they may sometimes conduce to pleasure, they are always to be
sacrificed to the nobler beauties of variety and instruction; and that a
play, written with nice observation of critical rules, is to be
contemplated as an elaborate curiosity, as the product of superfluous and
ostentatious art, by which is shewn, rather what is possible, than what is
necessary.

He that, without diminution of any other excellence, shall preserve all
the unities unbroken, deserves the like applause with the architect who
shall display all the orders of architecture in a citadel, without any
deduction from its strength; but the principal beauty of a citadel is to
exclude the enemy; and the greatest graces of a play are to copy nature,
and instruct life.

Perhaps what I have here not dogmatically but deliberately written, may
recall the principles of the drama to a new examination. I am almost
frighted at my own temerity; and when I estimate the fame and the strength
of those that maintain the contrary opinion, am ready to sink down in
reverential silence; as AEneas withdrew from the defence of Troy, when he
saw Neptune shaking the wall, and Juno heading the besiegers.

Those whom my arguments cannot persuade to give their approbation to the
judgment of Shakespeare, will easily, if they consider the condition of
his life, make some allowance for his ignorance.

Every man's performances, to be rightly estimated, must be compared with
the state of the age in which he lived, and with his own particular
opportunities; and though to a reader a book be not worse or better for
the circumstances of the author, yet as there is always a silent reference
of human works to human abilities, and as the enquiry, how far man may
extend his designs, or how high he may rate his native force, is of far
greater dignity than in what rank we shall place any particular
performance, curiosity is always busy to discover the instruments, as well
as to survey the workmanship, to know how much is to be ascribed to
original powers, and how much to casual and adventitious help. The palaces
of Peru or Mexico were certainly mean and incommodious habitations, if
compared to the houses of European monarchs; yet who could forbear to view
them with astonishment, who remembered that they were built without the
use of iron?

The English nation, in the time of Shakespeare, was yet struggling to
emerge from barbarity. The philology of Italy had been transplanted hither
in the r