To these observations I may add, that though Shakspeare feems to have been well versed in the writings of Chaucer, his plays contain no marks of his acquaintance with the works of Gower, from whose fund of stories not one of his plots is adopted. When I quoted the Confeffio Amantis to illustrate " Florentius' love" in The Taming of a Shrew, it was only because I had then met with no other book in which that tale was related. I ought not to quit the subject of these chorufes without remarking that Gower interpofes no less than fix times in the course of our play, exclusive of his introduction and peroration. Indeed he enters as often as any chasm in the story requires to be fupplied. I do not recollect the fame practice in other tragedies, to which the chorus usually ferves as a prologue, and then appears only between the Acts. Shakspeare's legitimate pieces in which these mediators are found, might still be represented without their aid; but the omiffion of Gower in Pericles would render it so perfectly confused, that the audience might justly exclaim with Othello : -"Chaos is come again."."

Very little that can tend with certainty to establish or oppose our author's exclusive right in this dramatick performance, is to be collected from the dumb shows; for he has no such in his other plays, as will ferve to direct our judgment. These in Pericles are not introduced (in compliance with two ancient cuftoms) at stated periods, or for the sake of adventitious splendor. They do not appear before every Act, like those in Ferrex and Porrex; they are not, like those in Jocafta, merely oftentatious. Such deviations from common practice incline me to believe that originally there were no mute exhibitions at all throughout the piece; but that when Shakspeare undertook to reform it, finding fome parts peculiarly long and uninterefting, he now and then ftruck out the dialogue, and only left the action in its room; ad vising the author to add a few lines to his choruses, as auxiliaries on the occafion. Those whose fate it is to be engaged in the repairs of an old manfion-house, must submit to many aukward expedients, which they would have escaped in a fabrick constructed on their own plan: or it might be observed, that though Shakspeare has expreffed his contempt of fuch dumb shows as were inexplicable, there is no reason to believe he would have pointed the fame ridicule at others which were more eafily understood. I do not readily perceive that the aid of a dumb Show is much more reprehenfible than that of a chorus :

"Segnius irritant animos demissa per aurem
"Quam quæ funt oculis subjecta fidelibus."

If it be observed that the latter will admit of sentiment and poetical imagery, it may be also urged that the former will ferve to furnish out fuch spectacles of magnificence as should by no

:

means appear despicable in a kingdom which has ever encouraged the pomp of lord mayors' feafts, installments, and coronations. I should extend these remarks to an unwarrantable length, or might be tempted to prove that many of Shakspeare's plays exhibit traces of these solemn pantomimes;* though they are too adroitly managed by him to have need of verbal interpretation.

Next it may be remarked, that the valuable parts of Pericles are more diftinguished by their poetical turn, than by variety of character, or command over the paffions. Partial graces are indeed almost the only improvements that the mender of a play already written can easily introduce; for an error in the first concoction can be redeemed by no future process of chemistry. A few flowery lines may here and there be strewn on the furface of a dramatick piece; but these have little power to impregnate its general mass. Character, on the contrary, must be designed at the author's outset, and proceed with gradual congeniality through the whole. In genuine Shakspeare, it infinuates itself every where, with an address like that of Virgil's snakefit tortile collo

"Aurum ingens coluber; fit longæ tænia vittæ,
"Innectitque comas, et membris lubricus errat."

- But the drama before us contains no difcrimination of manners,† (except in the comick dialogues,) very few traces of original thought, and is evidently deftitute of that intelligence and ufeful knowledge that pervade even the meanest of Shakspeare's undisputed performances. To speak more plainly, it is neither enriched by the gems that sparkle through the rubbish of Love's Labour's Loft, nor the good sense which so often fertilizes the barren fable of The Two Gentlemen of Verona. Pericles, in short, is little more than a string of adventures so numerous, so in

** The reader who is willing to pursue this hint, may consult what are now called the stage directions, throughout the folio 1623, in the following pages, I refer to this copy, because it cannot be suspected of modern interpolation. Tempest, p. 13, 15, 16. All's well &c. 234, 238. King Henry VI. P. I. 100, 102, 105. Ditto, P. II. 125, 127, 129. Ditto, P. III. 164. King Henry VIII, 206, 207, 211, 215, 224, 226, 231. Coriolanus, 6, 7. Titus Andronicus, 31. Timon, 82. Macbeth, 135, 144. Hamlet, 267. Antony and Cleopatra, 351, 355. Cymbeline, 392, 393.

