Page:The Plays of William Shakspeare (1778).djvu/30

18 writers, to catch opportunities of amplification, and intead of inquiring what the occaion demanded, to hew how much his tores of knowledge could upply, he eldom ecapes without the pity or reentment of his reader.

It is incident to him to be now and then entangled with an unwieldy entiment, which he cannot well expres, and will not reject; he truggles with it a while, and if it continues tubborn, compries it in words uch as occur, and leaves it to be dientangled and evolved by thoe who have more leiure to betow upon it.

Not that always where the language is intricate the thought is ubtle, or the image always great where the line is bulky; the equality of words to things is very often neglected, and trivial entiments and vulgar ideas diappoint the attention, to which they are recommended by onorous epithets and welling figures.

But the admirers of this great poet have mot reaon to complain when he approaches nearet to his highet excellence, and eems fully reolved to ink them in dejection, and mollify them with tender emotions by the fall of greatnes, the danger of innocence, or the croes of love. What he does bet, he oon ceaes to do. He is not long oft and pathetick without ome idle conceit, or contemptible equivocation. He no ooner begins to move, than he counteracts himelf; and terror and pity, as they are riing in the mind, are checked and blated by udden frigidity. A quibble