Page:The Plays of William Shakspeare (1778).djvu/47

Rh we are not to look for his beginning, like thoe of other writers, in his leat perfect works; art had o little, and nature o large a hare in what he did, that for ought I know, ays he, the performances of his youth, as they were the mot vigorous, were the bet. But the power of nature is only the power of uing to any certain purpoe the materials which diligence procures, or opportunity upplies. Nature gives no man knowledge, and when images are collected by tudy and experience, can only ait in combining or applying them. Shakepeare, however favoured by nature, could impart only what he had learned; and as he mut increae his ideas, like other mortals, by gradual acquiition, he, like them, grew wier as he grew older, could diplay life better, as he knew it more, and intruct with more efficacy, as he was himelf more amply intructed.

There is a vigilance of obervation and accuracy of ditinction which books and precepts cannot confer; from this amot all original and native excellence proceeds. Shakepeare mut have looked upon mankind with perpicacity, in the highet degree curious and attentive. Other writers borrow their characters from preceding writers, and diverify them only by the accidental appendages of preent manners; the dres is a little varied, but the body is the ame. Our author had both matter and form to provide; for, except the characters of Chaucer, to whom I think he is not much indebted, there were no writers in Englih, and perhaps not many in other modern languages, which hewed life in its native colours. Rh