286 The Duchess of Newcastle 



certainly Julius Caesar, Augustus Caesar, and Antonius, 

 did never really act their parts better, if so well, as 

 he hath described them, and I believe that Antonius 

 and Brutus did not speak better to the people, than 

 he hath feigned them ; nay, one would think that he 

 had been metamorphosed from a man to a woman, 

 for who could describe Cleopatra better than he hath 

 done, and many other females of his own creating, 

 as Nan Page, Mrs. Page, Mrs. Ford, the doctor's maid, 

 Bettrice, Mrs. Quickly, Doll Tearsheet, and others, 

 too many to relate ? and in his tragick vein, he pre- 

 sents passions so naturally, and misfortunes so 

 probably, as he peirces the souls of his readers with 

 such a true sense and feeling thereof, that it forces 

 tears through their eyes, and almost perswades them 

 they are realh^ actors, or at least present at those 

 tragedies. Who would not swear he had been a 

 noble lover, that could woo so well? and there is 

 not any person he hath described in his book, but his 

 readers might think they were well acquainted with 

 them; indeed Shakespear had a clear judgment, a 

 quick wit, a spreading fancy, a subtil observation, 

 a deep apprehension, and a most eloquent elocution ; 

 truly, he was a natural orator, as well as a natural 

 poet, and he was not an orator to speak well only on 

 some subjects, as lawyers, who can make eloquent 

 orations at the bar, and plead subtilly and wittily 

 in law cases, or divines, that can preach eloquent 

 sermons, or dispute subtilly and wittily in theology, 

 but take them from that, and put them to other 

 subjects, and they will be to seek; but Shakespear's 

 wit and eloquence was general, for, and upon all 

 subjects, he rather wanted subjects for his wit and 

 eloquence to work on, for which he was forced to 

 take some of his plots out of history, where he only 



