PLYMOUTH INSTITUTION. 47 



As an acting play, Othello, though more generally excellent 

 than many, would (if now first produced) be endangered by the 

 monstrous villainy of lago, whose indelicacies would shock the 

 ladies, and whose maiming of Cassio and wanton murder of Rod- 

 rigo would be deemed too extravagant. 



The Merchant of Venice would be heard with satisfaction till 

 the final exit of Shylock : but, it is a question whether the tedi- 

 ousness of the remainder would be sufficiently relieved by the 

 beauty of its poetry. 



King Lear, rivetting the attention while the principal character 

 is before the audience, is encumbered by a most heavy underplot 

 and alloyed by a spectacle of offensive barbarity in the destruction 

 of Gloster's eyes. 



Coriolanus and Julias Caesar are perfect in their kind : the 

 skill with which Shakspeare has interwoven the amiable humani- 

 ties of ordinary life with the togaed grandeur of classic Rome, 

 is indeed wonderful. 



Of Titus Andronicus, though some of it be Shaksperian, the 

 mass is truly abominable. 



Troilus and Cressida, with many exquisite passages and several 

 fine scenes is most " lame and impotent'^ " in conclusion." 



The same remark applies to Timon of Athens. 



Of Pericles, as an acting play, little favorable can be said ; but 

 on some future time, we will speak of its partial merits. His 

 bold assertion for the present : — there is not throughout the whole 

 range of Shakspeare's drama a scene more finely imagined or more 

 passionately written than the first of act 5, in this despised and 

 rejected play. 



Hamlet, if now first produced, would I believe be received 

 with a species of bewilderment : arrested by its singularity we 

 should now sit amazed at its intensity, now amused by its sarcasm 

 now charmed by its meditative gentleness, now offended by mean- 

 ness, and finally displeased by a clumsy and bloody catastrophe. 



Romeo and Juliet, with a few omissions becomes all that we 

 can desire in a play of its class. 



Cymbeline keeps our interest alive through the three first acts, 

 after which our patience is put to the test. 



Macbeth has a melo-dramatic tone about it which would cer- 

 tainly have pleased. This is one of the few instances in which 

 Shakspeare has kept up our interest unimpared to the last : and, 

 though ghosts and witches would be deemed impertinent now-a- 

 days, there is a romance and bustle about the play, which, I think, 

 would insure its success. 



