ifestly raised above those of his former. The dates of his plays
sufficiently evidence that his productions improved, in proportion to
the respect he had for his auditors. And I make no doubt this
observation would be found true in every instance, were but editions
extant, from which we might learn the exact time when every piece was
composed, and whether writ for the town or the court."

Pope here apologises for the very middling sort of company which
Shakspeare, in his Comedies, obliges us to keep, by the obligation he was
under of "holding the mirror up to" his hearers, who being, for the most
part, "the meaner sort of people," would only duly recognise and
sympathize with "images of life drawn from those of their own rank." And
so we have a pardonable cause, wherefore "our author's" (like "almost all
the old") Comedies, HAVE THEIR SCENE among TRADESMEN and MECHANICS;" and
some excuse for the degradation of history by the historical plays, which
strictly follow the common OLD STORIES or VULGAR TRADITIONS of that sort
of people.

The DEFENCE is kindly; and bears with it, we must acknowledge, a specious
air. In the mean time, here lacks surely something to the regular ordering
of the trial. Where, we should be glad to know, is the CORPUS DELICTI?
Before justifying, let us hear some witnesses to the OFFENCE. Let us call
over the Comedies. Here is the roll of them.

THE TEMPEST!--_Dramatis Personae:_--Alonso, KING of Naples;--Sebastian, HIS
BROTHER;--Prospero, the RIGHTFUL DUKE of Milan!--Antonio, HIS BROTHER, the
USURPING DUKE of Milan!--Ferdinand, SON TO THE KING OF NAPLES!--Gonzalo,
an honest old COUNSELLOR of Naples!--Adrian, Francisco, LORDS!--Really, we
are afraid that all the ignobler males left, Caliban, a savage and
deformed SLAVE; Trinculo, a JESTER; Stephano, a drunken BUTLER; the MASTER
OF A SHIP, the BOATSWAIN, and MARINERS--will not, any more than Miranda,
with Ariel and the Spirits who personate in Prospero's masque, and who
clear out the playbill, suffice to lay THE SCENE of the "Tempest" AMONG
tradesmen and mechanics. Next come, handsomely cloaked and feathered in
old Italian garb, "The TWO GENTLEMEN of Verona!"

But we will not spare, any further, the curious reader the labour of
turning over the leaves of his own copy, or of his memory. The truth is,
as every reader's recollection at once answers, that the rule for the
comedy of Shakspeare, respectively to the social degrees