Page:The Plays of William Shakspeare (1778).djvu/39

Rh opinion, am ready to ink down in reverential ilence; as Æneas withdrew from the defence of Troy, when he aw Neptune haking the wall, and Juno beading the beiegers.

Thoe whom my arguments cannot peruade to give their approbation to the judgment of Shakepeare, will eaily, if they conider the condition of his life, make ome allowance for his ignorance.

Every man’s performances, to be rightly etimated mut be compared with the tate of the age in which he lived, and with his own particular opportunities; and though to a reader a book be not wore or better for the circumtances of the author, yet as there is always a ilent reference of human works to human abilities, and as the enquiry, how far man may extend his deigns, or how high he may rate his native force, is of far greater dignity than in what rank we hall place any particular performance, curioity is always buy to dicover the intruments, as well as to urvey the workmanhip, to know how much is to be acribed to original powers, and how much to caual and adventitious help. The palaces of Peru or Mexico were certainly mean and incommodious habitations, if compared to the houes of European monarchs; yet who could forbear to view them with atonihment, who remembered that they were built without the ue of iron?

The Englih nation, in the time of Shakepeare, was yet truggling to emerge from barbarity. The philology of Italy had been tranplanted hither in the reign