+ Those opticks that can detect the smallest vestige of Shakspeare in the character of the Pentapolitan monarch, cannot fail with equal felicity to difcover Helen's beauty in a brow of Egypt, and to find all that should adorn the Graces, in the perfons and conduct of the weird sisters. Compared with this Simonides, the King of Navarre, in Love's Labour's Lost, Theseus, in A Midsummer-Night's Dream, and the Rex fistulatissimus in All's well that ends well, are the rareft compounds of Machiavel and Hercules.

artificially crouded together, and so far removed from probability, that, in my private judgment, I must acquit even the irregular and lawless Shakspeare of having constructed the fabrick of the drama, though he has certainly bestowed some decoration on its parts. Yet even this decoration, like embroidery on a blanket, only serves by contraft to expose the meanness of the original materials. That the plays of Shakspeare have theirinequalities likewise, is sufficiently understood; but they are still the inequalities of Shakspeare. He may occafionally be absurd, but is seldom foolish; he may be censured, but can rarely be despised.

I do not recollect a single plot of Shakspeare's formation (or even adoption from preceding plays or novels) in which the majority of the characters are not so well connected, and so necefsary in respect of each other, that they proceed in combination to the end of the story; unless that story (as in the cases of Antigonus and Mercutio) requires the interpofition of death. In Pericles this continuity is wanting :

"-disjectas moles, avulsaque faxis

"Saxa vides;"

and even with the aid of Gower the scenes are rather loosely tacked together, than closely interwoven. We fee no more of Antiochus after his first appearance. His anonymous daughter utters but one unintelligible couplet, and then vanishes. Simonides likewife is lost as foon as the marriage of Thaisa is over; and the punishment of Cleon and his wife, which poetick justice demanded, makes no part of the action, but is related in a kind of epilogue by Gower. This is at least a practice which in no inftance has received the sanction of Shakspeare. From fuch deficiency of mutual interest, and liaison among the perfonages of the drama, I am further strengthened in my belief that our great poet had no share in constructing it.* Dr. Johnfon long

* It is remarkable, that not a name appropriated by Shakspeare to any character throughout his other plays, is to be found in this. At the same time the reader will observe that, except in fuch pieces as are built on hiftorical subjects, or English fables, he employs the fame proper names repeatedly in

his different dramas.

ago observed that his real power is not feen in the fplendor of particular passages, but in the progress of his fable, and the tenour

To these may be added such as only differ from each other by means of

of his dialogue: and when it becomes neceffary for me to quote a decifion founded on comprehensive views, I can appeal to none in which I should more implicitly confide.-Gower relates the story of Pericles in a manner not quite so desultory; and yet such a tale as that of Prince Appolyn, in its most perfect state, would hardly have attracted the notice of any playwright, except one who was quite a novice in the rules of his art. Mr. Malone indeed observes that our author has pursued the legend exactly as he found it in the Confeffio Amantis, or elsewhere. I can only add, that this is by no means his practice in any other dramas, except such as are merely historical, or founded on facts from which he could not venture to deviate, because they were universally believed. Shakspeare has deserted his originals in As you like it, Hamlet, King Lear, &c. The curious reader may easily convince himself of the truth of these assertions.

That Shakspeare has repeated in his later plays any material circumstances which he had adopted in his more early ones, I am by no means ready to allow. Some fmaller coincidences with himself may perhaps be discovered. Though it be not usual for one architect to build two fabricks exactly alike, he may yet be found to have distributed many ornaments in common over both, and to have fitted up more than one apartment with the same cornice and mouldings. If Pericles should be supposed to bear any general and striking resemblance to The Winter's Tale, let me enquire in what part of the former we are to fearch for the flightest traces of Leontes' jealousy (the hinge on which the fable turns) the noble fortitude of Hermione, the gallantry of Florizel, the spirit of Paulina, or the humour of Autolycus? Two ftories cannot be faid to have much correspondence, when the chief features that diftinguish the one, are entirely wanting in the other.

Mr. Malone is likewife willing to suppose that Shakspeare contracted his dialogue in the last Act of The Winter's Tale, because he had before exhausted himself on the same subject in Pericles. But it is easy to justify this diftinction in our poet's conduct, on other principles. Neither the king or queen of Tyre feels the smallest degree of felf-reproach. They meet with repeated expreffions of rapture, for they were parted only by unprovoked misfortune. They speak without referve, because there is nothing in their story which the one or the other can wish to be suppreffed.-Leontes, on the contrary, seems content to welcome his return of happiness without expatiating on the means by which he had formerly lost it; nor does Hermione recapitalute her fufferings, through fear to revive the memory of particulars which might be construed into a reflection of her husband's jealoufy. The discovery of Marina would likewise admit of clamorous transport, for fimilar reasons; but whatever could be faid on the