THE POEMS OF SHAKSPEARE. 451 



quisite grace * and unobtrusive observance of nature, with which he 

 contrives to leave on the mind a general moral effect, gathered from the 

 discordant examples of society. 



But there is a heavier charge against Shakspeare, which Johnson 

 would not produce, but which we will ; that is, the leaning of his politics 

 to prerogative, and the false ideas, which, from the force of his genius, 

 he has been enabled to convey to posterity of English history. All the 

 concealed bias of his historic drama, (for he is too great a master of his 

 art, to make himself the open advocate of sect or party ; and his objects 

 in politics, as in morals, are effected by secret impulses,) is to check that 

 spirit of democratical enthusiasm, the growth of which, especially in the 

 breasts of the puritans, must have been obvious to the clear-sighted 

 spirits of England, ere the timbers of the fatal ship f " Soveraigne" 

 were yet green acorns. Much allowance should be made for the preju- 

 dice of a player against the puritans, those avowed enemies of the stage, 

 whose successful rebellion, and the subsequent restoration, have since 

 proved a death-blow to the genuine English drama : much indulgence 

 should be granted, in the particular of passive obedience, to " the king's 

 majestie's servants," who might suppose themselves in duty and by 

 wages bound to speak for their master. However great may be a man's 

 talents, they must ever take a colour, more or less marked, from the pre- 

 judice of the day ; and Shakspeare' s doctrines will appear sound and 

 moderate, when compared with the party spirit of Johnson ; who fas- 

 tened with the angry indefatigable grin of a bull- dog, on the nose (lite- 

 rally speaking) of puritanism ; or, with the gross servility of the high- 

 born Beaumont and Fletcher, who deformed the plot of their most beau- 

 tiful play by the weakness of a warrior, who would fight his best friend 

 for a look, and yet endures with patience the most stinging wrongs ra- 

 ther than violate the divine right of + kings to commit them. In con- 

 sidering that coloured mass of British story, which Shakspeare has 

 bequeathed us, we should never forget that he wrote, at least in part, 

 under the house of Tudor ; (nor was the change of house in his latter 

 period, a change for the better,) a family, who by their connexion with 

 great events, which in their effects still continue to influence the national 

 opinion, have obtained a vantage-spot in public estimation, of which 



* There does not exist a better example of this intention to obviate evil, than 

 the silent refutation of Jacques's magnificent misanthropy, where he has closed his 

 tirade against human nature, with that disheartening description of extreme age 



"Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans every thing," 



by the immediate entrance of Orlando with Adam. What more beautiful antidote 

 to discontent, what more effectual sweetener of Jacques's bitterness, than the ap- 

 pearance of one, whose age was " as a lusty winter, frosty, but kindly ?" 



| The name of the ship for which Hampden refused to pay, ** the building of 

 which cost his Majesty the affection of his subjects, who quarrelled with him," 

 says Evelyn, with a cavalier candour, " for a trifle, refusing to contribute to their 

 own safety or his glory." 



J So antiquated, in its literal force, is the doctrine of divine right, that the for- 

 bearance of Amyntor in the Maid's Tragedy appears now unnatural ; yet we fear 

 there were many in Beaumont's time who would have acted similarly. In like 

 manner, we have lost all conception of the effects produced on the army of the 

 rebel slaves in Justin, by the Scythians shaking scourges at them. 



