jected to the Edmund story in _King Lear_ on the ground that it
destroyed the unity of the fable. But he had the wisdom to recognise that
irregularities in structure may be excused by the representation of the
persons of the drama.(25) Accordingly, in his examination of the _Tempest_
and _King Lear_, he pays most attention to the characters, and relegates
to a short closing paragraph his criticism of the development of the
action. Though his method has nominally much in common with that of
Maurice Morgann and the romantic critics, in practice it is very
different. He treats the characters from without: he lacks the intuitive
sympathy which is the secret of later criticism. To him the play is a
representation of life, not a transcript from life. The characters, who
are more real to us than actual persons of history, and more intimate than
many an acquaintance, appear to him to be creatures of the imagination who
live in a different world from his own. Warton describes the picture: he
criticises the portraits of the characters rather than the characters
themselves.

The gradual change in the critical attitude is illustrated also by Lord
Kames, whom Heath had reason to describe, before the appearance of
Johnson's Preface, as "the truest judge and most intelligent admirer of
Shakespeare."(26) The scheme of his _Elements of Criticism_ (1762) allowed
him to deal with Shakespeare only incidentally, as in the digression where
he distinguishes between the presentation and the description of passion,
but he gives more decisive expression to Warton's view that observance of
the rules is of subordinate importance to the truthful exhibition of
character. The mechanical part, he observes, in which alone Shakespeare is
defective, is less the work of genius than of experience, and it is
knowledge of human nature which gives him his supremacy. The same views
are repeated in the periodical essays. The _Mirror_ regards it as
"preposterous" to endeavour to regularise his plays, and finds the source
of his superiority in his almost supernatural powers of invention, his
absolute command over the passions, and his wonderful knowledge of nature;
and the _Lounger_ says that he presents the abstract of life in all its
modes and in every time. The rules are forgotten,--we cease to hear even
that they are useless. But the _Elements of Criticism_ gave Kames no
opportunity to show that his attitude to the characters themselves was
other than Warton's