aps, produces more perplexity than pleasure. The whole play is very
popular and diverting.

ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL.

This play has many delightful scenes, though not sufficiently probable,
and some happy characters, though not new, nor produced by any deep
knowledge of human nature. Parolles is a boaster and a coward, such as
has always been the sport of the stage, but, perhaps, never raised more
laughter or contempt than in the hands of Shakespeare.

I cannot reconcile my heart to Bertram; a man noble without generosity,
and young without truth; who marries Helen as a coward, and leaves her
as a profligate: when she is dead by his unkindness, sneaks home to a
second marriage, is accused by a woman whom he has wronged, defends
himself by falsehood, and is dismissed to happiness[7].

The story of Bertram and Diana had been told before of Mariana and
Angelo, and, to confess the truth, scarcely merited to be heard a second
time.

TWELFTH NIGHT.

This play is, in the graver part, elegant and easy, and, in some of the
lighter scenes, exquisitely humorous. Aguecheek is drawn with great
propriety, but his character is, in a great measure, that of natural
fatuity, and is, therefore, not the proper prey of a satirist. The
soliloquy of Malvolio is truly comick; he is betrayed to ridicule merely
by his pride. The marriage of Olivia, and the succeeding perplexity,
though well enough contrived to divert on the stage, wants credibility,
and fails to produce the proper instruction required in the drama, as it
exhibits no just picture of life.

WINTER'S TALE.

The story of this play is taken from The Pleasant History of Dorastus
and Fawnia, written by Robert Greene.

This play, as Dr. Warburton justly observes, is, with all its
absurdities, very entertaining. The character of Autolycus is very
naturally conceived, and strongly represented.

MACBETH.

This play is deservedly celebrated for the propriety of its fictions,
and solemnity, grandeur, and variety of its action; but it has no nice
discriminations of character; the events are too great to admit the
influence of particular dispositions, and the course of the action
necessarily determines the conduct of the agents.

The danger of ambition is well described; and I know not whether it may
not be said, in defence of some parts which now seem improbable, that,
in Shakespeare's time, it was necessary to warn credulity against vain
and illusive predictions.