CONSIST NG OF CRITICAL OBSERVATIONS ON SEVERAL PLAYS OF SHAKSPEARE: WITH A REVIEW OF HIS PRINCIPAL CHARACTERS, AND WITH ANECDOTES OF DRAMATIC POETS, ACTORS, &c. Printed for the AUTHOR, and fold at his Shop, in M.DCC.LXXXIII. DRAMATIC MISCELLANIE S. All's well that ends well. CHAPTER XXI. Unpromifing fable to All's well that ends well.- Shakspeare's creative power. — Re vival of this comedy in 1741. Milward. Mrs. Woffington. Sickness of Death of Milward. His character.—Superftition of the actors. Cibber, Parolles.- Macklin and The. Chapman and Berry commended. All's well that ends well revived by Garrick. Diftribution of the parts.- Abufe of wardship. Fafcinating power of certain worthless characters. Lully, Swift, and Lord Rivers.-Word Chriften dom. Helen's defcription of Parolles. Definition of clown, or fool.-His occupation. Defcription from Johnson and Steevens. B. Fonfon and Fletcher. ShakSpeare's Superior knowledge of nature and the qualities of his auditors. Fonfon not a A Physician's daughter curing a king, distempered with a fistula, by a recipe of her dead father, is the history on which this play is founded; a plot strange and unpromifing. But the genius of Shakfpeare meets with no obstacle from the uncouthness of the materials he works upon. Action and character are the chief engines he employs in this comedy, and he raises abundance of mirth from the fituations in which they are placed. Parolles and Lafeu are admirable contrafts, from the collifion of |