n some, more accurately than any: he better understands
nature of the human frame, and the situation and power of its muscles
than any man who ever played, nor has any man ever understood it like
him as a science: there is an air of truth in all his figures, a
greatness and severity in many of them that demand the utmost praise:
and in the whole, if nature has qualified him less for shining in some
of the most conspicuous parts than many, none has fewer faults.

* * * * *

_King Lear._

A correspondent has in a former number made some remarks on the
corruptions, or, as they are called, alterations and adaptations of the
plays of Shakspeare. As he has not prosecuted the subject, I will, with
your permission, say a word or two on that vilest and most infamous of
literary treasons, Tate's burlesque of king Lear.

This tragedy, as written by Shakspeare, is in my opinion the very
noblest of our author's works; and by the generality of critics, I
believe, none of his plays are absolutely preferred to it, except
Macbeth. It is inconceivable how any one could think such a play
required an alteration beyond the omission of the fool's character; and
still more so, how Tate's transformation of it could have been at first
endured by the nation: but that it should have been constantly
represented at our national theatres for nearly one hundred and thirty
years to the total exclusion of Shakspeare's divine drama, would be a
circumstance totally incredible, were it not verified by experience,
that the majority of an audience are very little troubled with a spirit
of inquiry, and are no doubt ignorant of the vast difference between the
two dramas. The play, as now performed "has the upper gallery on its
side;" whose members, being unacquainted with Shakspeare's tragedy, are
enchanted by the mad scenes, mangled as they are, and by all that it is
retained of the original, and therefore they applaud the whole, and
witness its repetition. But it never could be inferred from their
applauses, that even these spectators prefer Tate's play to
Shakspeare's; there is no comparison in the case: they applaud the one,
because they are pleased with it, not because they are displeased with
the other, which they never saw, and of which they know nothing. Let the
classical manager of ---- ---- theatre make a trial; it will be worthy
his ambition to introduce a reformation, which even Garrick overlooked;
and he may be