Town. I cannot help being a little apt to diftrust the Authority of this Tradition; because as his Wife surviv'd him seven Years, and as his Favourite Daughter Sufanna furviv'd her twenty fix Years, 'tis very improbable, they should suffer fuch a Treasure to be remov'd, and tranflated into a remoter Branch of the Family, without a Scrutiny first made into the Value of it. This, I fay, inclines me to distrust the Authority of the Relation: but, notwithstanding fuch an apparent Improbability, if we really loft fuch a Treasure, by whatever Fatality or Caprice of Fortune they came into fuch ignorant and neglectful Hands, I agree with the Relater, the Miffortune is wholly irreparable.

To these Particulars, which regard his Perfon and private Life, fome few more are to be glean'd from Mr. Rowe's Account of his Life and Writings: Let us now take a fhort His ChaView of him in his publick Capacity, as a racer as a Writer: and, from thence, the Tranfition will be eafy to the State in which his Writings have been handed down to us.

No Age, perhaps, can produce an Author more various from himself, than Shakespeare has been univerfally acknowledg'd to be. The Diversity in Stile, and other Parts of Compofition, fo obvious in him, is as variously to be accounted for. His Education, we find, was at best but begun; and he started early into a Science from the Force of Genius, unequally

Writer.

equally affifted by acquir'd Improvements. His Fire, Spirit, and Exuberance of Imagination gave an Impetuofity to his Pen: His Ideas flow'd from him in a Stream rapid, but not turbulent; copious, but not ever overbearing its Shores. The Eafe and Sweetness of his Temper might not a little contribute to his Facility in Writing: as his Employment, as a Player, gave him an Advantage and Habit of fancying himself the very Character he meant to delineate. He used the Helps of his Function in forming himself to create and exprefs that Sublime, which other Actors can only copy, and throw out, in Action and graceful Attitude. But Nullum fine Veniá placuit Ingenium, fays Seneca. The Genius, that gives us the greatest Pleasure, fometimes ftands in Need of our Indulgence. Whenever this happens with regard to Shakespeare, I would willingly impute it to a Vice of his Times. We fee Complaifance enough, in our own Days, paid to a bad Tafte. His Clinches, falfe Wit, and defcending beneath himself, feem to be a Deference paid to reigning Barbarifm. He was a Sampfon in Strength, but he fuffer'd fome fuch Dalilab to give him up to the Philistines.

As I have mention'd the Sweetnefs of his Difpofition, I am tempted to make a Reflexion or two on a Sentiment of his, which, I am perfuaded, came from the Heart.

The

The Man, that hath no Mufick in himself,
Nor is not mov'd with Concord of fweet
Sounds,

Is fit for Treafons, Stratagems, and Spoils:
The Motions of his Spirit are dull as Night,
And his Affections dark as Erebus:
Let no fuch Man be trusted.

Shakespeare was all Openness, Candour, and A Lover of Complacence; and had fuch a Share of Har- Mufick. mony in his Frame and Temperature, that we have no Reason to doubt, from a Number of fine Paffages, Allufions, Similies, &c. fetch'd from Mufick, but that He was a paffionate Lover of it. And to this, perhaps, we may owe that great Number of Sonnets, which are fprinkled thro' his Plays. I have found, that the Stanza's fung by the Gravedigger in Hamlet, are not of Shakespeare's own Compofition, but owe their Öriginal to the old Earl of Surrey's Poems. Many other of his Occafional little Songs, I doubt not, but he purposely copied from his Contemporary Writers; fometimes, out of Banter; fometimes, to do them Honour. The Manner of their Introduction, and the Ufes to which he has affigned them, will eafily determine for which of the Reafons they are refpectively employ'd. In As you like it, there are feveral little Copies of Verses on Rofalind, which are faid to be the right Butter-woman's Rank to Market, and the very false Gallop of Verfes. Dr. Tho

mas

mas Lodge, a Phyfician who flourish'd early in Queen Elizabeth's Reign, and was a great Writer of the Paftoral Songs and Madrigals, which were fo much the Strain of those Times, compofed a whole Volume of Poems in Praise of his Mistress, whom he calls Rofalinde. I never yet could meet with this Collection; but whenever I do, I am perfuaded, I fhall find many of our Author's Canzonets on this Subject to be Scraps of the Doctor's amorous Muse: as, perhaps, those by Biron too, and the other Lovers in Love's Labour's loft, may prove to be,

It has been remark'd in the Course of my Notes, that Mufick in our Author's time had a very different Ufe from what it has now. At this Time, it is only employ'd to raise and inflame the Paffions; it, then, was apply'd to calm and allay all kinds of Perturbations. And, agreeable to this Observation, throughout all Shakespeare's Plays, where Mufick is either actually used, or its Powers describ'd, it is chiefly faid to be for these Ends. His Twelfth Night, particularly, begins with a fine Reflexion that admirably marks its foothing Properties.

That Strain again; —It had a dying Fall. Oh, it came o'er my Ear like the fweet South, That breathes upon a Bank of Violets, Stealing and giving Odour!

This Similitude is remarkable not only for the Beauty of the Image that it prefents, but likewife for the Exactness to the Thing compared. This is a way of Teaching peculiar to the Poets; that, when they would defcribe the Nature of any thing, they do it not by a direct Enumeration of its Attributes or Qualities, but by bringing fomething into Comparison, and defcribing thofe Qualities of it that are of the Kind with thofe in the Thing compared. So, here for inftance, the Poet willing to inftruct in the Properties of Mufick, in which the fame Strains have a Power to excite Pleasure, or Pain, according to that State of Mind the Hearer is then in, does it by prefenting the Image of a sweet South Wind blowing o'er a Violet-bank; which wafts away the Odour of the Violets, and at the fame time communicates to it its own Sweetness by This infinuating, that affecting Mufick, tho' it takes away the natural sweet Tranquillity of the Mind, yet, at the same time, communicates a Pleasure the Mind felt not before. This Knowledge, of the fame Objects being capable of raifing two contrary Affections, is a Proof of no ordinary Progress in the Study of human Nature. The general Milton an Imitator of Beauties of those two Poems of MILTON, him. intitled, L'Allegro and Il Penforofo, are obvious to all Readers, because the Defcriptions are the most poetical in the World; yet there is a peculiar Beauty in those two excellent

Pieces,