46 PLYMOUTH INSTITUTION. 



aiding themselves by darkness and male disguise offends by its 

 repetition. The deceptive likenesses which he also institutes 

 between brother and sister, between men unknown by their wives, 

 and between servants, mistaking themselves, and mistaken by 

 others ; all this far exceeds allowance : " The Comedy of Errors'* 

 is a Comedy of Absurdities. Shakspeare, in fact, took any thing 

 for game which accidentally started up before him ; and seems to 

 have revelled so joyously in the pleasures of the mere chase, that 

 he cared not for the insignificance of that which he pursued. 



Now, while no one can deny that the faults above cited are 

 faults, and therefore, by consequence, that Shakspeare's plays are 

 pervading in faultiness, many will feel inclined to defend the au- 

 thor, on the score of the times in which, and the peculiar circum- 

 stances under which, he wrote: in the anticipation of which 1 

 beg them to distinguish between a defence of Shakspeare and a 

 defence of his works. That the author himself never fancied he 

 had done what was critically defensible, is my firm belief — the 

 perfection of an occasional act, and of many detached scenes, 

 prove that he could scarcely have approved the great majority of 

 his plays as entire works : And I would further defend him by 

 asserting it, as a moat probable fact, that much of what passes 

 under the all powerful influence of his name, is no other than the 

 impertinent matter introduced by the pitiful ambition of the 

 actors who were prone to say " more than was set down for tliem." 



But, to leave the defence of Shakspeare, who, according to my 

 poor notion, suffers very little under the accusation of being a 

 careless play-wright, and who, when we arraign his taste holds 

 up to our critical eye the dazzling mirror of his genius :— to leave 

 this, and proceed in our judgment of his plays, as acting plays, 

 separately so considered : for, though this be unimportant when 

 compared with their intellectual character, it is by no means un- 

 important to our subject, affecting, as it does, the justice of our 

 feelings, towards the productions of modern dramatists. 



Let us take Richard 3rd, Othello, Shylock, and King Lear. These 

 are four plays, the which, not to know and admire, is to argue 

 ones-self ignorant and tasteless. As to Richard 3rd, the acting copy 

 is a standing censure upon the original, for it is rather a compi- 

 lation of Cibber's than the play of Shakspeare. It is but fair to 

 state that much good as well as bad is omitted in the former; 

 though we cannot disapprove of Cibber's having expunged the low 

 abusive speeches of Queen Margaret, which, of themselves would 

 condemn any modern tragedy. 



