lity of truth.

_Shakespeare_ is above all writers, at least above all modern writers,
the poet of nature; the poet that holds up to his readers a faithful
mirrour of manners and of life. His characters are not modified by the
customs of particular places, unpractised by the rest of the world;
by the peculiarities of studies or professions, which can operate
but upon small numbers; or by the accidents of transient fashions or
temporary opinions: they are the genuine progeny of common humanity,
such as the world will always supply, and observation will always
find. His persons act and speak by the influence of those general
passions and principles by which all minds are agitated, and the whole
system of life is continued in motion. In the writings of other poets
a character is too often an individual; in those of _Shakespeare_ it
is commonly a species.

It is from this wide extension of design that so much instruction
is derived. It is this which fills the plays of _Shakespeare_ with
practical axioms and domestic wisdom. It was said of _Euripides_, that
every verse was a precept; and it may be said of _Shakespeare_, that
from his works may be collected a system of civil and oeconomical
prudence. Yet his real power is not shewn in the splendour of
particular passages, but by the progress of his fable, and the
tenour of his dialogue; and he that tries to recommend him by select
quotations, will succeed like the pedant in _Hierocles_, who, when
he offered his house to sale, carried a brick in his pocket as a
specimen.

It will not easily be imagined how much _Shakespeare_ excells in
accommodating his sentiments to real life, but by comparing him with
other authors. It was observed of the ancient schools of declamation,
that the more diligently they were frequented, the more was the
student disqualified for the world, because he found nothing there
which he should ever meet in any other place. The same remark may be
applied to every stage but that of _Shakespeare_. The theatre, when
it is under any other direction, is peopled by such characters as
were never seen, conversing in a language which was never heard, upon
topicks which will never rise in the commerce of mankind. But the
dialogue of this author is often so evidently determined by the
incident which produces it, and is pursued with so much ease and
simplicity, that it seems scarcely to claim the merit of fiction, but
to have been gleaned by diligent selection ou