not a hint from Dryden; and it carries us, instantly, deep into a most
interesting study of comparisons. As of Macbeth and Richard III., both
murderous usurpers, as different as two men can well be; of Leontes and
Othello, two jealous husbands, and as different, even in their jealousy,
as two men can be; of Coriolanus and Hotspur, each an earthly Mars; each
"the soul of honour;" each sudden in passion, impetuous, and ungovernable;
each with a kindliness of nature that draws and attaches his friends as
much as the superiority of his character overrules them; each with a
rough, abrupt, penetrating strength of intellect; each endowed, which is
more peculiar, with vivid imagination, that leaps into bold poetical
figures; each of a cutting wit, and, in his own way, humourous pleasantry;
and yet the semi-traditionary Roman patrician, and the quite historical
English earl's son, so distinct that you shall read the two plays, in
which they are, ten and twenty times over, without thinking of putting the
towering heroes, twinned by so many, so marked, and so profound
affinities, upon a line of comparison. Or put all Shakspeare's gallant
warriors in a catalogue, and what a diversified list have you drawn up!
Hector, Troilus, Diomed, Coriolanus, Tullus Aufidius, Mark Antony,
Othello, Cassio, nay, and Iago, Falconbridge, Hotspur, Glendower,
Mortimer, Henry V., Talbot, Warwick, Richard III., Richmond, Macbeth,
Banquo, Macduff, Old Seward, Edmund, Edgar, Benedict, Bertram, are some of
them; for Shakspeare like Scott loved a good soldier. Compare the
melancholy Hamlet and the melancholy Jaques; both shrewd observers of men;
both given to philosophizing; and yet different--Heaven knows. And so on.
Thus, the remark of Pope goes to the root of Shakspeare's creative art,
and leads you into a method of thinking, not soon exhausted.

We endeavour, says Dryden, to follow the VARIETY and greatness of
characters that are derived to us from Shakspeare and Fletcher. But does
this most general attribution of a characteristic--shared with
Fletcher--and such as the loosest observation of the plays forces upon the
most uncritical reader--does the accident that Dryden left this inevitable
word "VARIETY" written, make the critical observation of Pope no more than
a "diffusing" and "paraphrasing" of Dryden's "Epitome?" Has he only
"changed Dryden's gold for baser metal, of lower value, though of greater
bulk?" It would at least be as near the truth to sa