Effect that others have, which turn either upon Ambition, the Love of one’s Country, or Paternal or Filial Tenderness.  Accordingly we find, that few among the Ancients, and hardly any of our Author’s Plays, are built upon the Passion of Love in a direct Manner; by which I mean, that they have not the mutual Attachment of a Lover and his Mistress for their chief Basis.  Love will always make a great Figure in Tragedy, if only its chief Branches be made use of; as for instance, Jealousy (as in Othello) or the beautiful Distress of Man and Wife (as in Romeo and Juliet) but never when the whole Play is founded upon two Lovers desiring to possess each other:  And one of the Reasons for this seems to be, that this last Species of that Passion is more commonly met with than the former, and so consequently strikes us less.  Add to this, that there may a Suspicion arise, that the Passion of Love in a direct Manner may be more sensual than in those Branches which I have mention’d; which Suspicion is sufficient to take from its Dignity, and lessen our Veneration for it.  Of all Shakespeare’s Tragedies, none can surpass this, as to the noble Passions which it naturally raises in us.  That the Reader may see what our Poet had to work upon, I shall insert the Plan of it as abridged from Saxo-Grammaticus’s Danish History by Mr. Theobalds.  “The Historian calls our Poets Hero Amlethus, his Father Horwendillus, his Uncle Fengo, and his Mother Gerutha.  The old King in single Combat, slew Collerus King of Norway; Fengo makes away with his Brother Horwendillus, and marries his Widow Gerutha. Amlethus, to avoid being suspected by his Uncle of Designs, assumes a Form of utter Madness.  A fine Woman is planted upon him, to try if he would yield to the Impressions of Love. Fengo contrives, that Amlethus, in order to sound him, should be closetted by his Mother.  A Man is conceal’d in the Rushes to overhear their Discourse; whom Amlethus discovers and kills.  When the Queen is frighted at this Behaviour of his; he tasks her about her criminal Course of Life, and incestuous Conversation with her former Husband’s Murtherer; confesses his Madness is but counterfeited, to protect himself, and secure his Revenge for his Father; to which he injoins the Queen’s Silence. Fengo sends Amlethus to Britain:  Two of the King’s Servants attend him with Letters to the British King, stricyly pressing the Death of Amlethus, who, in the Night Time, coming at their Commission, overreads it, forms a new One, and turns the Destruction designed towards himself on the Bearers of the Letters. Amlethus returning Home, by a Wile surprizes and kills his Uncle.”  I shall have Occasion to remark in the Sequel, that in one Particular he has follow’d the Plan so closely as to produce an Absurdity in his Plot.  And I must premise also this, that in my Examination