No. XCIII. Tuefday, Septembor 25. 1753 Irritat, mulcet, falfis terroribus implet Ut Magus ; & modo me Thebis, modo ponit Athenis, 'Tis he who gives my breaft a thousand pains, HOR POPE. WRITERS of a mixed character, that abound in tranfcendent beauties and in grofs imperfections, are the moft proper and moft pregnant fubjects for criticism. The regularity and correctness of a Virgil or Horace, almost confine their commentators to perpetual panegyric, and afford them few opportunities of diverfifying their remarks by the detection of latent blemishes. For this reafon, I am inclined to think, that a few observations on the writings of Shakespeare, will not be deemed deemed ufelefs or unentertaining, becaufe he exhibits more numerous examples of excellencies and faults, of every kind, than are, perhaps, to be difcovered in any other author. I fhall, therefore, from time to time, examine his merit as a poet, without blind admiration, or wanton invective. As Shakespeare is fometimes blameable for the conduct of his fables, which have no unity and fometimes for his diction, which is obfcure and turgid; fo his characteristical excellencies may poffibly be reduced to these three general heads: "his lively creative ima gination; his ftrokes of nature and paffion; and his "prefervation of the confiftency of his characters." Thefe excellencies, particularly the laft, are of fo much importance in the drama, that they amply compensate for his tranfgreffions against the rules of Time and Place, which being of a more mechanical nature, are often strictly observed by a genius of the loweft order; but to portray characters naturally, and to preferve them uniformly, requires fuch an intimate knowledge of the heart of man, and is fo rare a portion of felicity, as to have been enjoyed, perhaps, only by two writers Homer and Shakespeare. Of all the plays of Shakespeare, the Tempest is the most striking instance of his creative power. He has there given the reins to his boundlefs imagination, and has carried the romantic, the wonderful, and the wild, to the most pleafing extravagance. The fcene is a defolate island; and the characters the most new and fingular that can well be conceived: a prince who practifes magic, an attendant spirit, a monfter the son of a witch, and a young lady who had been brought to this folitude folitude in her infancy, and had never beheld a man except her father. As I have affirmed that Shakespeare's chief excellence is the confiftency of his characters, I will exem-. plify the truth of this remark, by pointing out fome mafter-strokes of this nature in the drama before us. The poet artfully acquaints us that Profpero is a ma▾ gician, by the very first words which his daughter Miranda fpeaks to him: If by your art, my dearest father, you have which intimate that the tempest described in the preceding scene, was the effect of Profpero's power. The manner in which he was driven from his dukedom of Milan, and landed afterwards on this folitary island, accompanied only by his daughter, is immediately introduced in a short and natural narration. The officers of his attendant Spirit, Ariel, are enumerated with amazing wildness of fancy, and yet with equal propriety: his employment is faid to be, -To tread the ooze Of the falt deep : To run upon the fharp wind of the north; -to dive into the fire; to ride On the curl'd clouds. In defcribing the place in which he has concealed the Neapolitan fhip, Ariel expreffes the fecrecy of its fitua tion tion by the following circumftance, which artfully glances at another of his fervices; -In the deep nook, where once Thou call'ft me up at midnight, to fetch dew Ariel, being one of thofe elves or fpirits, whofe pal"time is to make midnight mushrooms, and who re "joice to liften to the folemn curfew ;" by whofe affiftance Profpero has bedimm'd the fun at noon-tide, And 'twixt the green fea and the azur'd vault, has a fet of ideas and images peculiar to his ftation and office; a beauty of the fame kind with that which is fo justly admired in the Adam of Milton, whofe manners and fentiments are all Paradifaical. How delightfully and how fuitably to his character, are the habitations and paftimes of this invifible being pointed out in the following exquifite fong! Where the bee fucks, there fuck I: In a cowflip's bell I lie; There I couch when owls do cry. On the bat's back I do fly, 'After fun fet merrily. Merrily, merrily fhall I live now, Under the bloffom that hangs on the bough. Mr. Pope, whofe imagination has been thought by fome the leaft of his excellencies, has, doubtlefs, con ceived and carried on the machinery in his "Rape of "the Lock," with vast exuberance of fancy. The images, cuftoms, and employments of his Sylphs, are exactly adapted to their natures, are peculiar and appropriated, are all, if I may be allowed the expreffion, Sylphish. The enumeration of the punishments they were to undergo, if they neglected their charge, would, on account of its poetry and propriety, and especially the mixture of oblique fatire, be fuperior to any circumstances in Shakespeare's Ariel, if we could fuppofe Pope to have been unacquainted with the Tempest, when he wrote this part of his accomplished poem. -She did confine thee Into a cloven pine; within which rift A dozen years: within which space she dy'd, groans, As faft as mill-wheels ftrike. If thou more murmur'ft, I will rend an oak, For this, be fure, to-night thou fhalt have cramps, Side-ftitches that shall pen thy breath up: urchins Shall, for that vaft of night that they may work, All exercise on thee; thou shalt be pinch'd As thick as honey-combs, each pinch more ftinging Than bees that made 'em. |