turday, I fuppofe your tutor will have no ob"jection; but be fure to put on your great "coat, and to take a chair in coming home." "I thought," faid I," that we might have "made fome progrefs at our books this even"ing."" Books on Saturday afternoon," cried the whole company, "it was never heard "of."-I yielded to conviction; for, indeed, it would have been very unreasonable to expect that he, who had spent the whole week in idlenefs, fhould begin to apply himself to his studies on the evening of Saturday.

I am, SIR, &c.

HYPODIDASCALUS.

N° 99.

TUESDAY, April 18, 1780.

Juvat, aut impellit ad iram,

Aut ad humum, mærore gravi, deducit et angit.

HOR.

RITICISM, like every thing elfe, is sub

CRIT

ject to the prejudices of our education, or of our country. National prejudice, indeed, is, of all deviations from juftice, the most common and the moft allowable; it is a near, though perhaps an illegitimate, relation of that patriotism, which has been ranked, among the first virtues of characters, the moft eminent and illuftrious. To authors, however, of a rank fo elevated as to afpire to univerfal fame, the partiality of their countrymen has been fometimes prejudicial; in proportion as they have unreasonably applauded, the critics of other countries, from a very common fort of feeling, have unreasonably cenfured; and there are few great writers, whom prejudice on either fide may not, from a partial view of their works, find fome ground for estimating at a rate much above or much below the ftandard of justice.

No author, perhaps, ever exifted, of whom opinion has been fo various as Shakespeare. En

dowed

dowed with all the fublimity, and fubject to all the irregularities, of genius, his advocates have room for unbounded praise, and their opponents for frequent blame. His departure from all the common rules which criticifm, fomewhat arbitrarily, perhaps, has impofed, leaves no legal code by which the decifion can be regulated; and, in the feelings of different readers, the fame paffage may appear fimple or mean, natural or prepofterous, may excite admiration, or create difguft.

But it is not, I apprehend, from particular paffages or incidents that Shakespeare is to be judged. Though his admirers frequently contend for beauty in the most diftorted of the former, and probability in the most unaccountable of the latter; yet it must be owned, that, in both, there are often grofs defects which criticifm cannot juftify, though the fituation of the poet, and the time in which he wrote, may eafily excufe. But we are to look for the fuperiority of Shakespeare in the astonishing and almoft fupernatural powers of his invention, his abfolute command over the paffions, and his wonderful knowledge of Nature. Of the ftructure of his stories, or the probability of his incidents, he is frequently careless; thefe he took, at random, from the legendary tale, or the extravagant romance; but his intimate acquaintance

quaintance with the human mind feldom or never forfakes him; and, amidft the most fantastic and improbable fituations, the perfons of his drama fpeak in the language of the heart, and in the ftyle of their characters.

Of all the characters of Shakespeare, that of Hamlet has been generally thought the most difficult to be reduced to any fixed or fettled principle. With the ftrongest purposes of revenge he is irrefolute and inactive; amidft the gloom of the deepest melancholy, he is gay and jocular; and, while he is defcribed as a paffionate lover, he feems indifferent about the object of his affections. It may be worth while to enquire, whether any leading idea can be found, upon which thefe apparent contradictions may be reconciled, and a character fo pleafing in the closet, and fo much applauded on the ftage, rendered as unambiguous in the general as it is ftriking in detail? I will venture to lay before my readers fome observations on this fubject, though with the diffidence due to a question of which the Public has doubted, and much abler critics have already written.

The bafis of Hamlet's character feems to be an extreme fenfibility of mind, apt to be strongly impreffed by its fituation, and overpowered by the feelings which that fituation excites. Naturally of the most virtuous and moft amiable difpofitions,

difpofitions, the circumftances in which he was placed unhinged thofe principles of action, which, in another fituation, would have delighted mankind, and made himself happy. That kind of diftrefs which he fuffered was, beyond all others, calculated to produce this effect. His misfortunes were not the misfortunes of accident, which, though they may overwhelm at first, the mind will foon call up reflections to alleviate, and hopes to cheer; they were fuch as reflection only ferves to irritate, fuch as rankle, in the foul's tendereft part, her fenfe of virtue, and feelings of natural affection; they arose from an uncle's villany, a mother's guilt, a father's murder!-- Yet, amidft the gloom of melancholy, and the agitation of paffion, in which his calamities involve him, there are occafional breakings-out of a mind, richly endowed by nature, and cultivated by education. We perceive gentleness in his demeanour, wit in his converfation, tafte in his amufements, and wifdom in his reflections.

That Hamlet's character, thus formed by Nature, and thus modelled by fituation, is often variable and uncertain, I am not difpofed to deny. I will content myself with the suppofition, that this is the very character which Shakespeare meant to allot him. Finding fuch a character in real life, of a perfon endowed