and Impatience of Coriolanus, his Courage and Disdain of the common People, the Virtue and Philosophical Temper of Brutus, and the irregular Greatness of Mind in M.  Antony, are beautiful Proofs.  For the two last especially, you find ’em exactly as they are describ’d by Plutarch, from whom certainly Shakespear copy’d ’em.  He has indeed follow’d his Original pretty close, and taken in several little Incidents that might have been spar’d in a Play.  But, as I hinted before, his Design seems most commonly rather to describe those great Men in the several Fortunes and Accidents of their Lives, than to take any single great Action, and form his Work simply upon that.  However, there are some of his Pieces, where the Fable is founded upon one Action only.  Such are more especially, Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet, and Othello.  The Design in Romeo and Juliet, is plainly the Punishment of their two Families, for the unreasonable Feuds and Animosities that had been so long kept up between ’em, and occasion’d the Effusion of so much Blood.  In the management of this Story, he has shewn something wonderfully Tender and Passionate in the Love-part, and vary Pitiful in the Distress. Hamlet is founded on much the same Tale with the Electra of Sophocles.  In each of ’em a young Prince is engag’d to Revenge the Death of his Father, their Mothers are equally Guilty, are both concern’d in the Murder of their Husbands, and are afterwards married to the Murderers.  There is in the first Part of the Greek Trajedy, something very moving in the Grief of Electra; but as Mr. D’Acier has observ’d, there is something very unnatural and shocking in the Manners he has given that Princess and Orestes in the latter Part. Orestes embrues his Hands in the Blood of his own Mother; and that barbarous Action is perform’d, tho’ not immediately upon the Stage, yet so near, that the Audience hear Clytemnestra crying out to AEghystus for Help, and to her Son for Mercy:  While Electra, her Daughter, and a Princess, both of them Characters that ought to have appear’d with more Decency, stands upon the Stage and encourages her Brother in the Parricide.  What Horror does this not raise! Clytemnestra was a wicked Woman, and had deserv’d to Die; nay, in the truth of the Story, she was kill’d by her own Son; but to represent an Action of this Kind on the Stage, is certainly an Offence against those Rules of Manners proper to the Persons that ought to be observ’d there.  On the contrary, let us only look a little on the Conduct of Shakespear. Hamlet is represented with the same Piety towards his Father, and Resolution to Revenge his Death, as Orestes; he has the same Abhorrence for his Mother’s Guilt, which, to provoke him the more, is heighten’d by Incest:  But ’tis with wonderful Art and Justness of Judgment, that the Poet restrains him from doing Violence to his Mother.  To prevent any thing of that Kind, he makes his Father’s Ghost forbid that part of his Vengeance.