d diversify
them only by the accidental appendages of present manners; the dress is
a little varied, but the body is the same. Our author had both matter
and form to provide; for, except the characters of Chaucer, to whom I
think he is not much indebted, there were no writers in English, and,
perhaps, not many in other modern languages, which showed life in its
native colours.

The contest about the original benevolence or malignity of man had not
yet commenced. Speculation had not yet attempted to analyze the mind, to
trace the passions to their sources, to unfold the seminal principles of
vice and virtue, or sound the depths of the heart for the motives of
action. All those inquiries, which from that time that human nature
became the fashionable study, have been made sometimes with nice
discernment, but often with idle subtilty, were yet unattempted. The
tales, with which the infancy of learning was satisfied, exhibited only
the superficial appearances of action, related the events, but omitted
the causes, and were formed for such as delighted in wonders rather than
in truth. Mankind was not then to be studied in the closet; he that
would know the world, was under the necessity of gleaning his own
remarks, by mingling as he could in its business and amusements.

Boyle congratulated himself upon his high birth, because it favoured his
curiosity, by facilitating his access. Shakespeare had no such
advantage: he came to London a needy adventurer, and lived for a time by
very mean employments. Many works of genius and learning have been
performed in states of life that appear very little favourable to
thought or to inquiry; so many, that he who considers them is inclined
to think that he sees enterprize and perseverance predominating over all
external agency, and bidding help and hindrance vanish before them. The
genius of Shakespeare was not to be depressed by the weight of poverty,
nor limited by the narrow conversation to which men in want are
inevitably condemned; the encumbrances of his fortune were shaken from
his mind, "as dewdrops from a lion's mane".

Though he had so many difficulties to encounter, and so little
assistance to surmount them, he has been able to obtain an exact
knowledge of many modes of life, and many casts of native dispositions;
to vary them with great multiplicity; to mark them by nice distinctions;
and to show them in full view by proper combinations. In this part of
his performances he ha