l, events and
incidents; the most exaggerated thoughts; the most verbose and
bombast expression; the most pompous rhymes, and thundering
versification. In comedy, nothing was so sure to _please_ as mean
buffoonery, vile ribaldry, and unmannerly jests of fools and clowns.
Yet even in these, our author's wit buoys up, and is borne above his
subject; his genius in those low parts is like some prince of a
romance in the disguise of a shepherd or peasant; a certain greatness
and spirit now and then break out, which manifest his higher
extraction and qualities.

"It may be added, that not only the common audience had no notion of
the rules of writing, but few even of the better sort piqued
themselves upon any great degree of knowledge or nicety that way;
till Ben Jonson, getting possession of the stage, brought critical
learning into vogue; and that this was not done without difficulty,
may appear from those frequent lessons (and indeed almost
declamations) which he was forced to prefix to his first plays, and
put into the mouth of his actors, the _grex_, _chorus_, &c., to
remove the prejudices, and inform the judgment of his hearers. Till
then, our authors had no thoughts of writing on the model of the
ancients: their tragedies were only histories in dialogue; and their
comedies followed the thread of any novel as they found it, no less
implicitly than if it had been true history.

"To judge, therefore, of Shakspeare by Aristotle's rules, is like
trying a man by the laws of one country, who acted under those of
another. He writ to the _people_; and writ at first without patronage
from the better sort, and therefore without aims of pleasing them:
without assistance or advice from them: learned, as without the
advantage of education or acquaintance among them; without that
knowledge of the best of models, the ancients, to inspire him with an
emulation of them: in a word, without any views of reputation, and of
what poets are pleased to call immortality: some or all of which have
encouraged the vanity, or animated the ambition, of other writers.

"Yet it must be observed, that when his performances had merited the
protection of his prince, and when the encouragement of the court had
succeeded to that of the town, the works of his riper years are
man