Between the charges here brought against him, of want of nature in the first instance, and of want of skill in the second, he could hardly escape being condemned.  And again, ’But the admirers of this great poet have most reason to complain when he approaches nearest to his highest excellence, and seems fully resolved to sink them in dejection, or mollify them with tender emotions by the fall of greatness, the danger of innocence, or the crosses of love.  What he does best, he soon ceases to do.  He no sooner begins to move than he counteracts himself; and terror and pity, as they are rising in the mind, are checked and blasted by sudden frigidity.’  In all this, our critic seems more bent on maintaining the equilibrium of his style than the consistency or truth of his opinions.—­If Dr. Johnson’s opinion was right, the following observations on Shakespeare’s plays must be greatly exaggerated, if not ridiculous.  If he was wrong, what has been said may perhaps account for his being so, without detracting from his ability and judgement in other things.

It is proper to add, that the account of the midsummer night’s dream has appeared in another work.

April 15, 1817

CYMBELINE

Cymbeline is one of the most delightful of Shakespeare’s historical plays.  It may be considered as a dramatic romance, in which the most striking parts of the story are thrown into the form of a dialogue, and the intermediate circumstances are explained by the different speakers, as occasion renders it necessary.  The action is less concentrated in consequence; but the interest becomes more aerial and refined from the principle of perspective introduced into the subject by the imaginary changes of scene as well as by the length of time it occupies.  The reading of this play is like going [on?] a journey with some uncertain object at the end of it, and in which the suspense is kept up and heightened by the long intervals between each action.  Though the events are scattered over such an extent of surface, and relate to such a variety of characters, yet the links which bind the different interests of the story together are never entirely broken.  The most straggling and seemingly casual incidents are contrived in such a manner as to lead at last to the most complete development of the catastrophe.  The ease and conscious unconcern with which this is effected only makes the skill more wonderful.  The business of the plot evidently thickens in the last act; the story moves forward with increasing rapidity at every step; its various ramifications are drawn from the most distant points to the same centre; the principal characters are brought together, and placed in very critical situations; and the fate of almost every person in the drama is made to depend on the solution of a single circumstance—­the answer of Iachimo to the question of Imogen respecting the obtaining of the ring from Posthumus.  Dr.