en, not like authors. One might suppose
that he had stood by at the time, and overheard what passed. As in our
dreams we hold conversations with ourselves, make remarks, or communicate
intelligence, and have no idea of the answer which we shall receive, and
which we ourselves make, till we hear it: so the dialogues in Shakspeare
are carried on without any consciousness of what is to follow, without any
appearance of preparation or premeditation. The gusts of passion come and
go like sounds of music borne on the wind. Nothing is made out by formal
inference and analogy, by climax and antithesis: all comes, or seems to
come, immediately from nature. Each object and circumstance exists in his
mind, as it would have existed in reality: each several train of thought
and feeling goes on of itself, without confusion or effort. In the world
of his imagination, every thing has a life, a place, and being of its own!

Chaucer's characters are sufficiently distinct from one another, but they
are too little varied in themselves, too much like identical propositions.
They are consistent, but uniform; we get no new idea of them from first to
last; they are not placed in different lights, nor are their subordinate
_traits_ brought out in new situations; they are like portraits or
physiognomical studies, with the distinguishing features marked with
inconceivable truth and precision, but that preserve the same unaltered
air and attitude. Shakspeare's are historical figures, equally true and
correct, but put into action, where every nerve and muscle is displayed in
the struggle with others, with all the effect of collision and contrast,
with every variety of light and shade. Chaucer's characters are narrative,
Shakspeare's dramatic, Milton's epic. That is, Chaucer told only as much
of his story as he pleased, as was required for a particular purpose. He
answered for his characters himself. In Shakspeare they are introduced
upon the stage, are liable to be asked all sorts of questions, and are
forced to answer for themselves. In Chaucer we perceive a fixed essence of
character. In Shakspeare there is a continual composition and
decomposition of its elements, a fermentation of every particle in the
whole mass, by its alternate affinity or antipathy to other principles
which are brought in contact with it. Till the experiment is tried, we do
not know the result, the turn which the character will take in its new
circumstances. Milton took only