lemn as the long stops upon our organs. Since that time, it was grown into custom, and their actors speak by the hour-glass, like our parsons: nay, they account it the grace of their parts, and think themselves disparaged by the poet, if they may not twice or thrice in a play entertain the audience with a speech of an hundred lines. I deny not that this may suit well enough with the French; for, as we, who are a more sullen people, come to be diverted at our plays, so they, who are of an airy and gay temper, come thither to make themselves more serious: and this I conceive to be one reason, why comedies are more pleasing to us, and tragedies to them. But to speak generally: it cannot be denied, that short speeches and replies are more apt to move the passions, and beget concernment in us, than the other; for it is unnatural for any one, in a gust of passion, to speak long together; or for another, in the same condition, to suffer him without interruption. Grief and passion are like floods raised in little brooks by a sudden rain; they are quickly up, and if the concernment be poured unexpectedly in upon us, it overflows us: but a long sober shower gives them leisure to run out as they came in, without troubling the ordinary current. As for comedy, repartee is one of its chiefest graces; the greatest pleasure of the audience is a chace of wit, kept up on both sides, and swiftly managed.'* Nothing can surpass the acuteness of his criticism upon the French drama: Many times they (the French) fall by it (the unity of action) into a greater inconvenience; for they keep their scenes unbroken, and yet change the place; as in one of their newest plays, where the act begins in the street. There a gentleman is to meet his friend; he sees him with his man coming out of his father's house; they talk together, and the first goes out: the se

* Scott's Dry, vol. xv. p. 340.

cond, who is a lover, has made an appointment with his mistress; she appears at the window, and then we are to imagine the scene lies under it. This gentleman is called away, and leaves his servant with his mistress: presently her father is heard from within; the young lady is afraid the serving man should be discovered, and thrusts him into a place of safety, which is supposed to be her closet. After this, the father enters to the daughter, and now the scene is in a house: for he is seeking from one room to another for this poor Philipin, or French Diego, who is heard from within, drolling and making many a miserable concert on the subject of his sad condition. In this ridiculous manner the play goes forward, the stage being never empty all the while: so that the street, the window, the two houses, and the closet, are made to walk about, and the persons to stand still. Now, what I beseech you, is more easy than to write a regular French play, or more difficult than to write an irregular English one?*

We shall subjoin that account of Shakspeare,' of which Johnson says, it may stand as a perpetual model of encomiastic criticism; exact without minuteness, and lofty without exaggeration. The praise, lavished by Longinus, on the attestation of the heroes of Marathon, by Demosthenes, fades away before it. In a few lines is exhibited a character, so extensive in its comprehension, and so curious in its limitations, that nothing can be added, diminished, or reformed; nor can the editors or admirers of Shakspeare, in all their emulation of reverence, boast of much more than of having diffused and paraphrased this epitome of excellence, of having changed Dryden's gold for baser metal, of lower value, though of greater bulk? This encomium is nearly as long, and quite as lofty, as that on which it is lavished. It was not usual for Dr.

* Scott's Dry. xv. p. 247.

Johnson to speak thus of any composition; and, though no person can deny, that Dryden's character of Shakspeare has pre-eminent merit, many would be disappointed to find, that such a biographer had bestowed so much praise upon so short a paragraph:

"To begin then with Shakspeare. He was the man, who, of all modern, and perhaps all ancient poets, had the largest and most comprehensive soul. All the images of nature were still present to him; and he drew them, not laboriously, but luckily when he describes any thing, you more than see it, you feel it too. Those, who accuse him to have wanted learning, give him the greater commendation: he was naturally learned; he needed not the spectacles of books to read nature; he looked inwards, and found her there. I cannot say, he is every where alike; were he so, I should do him injury to compare him with the greatest of mankind. He is many times flat, insipid; his comic wit degenerating into clinches, his serious swelling into bombast. But he is always great, when some great occasion is presented to him: no man can say he ever had a fit subject for his wit, and did not then raise himself as high above the rest of poets,

Quantum lenta solent inter viberna cupressi.'

E 2

HEROIC STANZAS

ON

THE DEATH OF OLIVER CROMWELL.

WRITTEN AFTER HIS FUNERAL.

1658.

AND now 'tis time: for their officious haste
Who would before have borne him to the sky,
Like eager Romans, ere all rites were past,
Did let too soon the sacred eagle fly.

Though our best notes are treason to his fame, Join'd with the loud applause of public voice; Since Heaven, what praise we offer to his name, Hath render'd too authentic by its choice.

Though in his praise no Arts can liberal be,
Since they, whose Muses have the highest flown,
Add not to his immortal memory,

But do an act of friendship to their own:

Yet 'tis our duty and our interest too,

Such monuments as we to build can raise ; Lest all the world prevent what we should do, And claim a title in him by their praise.

How shall I then begin, or where conclude,
To draw a fame so truly circular?

For in a round what order can be show'd,
Where all the parts so equal perfect are?