owever, the
players have struck these buffooneries (which indeed were calculated
merely for the dregs of the people) out of Otway's tragedy; but they have
still left in Shakspeare's _Julius Caesar_ the jokes of the Roman
shoemakers and cobblers, who are introduced in the same scene with Brutus
and Cassius. You will undoubtedly complain, that those who have hitherto
discoursed with you on the English stage, and especially on the
celebrated Shakspeare, have taken notice only of his errors; and that no
one has translated any of those strong, those forcible passages which
atone for all his faults. But to this I will answer, that nothing is
easier than to exhibit in prose all the silly impertinences which a poet
may have thrown out; but that it is a very difficult task to translate
his fine verses. All your junior academical sophs, who set up for
censors of the eminent writers, compile whole volumes; but methinks two
pages which display some of the beauties of great geniuses, are of
infinitely more value than all the idle rhapsodies of those commentators;
and I will join in opinion with all persons of good taste in declaring,
that greater advantage may be reaped from a dozen verses of Homer of
Virgil, than from all the critiques put together which have been made on
those two great poets.

I have ventured to translate some passages of the most celebrated English
poets, and shall now give you one from Shakspeare. Pardon the blemishes
of the translation for the sake of the original; and remember always that
when you see a version, you see merely a faint print of a beautiful
picture. I have made choice of part of the celebrated soliloquy in
_Hamlet_, which you may remember is as follows:--

"To be, or not to be? that is the question!
Whether 't is nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing, end them? To die! to sleep!
No more! and by a sleep to say we end
The heart-ache, and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to! 'Tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wished. To die! to sleep!
To sleep; perchance to dream! O, there's the rub;
For in that sleep of death, what dreams may come
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause. There's the respect
That makes calamity of so long life:
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
The oppressor's wrong, the po