support no opinion with
arguments, nor supply any faction with invectives; they can neither
indulge vanity, nor gratify malignity; but are read without any other
reason than the desire of pleasure, and are therefore praised only as
pleasure is obtained; yet, thus unassisted by interest or passion, they
have past through variations of taste and changes of manners, and, as they
devolved from one generation to another, have received new honours at
every transmission.

But because human judgment, though it be gradually gaining upon certainty,
never becomes infallible; and approbation, though long continued, may yet
be only the approbation of prejudice or fashion; it is proper to inquire,
by what peculiarities of excellence Shakespeare has gained and kept the
favour of his countrymen.

Nothing can please many, and please long, but just representations of
general nature. Particular manners can be known to few, and therefore few
only can judge how nearly they are copied. The irregular combinations of
fanciful invention may delight awhile, by that novelty of which the common
satiety of life sends us all in quest; but the pleasures of sudden wonder
are soon exhausted, and the mind can only repose on the stability of
truth.

Shakespeare is above all writers, at least above all modern writers, the
poet of nature; the poet that holds up to his readers a faithful mirror of
manners and of life. His characters are not modified by the customs of
particular places, unpractised by the rest of the world; by the
peculiarities of studies or professions, which can operate but upon small
numbers; or by the accidents of transient fashions or temporary opinions:
they are the genuine progeny of common humanity, such as the world will
always supply, and observation will always find. His persons act and speak
by the influence of those general passions and principles by which all
minds are agitated, and the whole system of life is continued in motion.
In the writings of other poets a character is too often an individual; in
those of Shakespeare it is commonly a species.

It is from this wide extension of design that so much instruction is
derived. It is this which fills the plays of Shakespeare with practical
axioms and domestick wisdom. It was said of Euripides, that every verse
was a precept; and it may be said of Shakespeare, that from his works may
be collected a system of civil and oeconomical prudence. Yet his real power
is not shewn in