Shakspeare, who understood human nature better than Jonfon and his admirers, was refolved not to refign an engine of which he could make fo notable an use. He had taken full meafure of the underftanding, humour, and tafte, of his au dience; and no phyfician was ever more accurately acquainted with the pulfe of his patient than our poet was with the peculiar diet which would please the palates of the good folks in this metropolis. After a serious, or pathetic, fcene, he knew that his clown would revive the mirth, cheer the fpirits, and dry the tears, of his auditors. And, I know not, after all, if the man, who can excite our mirth, and command our grief, fucceffively, may not be the best dramatic cook to prepare entertainment for a people fo melancholy and fo merry, fo fprightly and fo fad, as the English are generally faid to be.

So convinced was Shakspeare that his countrymen could not be fatisfied with their dramatic exhibitions without fome

mixture

mixture of merriment, that, in his moft ferious plays, he has thrown in characters of levity, or oddity, to enliven the scene. In King John we have the bastard Falconbridge; in Macbeth the witches; who, though not abfolutely comic, never fail to provoke laughter. In Julius Cæfar, Cafca and the mob; in Hamlet, Polonius, the grave-diggers, and Oftrick; nay, in Othello, his last and most finished tragedy, befides a happily-conceived drunken scene of Caffio, we are prefented with the follies of a Roderigo: these comic characters, placed in proper fituations to produce action arifing from the plot, never failed to raise gaiety and diverfion amidst scenes of the moft affecting pathos and the most afflicting terror. What affords the most evident proofs of our author's infallible judgement and fagacity is, that, notwithstanding the great alteration and improvement in the public taste, respecting the amusements of the theatre, thefe characters and scenes never fail to produce the fame effect at this

day; and who, after all, is offended with the idle politics and filly pedantry of Polonius, after admiring the wonderful interview of Hamlet and the ghost? Who does not laugh at the prattling and goffipries of the nurse, when Juliet has taken a fad and mournful leave of her beloved Romeo?

Ben Jonson was not averfe to the use of the characters and language of comedy in his tragedies; but Ben understood not the art of blending them fo happily as not to destroy the effect of either. In his Sejanus, he introduces a scene between the principal character of the play and Eudemus the physician. Sejanus gravely interrogates the doctor concerning the effect of the phyfic he administers to the ladies, his patients, and is anxious to know which of them, during the operation, made the moft wry faces: this is below farce.-Nay, fo loft is this learned author to all sense of decency and decorum, that Catiline, in the grand scene of confpirators, in A&t

III. threatens one of his young affociates with the severest punishment for his reluctance to fubmit to the most infamous of all crimes !

The fcene continued.

CLOW N.

I shall never have the bleffing of God till I have iffue of my body; for, they say, bearns are bleffings.

The clown's opinion correfponds with that of all mankind, and more particularly with the Jews. They hold barrenness to be a great curfe. No people in the world multiply fo faft as they. Sir James Porter, in his letters on the Turkish nation, after informing us that, by a certain law in the Alcoran, when no heirs male are left in the family the estate is immediately forfeited to the emperor, affures his readers it is next to a miracle to hear of the effects of a Jewish family being forfeited to the Sultan for want of heirs.

COUNTESS.

The mystery of your loneliness

Which, I think, a happy emendation of Theobald from loveliness.

Mr. Tyrrwhit prefers, inftead of lonelinefs, a suggestion of Mr. Hall in favour of lowlinefs; but Mr. Steevens seems to understand the language of love better than his friend, and juftifies Theobald. If Mr. Tyrrwhit wants an authority for a person in love being fond of retirement and folitude, Romeo and Juliet will give him one. Romeo, Act I.

MONTAGUE.

Away from light fteals home my giddy son,
And private in the chamber pens himself.

And Rofalind, in. As you like it, when she can no longer enjoy the company of Orlando, leaves her coufin Cælia to find a fhadow and to fleep.

HELEN,

My friends were poor, but honeft; fo is my love!

Helen pleads that, although she is no higher in rank than a physician's daughter, yet her love is as much mark'd for fincerity

as