ght,
And sat like patience on a monument.
Smiling at grief.

But what is characteristically the talent of Shakespear, and which
perhaps is the most excellent part of the drama, is the manners of his
persons, in acting and in speaking what is proper for them, and fit
to be shewn by the Poet, in making an apparent difference between his
characters, and marking every one in the strongest manner.

Poets who have not a little succeeded in writing for the stage, have
yet fallen short of their great original in the general power of the
drama; none ever found so ready a road to the heart; his tender scenes
are inexpressibly moving, and such as are meant to raise terror, are
no less alarming; but then Shakespeare does not much shine when he is
considered by particular passages; he sometimes debases the noblest
images in nature by expressions which are too vulgar for poetry. The
ingenious author of the Rambler has observed, that in the invocation
of Macbeth, before he proceeds to the murder of Duncan, when he thus
expresses himself,

---------Come thick night
And veil thee, in the dunnest smoke of hell,
Nor heaven peep thro' the blanket of the dark,
To cry hold, hold.

That the words dunnest and blanket, which are so common in vulgar
mouths, destroy in some manner the grandeur of the image, and were two
words of a higher signification, and removed above common use, put
in their place, I may challenge poetry itself to furnish an image
so noble. Poets of an inferior class, when considered by particular
passages, are excellent, but then their ideas are not so great, their
drama is not so striking, and it is plain enough that they possess not
souls so elevated as Shakespeare's. What can be more beautiful than
the flowing enchantments of Rowe; the delicate and tender touches of
Otway and Southern, or the melting enthusiasm of Lee and Dryden,
but yet none of their pieces have affected the human heart like
Shakespeare's.

But I cannot conclude the character of Shakespeare, without taking
notice, that besides the suffrage of almost all wits since his time in
his favour, he is particularly happy in that of Dryden, who had read
and studied him clearly, sometimes borrowed from him, and well knew
where his strength lay. In his Prologue to the Tempest altered, he has
the following lines;

Shakespear, who taught by none, did first impart,
To Fletcher wit, to lab'ring Johnson, art.
He, monarch-like gave there his su