in him to compare with the
_Misanthrope_, the _Ecole des Femmes_, or _Tartuffe_.

_Boileau_.--This, Mr. Pope, is a great deal for an Englishman to
acknowledge. A veneration for Shakespeare seems to be a part of your
national religion, and the only part in which even your men of sense are
fanatics.

_Pope_.--He who can read Shakespeare, and be cool enough for all the
accuracy of sober criticism, has more of reason than taste.

_Boileau_.--I join with you in admiring him as a prodigy of genius,
though I find the most shocking absurdities in his plays--absurdities
which no critic of my nation can pardon.

_Pope_.--We will be satisfied with your feeling the excellence of his
beauties. But you would admire him still more if you could see the chief
characters in all his test tragedies represented by an actor who appeared
on the stage a little before I left the world. He has shown the English
nation more excellencies in Shakespeare than the quickest wits could
discern, and has imprinted them on the heart with a livelier feeling than
the most sensible natures had ever experienced without his help.

_Boileau_.--The variety, spirit, and force of Mr. Garrick's action have
been much praised to me by many of his countrymen, whose shades I
converse with, and who agree in speaking of him as we do of Baron, our
most natural and most admired actor. I have also heard of another, who
has now quitted the stage, but who had filled, with great dignity, force,
and elevation, some tragic parts, and excelled so much in the comic, that
none ever has deserved a higher applause.

_Pope_.--Mr. Quin was, indeed, a most perfect comedian. In the part of
Falstaff particularly, wherein the utmost force of Shakespeare's humour
appears, he attained to such perfection that he was not an actor; he was
the man described by Shakespeare; he was Falstaff himself! When I saw
him do it the pleasantry of the fat knight appeared to me so bewitching,
all his vices were so mirthful, that I could not much wonder at his
having seduced a young prince even to rob in his company.

_Boileau_.--That character is not well understood by the French; they
suppose it belongs, not to comedy, but to farce, whereas the English see
in it the finest and highest strokes of wit and humour. Perhaps these
different judgments may be accounted for in some measure by the diversity
of manners in different countries. But don't you allow, Mr. Pope, that
our writers, both of trag