The passions are directed to their true end. Lady Macbeth is merely
detested; and though the courage of Macbeth preserves some esteem, yet
every reader rejoices at his fall.

KING JOHN.

The tragedy of King John, though not written with the utmost power of
Shakespeare, is varied with a very pleasing interchange of incidents and
characters. The lady's grief is very affecting, and the character of the
bastard contains that mixture of greatness and levity which this author
delighted to exhibit.

KING RICHARD II.

This play is extracted from the Chronicle of Holinshed, in which many
passages may be found which Shakespeare has, with very little
alteration, transplanted into his scenes; particularly a speech of the
bishop of Carlisle in defence of King Richard's unalienable right, and
immunity from human jurisdiction.

Jonson, who, in his Catiline and Sejanus, has inserted many speeches
from the Roman historians, was, perhaps, induced to that practice by the
example of Shakespeare, who had condescended sometimes to copy more
ignoble writers. But Shakespeare had more of his own than Jonson, and,
if he sometimes was willing to spare his labour, showed by what he
performed at other times, that his extracts were made by choice or
idleness rather than necessity. This play is one of those which
Shakespeare has apparently revised[8]; but as success in works of
invention is not always proportionate to labour, it is not finished at
last with the happy force of some other of his tragedies, nor can be
said much to affect the passions or enlarge the understanding.

KING HENRY IV. PART II.

I fancy every reader, when he ends this play, cries out with Desdemona,
"O most lame and impotent conclusion!" As this play was not, to our
knowledge, divided into acts by the author, I could be content to
conclude it with the death of Henry the Fourth.

"In that Jerusalem shall Harry die."

These scenes, which now make the fifth act of Henry IV. might then be
the first of Henry V. but the truth is, that they do not unite very
commodiously to either play. When these plays were represented, I
believe they ended as they are now ended in the books; but Shakespeare
seems to have designed that the whole series of action, from the
beginning of Richard II. to the end of Henry V. should be considered by
the reader as one work, upon one plan, only broken into parts by the
necessity of exhibition.

None of Shakespeare's plays are more read