• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

By Root 20241 0

made him a thief, lying, cowardly, vain-glorious, and in short every way vicious, yet he has given him so much wit as to make him almost too agreeable; and I don't know whether some people have not, in remembrance of the diversion he had formerly afforded 'em, been sorry to see his friend Hal use him so scurvily, when he comes to the crown in the end of the second part of Henry the Fourth. Amongst other extravagances, in The Merry Wives of Windsor, he has made him a Deer-stealer, that he might at the same time remember his Warwickshire prosecutor, under the name of Justice Shallow; he has given him very near the same coat of arms which Dugdale, in his Antiquities of that county, describes for a family there, and makes the Welsh parson descant very pleasantly upon 'em. That whole play is admirable; the humours are various and well oppos'd; the main design, which is to cure Ford of his unreasonable jealousie, is extremely well conducted. Falstaff's Billet-Doux, and Master Slender's

Ah! Sweet Ann Page!

are very good expressions of love in their way. In Twelfth-Night there is something singularly ridiculous and pleasant in the fantastical steward Malvolio. The parasite and the vain-glorious in Parolles, in All's Well that ends Well, is as good as any thing of that kind in Plautus or Terence. Petruchio, in The Taming of the Shrew, is an uncommon piece of humour. The conversation of Benedick and Beatrice, in Much Ado about Nothing, and of Rosalind in As you like it, have much wit and sprightliness all along. His clowns, without which character there was hardly any play writ in that time, are all very entertaining: And, I believe, Thersites in Troilus and Cressida, and Apemantus in Timon, will be allow'd to be master-pieces of ill nature and satyrical snarling. To these I might add that incomparable character of Shylock the Jew in The Merchant of Venice; but tho' we have seen that play receiv'd and acted as a Comedy, and the part of the Jew perform'd by an excellent Comedian, yet I cannot but think it was design'd tragically by the Author. There appears in it such a deadly spirit of revenge, such a savage fierceness and fellness, and such a bloody designation of cruelty and mischief, as cannot agree either with the stile or characters of Comedy. The Play it self, take it all together, seems to me to be one of the most finish'd of any of Shakespear's. The tale indeed, in that part relating to the caskets, and the extravagant and unusual kind of bond given by Antonio, is a little too much remov'd from the rules of probability: But taking the fact for granted, we must allow it to be very beautifully written. There is something in the friendship of Antonio to Bassanio very great, generous, and tender. The whole fourth act, supposing, as I said, the fact to be probable, is extremely fine. But there are two passages that deserve a particular notice. The first is, what Portia says in praise of mercy, and the other on the power of musick. The melancholy of Jaques, in As you like it, is as singular and odd as it is diverting. And if what Horace says,

Difficile est proprie communia dicere,

'twill be a hard task for any one to go beyond him in the description of the several degrees and ages of man's life, tho' the thought be old, and common enough.

——All the World's a Stage,

And all the men and women meerly Players;

They have their Exits and their Entrances,

And one man in his time plays many Parts,

His Acts being seven Ages. At first the Infant

Mewling and puking in the nurse's arms:

And then, the whining School-boy with his satchel,

And shining morning-face, creeping like snail

Unwillingly to school. And then the Lover

Sighing like furnace, with a woful ballad

Made to his Mistress' eye-brow. Then a Soldier

Full of strange oaths, and bearded like the Pard,

Jealous in honour, sudden and quick in quarrel,

Seeking the bubble Reputation

Ev'n in the cannon's mouth. And then the Justice

In fair round belly, with good capon lin'd,

With eyes severe, and beard of formal cut,

Full of wise saws and modern instances;

And so