with tragi-comedy in any of its
forms. He hates puns and bombast, demands refinement in speech and
restraint in manners. He regards Hamlet's speeches to Ophelia in the
Player scene as a violation of propriety, is shocked by the lack of
decency in the representation of Ophelia's madness, finds Hamlet's
frequent levity and the buffoonery of Polonius alike regrettable
--Shakespeare's favorite foible, he feels, is "that of raising a laugh."
The introduction of Fortinbras and his army on the stage is "an Absurdity";
the grave-diggers' scene is "very unbecoming to tragedy"; the satire on
the "Children of the Chapel" is not allowable in this kind of piece.

In all these things Anonymous is an upholder of the tradition of true,
restrained wit. But unlike some of his contemporaries, he has a formula
for discounting faults. "But we should be very cautious in finding Fault
with Men of such exalted Genius as our Author certainly was, lest we
should blame them when in reality the Fault lies in our own slow
Conceptions ..." This is the language of tolerance, a tolerance that can
overlook faults for the sake of greater beauties--one of the distinct
marks of the new criticism to which the _Remarks_ belongs.

The essay starts out in a boldly challenging tone. Criticism, says the
author, has been badly abused: it has been regarded as an excuse for the
ill-natured to find fault or for the better-natured to eulogize. But
true criticism has for its end "to set in the best light all Beauties,
and to touch upon Defects no more than is necessary." Beyond this it
seeks to set up a right taste for the age. His own purpose is to examine
a great tragedy "according to the Rules of Reason and Nature, without
having any regard to those Rules established by arbitrary Dogmatizing
Critics ..." More specifically, he proposes to show the why of our
pleasure in this piece: "And as to those things which charm by a certain
secret Force, and strike us we know not how, or why; I believe it will
not be disagreeable, if I shew to everyone the Reason why they are
pleas'd ..." This, it need hardly be observed, is all pretty much in
the vein of Addison, whom the author extols and whose papers on
_Paradise Lost_, he tells us, have furnished a model for the present
undertaking. Throughout his criticism Addison had deprecated mere
fault-finding and had urged the positive approach of emphasis on
beauties. In the last twelve essays on Milton's poem he had shown a new
w