therefore the Images of Life were to be
drawn from those of their own rank: accordingly we find that not our
Author's only but almost all the old Comedies have their Scene among
_Tradesmen_ and _Mechanicks_: And even their Historical Plays strictly
follow the common _Old Stories_ or _Vulgar Traditions_ of that kind of
people. In Tragedy, nothing was so sure to _Surprize_ and cause
_Admiration_, as the most strange, unexpected, and consequently most
unnatural, 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
buffoonry, vile ribaldry, and unmannerly jests of fools and clowns. Yet
even in these our Author's Wit buoys up, and is born 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 piqu'd themselves upon
any great degree of knowledge or nicety that way, till _Ben Johnson_
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 follow'd the thread of any Novel as they found it, no less
implicitly than if it had been true History.

To judge therefore of _Shakespear_ 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 the Learned, as without the advantage of education or
acquaintance among them: without that knowledge of the best models, the
Ancients, to inspire him with an emulation of them; in a word, without any
views of Reputation, and of what Poets are pleas'd to call Immortality:
Some or all of which have en