HE that wishes to know the character of any poet ought carefully to consider the age in which he lived. No man can be a poet in the same manner at all times: and, for the same reason, a great poet, who conversed with a rude and barbarous people, will there be admired where the same excellencies would not be regarded among polished nations. To expose the vices of a luxurious and corrupt court, is the province of satire or of moral painting; to speak to the heart of a simple and rustic people is the business of pastoral or descriptive poetry: to be the first that gave his country a language, is the praise of him that labours to be both instructive and delightful.
Shakspeare perhaps exceeded in boldness, but his boldness is that of nature; for he makes the first efforts to set off human life, and shews it in strong colours. He did not, like many modern writers, separate the office of instruction from that of pleasing. He did not put the moral into an apologue, and the passion into an allegory: but, by giving the whole picture to the spectator, he afforded him the pleasure of viewing, and the utility of comparing.
Our author is much less defective in judgment than has been generally supposed. The men who have censured him most, if they had written better plays, would have found greater faults; but he who reads Shakspeare with coolness will perceive many improprieties, which are inseparable from the genius of the author. He sometimes transgresses the rules of unity; he sometimes indulges a licence of language which modern ears blame; and he often confounds the characters of men, by uniting in one person the sentiments of different ages and professions.
It is indeed a strange effect of learning and of philosophy, that they should not have discovered to criticism the works of Shakspeare before the accident of his name; yet criticism is never partial in any age. The tastes of men are various, and the standard of excellence is altered: what was valued by one age is contemned by another. Ancient nations have had different modes of ornament, and have bestowed praise on those qualities which their manner of life required.
The greatest proof of the value of Shakspeare is, that he has pleased all degrees of judges, and all kinds of readers. He has been admired by princes and statesmen, who could judge with authority; by men of taste, who could judge with nicety; and by people, who have judged by sensation. There is no play of his in which the most opposite passions are not represented. He has painted nature without any artifice of philosophy; and therefore he is never exhausted by criticism.
He has been censured for his neglect of the unities, as if all the business of the drama were to be contrived by rules. Those rules were derived from the observation of the ancients, who had their own habits of composition: but the business of the poet is to sue nature on her own terms. If unity be essential to the drama, it is the drama that must be confined: but if variety be desirable, Shakspeare's works must be esteemed singular and excellent.
It is the real defect of Shakspeare that he had no knowledge of men in the most perfect manner; he knew them only as they are: and therefore he often gives their passions the ascendancy over their understandings. He sometimes admits improbable events, and sometimes suffers characters to act inconsistently: but these faults arise from his partiality to strong images, and his impatience of minute operation.
The beauties of Shakspeare are not to be measured by any particular rule. They arise from a power of observation, and a command of language, which rarely exist in the same person. His diction is various; sometimes elevated to sublimity, sometimes reduced to the plainness of rustic life. He is singular in his expressions, because he borrows from all ages and all manners; and thus he enlarges the powers of our language.
He has not studied the niceties of expression, nor the exactness of thought; but he has had a large conception of human life, and has displayed it with warmth and with illumination. He is a writer that delights, not by the elegance of style, but by the vigor of imagination. His characters move not like puppets, but like people that breathe; and therefore, though he be often incorrect, he is always natural.
It is injurious to his memory to represent him as a barbarous and negligent writer. He sometimes writes with extraordinary sweetness; he sometimes shows the learning of ancient times, and sometimes the knowledge of modern philosophy. His errors are the errors of haste and of passion; they are those of a man who wrote from the impulse of nature, and not from the rules of art.
If we consider the defects of Shakspeare, we shall find them reducible to two heads; the confusion of characters, and the neglect of probable and consistent conduct. He sometimes unites in one person the feelings of different ranks; he sometimes makes sudden revolutions in their minds, without preparing the reader or the spectator. These are faults of thought, not of language; and they may be corrected by a judicious editor.
But his faults are compensated by his excellencies. He had a deep knowledge of the passions; and he could paint them with a vigor and fidelity which no language had yet attained. He raised his characters to greatness by the energy of his expression; and therefore his personages have left an impression on the minds of men, which has continued through the changes of taste and of manners.
To censure the faults of Shakspeare is easy; to imitate the compass of his mind is difficult. He saw men in all their varieties; he saw the mixtures of good and evil, of vice and virtue, in every heart. This is not the work of imitation; it is the gift of nature. We may correct his errors, but we cannot improve his discoveries.