quiet delight which we find in the reading of it, to the different
feelings with which a reviewer, and a man that is not a reviewer,
reads a fine poem. The accursed critical habit--the being called upon
to judge and pronounce, must make it quite a different thing to the
former. In seeing these plays acted, we are affected just as judges.
When Hamlet compares the two pictures of Gertrude's first and second
husband, who wants to see the pictures? But in the acting, a
miniature must be lugged out; which we know not to be the picture,
but only to show how finely a miniature may be represented. This
showing of everything levels all things: it makes tricks, bows, and
curtseys, of importance. Mrs. S. never got more fame by anything than
by the manner in which she dismisses the guests in the banquet-scene
in Macbeth: it is as much remembered as any of her thrilling tones or
impressive looks. But does such a trifle as this enter into the
imaginations of the readers of that wild and wonderful scene? Does
not the mind dismiss the feasters as rapidly as it can? Does it care
about the gracefulness of the doing it? But by acting, and judging of
acting, all these non-essentials are raised into an importance,
injurious to the main interest of the play.

I have confined my observations to the tragic parts of Shakspeare. It
would be no very difficult task to extend the inquiry to his
comedies; and to show why Falstaff, Shallow, Sir Hugh Evans, and the
rest, are equally incompatible with stage-representation. The length
to which this Essay has run will make it, I am afraid, sufficiently
distasteful to the Amateurs of the Theatre, without going any deeper
into the subject at present.

* * * * *

CHARACTERS OF DRAMATIC WRITERS,
CONTEMPORARY WITH SHAKSPEAKE.

* * * * *

When I selected for publication, in 1808, "Specimens of English
Dramatic Poets" who lived about the time of Shakspeare, the kind of
extracts which I was anxious to give were not so much passages of wit
and humor, though the old plays are rich in such, as scenes of
passion, sometimes of the deepest quality, interesting situations,
serious descriptions, that which is more nearly allied to poetry than
to wit, and to tragic rather than to comic poetry. The plays which I
made choice of were, with few exceptions, such as treat of human life
and manners, rather than masques and Arcadian pastorals, with their
t