. Shakespeare, indeed, was not the only
violator of chronology, for in the same age Sidney, who wanted not the
advantages of learning, has, in his _Arcadia_, confounded the pastoral
with the feudal times, the days of innocence, quiet, and security, with
those of turbulence, violence, and adventure.

In his comick scenes he is seldom very successful, when he engages his
characters in reciprocations of smartness and contests of sarcasm; their
jests are commonly gross, and their pleasantry licentious; neither his
gentlemen nor his ladies have much delicacy, nor are sufficiently
distinguished from his clowns by any appearance of refined manners.
Whether he represented the real conversation of his time is not easy to
determine; the reign of Elizabeth is commonly supposed to have been a time
of stateliness, formality, and reserve, yet perhaps the relaxations of
that severity were not very elegant. There must, however, have been always
some modes of gaiety preferable to others, and a writer ought to chuse the
best.

In tragedy his performance seems constantly to be worse, as his labour is
more. The effusions of passion, which exigence forces out, are for the
most part striking and energetick; but whenever he solicits his invention,
or strains his faculties, the offspring of his throes is tumour, meanness,
tediousness, and obscurity.

In narration he affects a disproportionate pomp of diction and a wearisome
train of circumlocution, and tells the incident imperfectly in many words,
which might have been more plainly delivered in few. Narration in
dramatick poetry is naturally tedious, as it is unanimated and inactive,
and obstructs the progress of the action; it should therefore always be
rapid, and enlivened by frequent interruption. Shakespeare found it an
encumbrance, and instead of lightening it by brevity, endeavoured to
recommend it by dignity and splendor.

His declamations or set speeches are commonly cold and weak, for his power
was the power of nature; when he endeavoured, like other tragick writers,
to catch opportunities of amplification, and instead of inquiring what the
occasion demanded, to shew how much his stores of knowledge could supply,
he seldom escapes without the pity or resentment of his reader.

It is incident to him to be now and then entangled with an unwieldy
sentiment, which he cannot well express, and will not reject; he struggles
with it a while, and if it continues stubborn, comprises it in w