these three, there are requisite in the mind
of the author;--good sense, talent, sensibility, imagination;--and to the
perfection of a work we should add two faculties of lesser importance, yet
necessary for the ornaments and foliage of the column and the roof--fancy
and a quick sense of beauty.

As to language;--it cannot be supposed that the poet should make his
characters say all that they would, or that, his whole drama considered,
each scene, or paragraph should be such as, on cool examination, we can
conceive it likely that men in such situations would say, in that order,
or with that perfection. And yet, according to my feelings, it is a very
inferior kind of poetry, in which, as in the French tragedies, men are
made to talk in a style which few indeed even of the wittiest can be
supposed to converse in, and which both is, and on a moment's reflection
appears to be, the natural produce of the hot-bed of vanity, namely, the
closet of an author, who is actuated originally by a desire to excite
surprise and wonderment at his own superiority to other men,--instead of
having felt so deeply on certain subjects, or in consequence of certain
imaginations, as to make it almost a necessity of his nature to seek for
sympathy,--no doubt, with that honourable desire of permanent action, which
distinguishes genius.--Where then is the difference?--In this that each part
should be proportionate, though the whole may be perhaps, impossible. At
all events, it should be compatible with sound sense and logic in the mind
of the poet himself.

It is to be lamented that we judge of books by books, instead of referring
what we read to our own experience. One great use of books is to make
their contents a motive for observation. The German tragedies have in some
respects been justly ridiculed. In them the dramatist often becomes a
novelist in his directions to the actors, and thus degrades tragedy into
pantomime. Yet still the consciousness of the poet's mind must be diffused
over that of the reader or spectator; but he himself, according to his
genius, elevates us, and by being always in keeping, prevents us from
perceiving any strangeness, though we feel great exultation. Many
different kinds of style may be admirable, both in different men, and in
different parts of the same poem.

See the different language which strong feelings may justify in Shylock,
and learn from Shakespeare's conduct of that character the terrible force
of ev