Page:The Plays of William Shakspeare (1778).djvu/32

20 His hitories, being neither tragedies nor comedies, are not ubject to any of their laws; nothing more is neceary to all the praie which they expect, than that the changes of action be o prepared as to be undertood, that the incidents be various and affecting, and the characters conitent, natural, and ditinct. No other unity is intended, and therefore none is to be ought.

In his other works he has well enough preerved the unity of action. He has not, indeed, an intrigue regularly perplexed and regularly unravelled; he does not endeavour to hide his deign only to dicover it, for this is eldom the order of real events, and Shakepeare is the poet of nature: but his plan has commonly what Aritotle requires, a beginning, a middle, and an end; one event is concatenated with another, and the concluion follows by eay conequence. There are perhaps ome incidents that might be pared, as in other poets there is much talk that only fills up time upon the tage; but the general ytem makes gradual advances, and the end of the play is the end of expectation.

To the unities of time and place he has hewn no regard; and perhaps a nearer view of the principles on which they tand will diminih their value, and withdraw from them the veneration which, from the time of Corneille, they have very generally received, by dicovering that they have given more trouble to the poet, than pleaure to the auditor. The