sake of those which are more easy.

It may be observed, that in many of his plays the latter part is
evidently neglected. When he found himself near the end of his work, and
in view of his reward, he shortened the labour to snatch the profit. He,
therefore, remits his efforts where he should most vigorously exert
them, and his catastrophe is improbably produced or imperfectly
represented.

He had no regard to distinction of time or place, but gives to one age
or nation, without scruple, the customs, institutions, and opinions of
another, at the expense not only of likelihood, but of possibility.
These faults Pope has endeavoured, with more zeal than judgment, to
transfer to his imagined interpolators. We need not wonder to find
Hector quoting Aristotle, when we see the loves of Theseus and Hippolyta
combined with the Gothick mythology of fairies. Shakespeare, indeed, was
not the only violator of chronology, for in the same age Sidney, who
wanted not the advantages of learning, has, in his Arcadia, confounded
the pastoral with the feudal times, the days of innocence, quiet, and
security, with those of turbulence, violence, and adventure[10].

In his comick scenes he is seldom very successful, when he engages his
characters in reciprocations of smartness and contests of sarcasm; their
jests are commonly gross, and their pleasantry licentious; neither his
gentlemen nor his ladies have much delicacy, nor are sufficiently
distinguished from his clowns by any appearance of refined manners.
Whether he represented the real conversation of his time is not easy to
determine; the reign of Elizabeth is commonly supposed to have been a
time of stateliness, formality, and reserve; yet, perhaps, the
relaxations of that severity were not very elegant[11]. There must,
however, have been always some modes of gaiety preferable to others, and
a writer ought to choose the best.

In tragedy his performance seems constantly to be worse, as his labour
is more. The effusions of passion, which exigence forces out, are, for
the most part, striking and energetick; but whenever he solicits his
invention, or strains his faculties, the offspring of his throes is
tumour, meanness, tediousness, and obscurity.

In narration he affects a disproportionate pomp of diction, and a
wearisome train of circumlocution, and tells the incident imperfectly in
many words, which might have been more plainly delivered in few.
Narration in dramatick poetry is natu