Shakspeare, of whom an amiable
writer kindly said, in 1723,--"There is certainly a great deal of
entertainment in his comical Humors, and a pleasing and
well-distinguished variety in those characters which he thought fit to
meddle with. His images are indeed everywhere so lively, that the thing
he would represent stands full before you, and you possess every part
of it. His sentiments are great and natural, and his expression just,
and raised in proportion to the subject and occasion." You may laugh at
this as much as you please, Don Bob; but I think it quite as sensible
as many of the criticisms of Samuel Johnson, LL.D.,--as that one of
his, for instance, upon "Measure for Measure," which I never read
without a feeling of personal injury. I should like to know if it is
writing criticism to write,--"Of this play, the light or comic part is
very natural and pleasing; but the grave scenes, if a few passages be
excepted, have more labor than elegance." Now, if old Boltcourt had
written instead, as he might have done, if the fit had been on
him,--"Of this play, the heavy or tragic part is very natural and
pleasing; but the comic scenes, if a few passages be excepted, have
more labor than elegance,"--his remark would have been quite as
sonorous, and just a little nearer the truth. For my own part, I think
there is nothing finer in all Shakspeare than the interview between
Angelo and Isabella, in the Second Act, or that exquisite outburst of
the latter, afterward, "Not with fond shekels of the tested gold,"
which is a line the sugar of which you can sensibly taste as you read
it. Incledon used to wish that his old music-master could come down
from heaven to Norwich, and could take the coach up to London to hear
that d--d Jew sing,--referring thus civilly to the respectable John
Braham. I have sometimes wished that Shakspeare could make a similar
descent, and face his critics. Ah! how much he could tell us over a
single bottle of _Rosa Solis_ at some new "Mermaid" extemporized for
the occasion! What wild work would he make with the commentators long
before we had exhausted the ordinate cups! and how, after we had come
to the inordinate, would he be with difficulty prevented from marching
at once to break the windows of his latest glossator! If anything could
make one sick of "the next age," it would be the shabby treatment which
the Avonian has received. I do not wonder that the illustrious authors
of "Salmagundi" said,--"We b