rdoned.' Ben in his conversation with Mr. Drumond of Hawthornden,
said, that Shakespear wanted art, and sometimes sense. The truth is,
Ben was himself a better critic than poet, and though he was ready at
discovering the faults of Shakespear, yet he was not master of such a
genius, as to rise to his excellencies; and great as Johnson was, he
appears not a little tinctured with envy. Notwithstanding the defects
of Shakespear, he is justly elevated above all other dramatic writers.
If ever any author deserved the name of original (says Pope) it was
he: [1] 'His poetry was inspiration indeed; he is not so much an
imitator, as instrument of nature; and it is not so just to say of
him that he speaks from her, as that she speaks through him. His
characters are so much nature herself, that it is a sort of injury to
call them by so distant a name as copies of her. The power over our
passions was likewise never possessed in so eminent a degree, or
displayed in so many different instances, nor was he more a matter of
the great, than of the ridiculous in human nature, nor only excelled
in the passions, since he was full as admirable in the coolness of
reflection and reasoning: His sentiments are not only in general the
most pertinent and judicious upon every subject, but by a talent very
peculiar, something between penetration and felicity, he hits upon
that particular point, on which the bent of each argument, or the
force of each motive depends.'

Our author's plays are to be distinguished only into Comedies and
Tragedies. Those which are called Histories, and even some of his
Comedies, are really Tragedies, with a mixture of Comedy amongst them.
That way of Tragi-comedy was the common mistake of that age, and is
indeed become so agreeable to the English taste, that though the
severer critics among us cannot bear it, yet the generality of our
audiences seem better pleased with it than an exact Tragedy. There is
certainly a great deal of entertainment in his comic humours, and a
pleasing and well distinguished variety in those characters he thought
fit to exhibit with. His images are indeed every where so lively, that
the thing he would represent stands full before you, and you possess
every part of it; of which this instance is astonishing: it is an
image of patience. Speaking of a maid in love, he says,

------She never told her love,
But let concealment, like a worm i'th'bud,
Feed on her damask cheek: She pin'd in thou