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to shew imitation and oftener curious coinci dences. Many of these tend to confirm the Remarks of Sir John Suckling: others will give an idea of Shakespeare's scriptural Memory.

Some, possibly, will remind the Reader of the Preface of Cervantes to his Knight of La Mancha: they are so easy and so obvious. But I regard Shakespeare as a man of assiduous reading and wonderful acuteness, range, and fulness of observation, rather than of abstruse learning. Where, therefore, he may have either imitated, or occasionally translated, we must expect to find him chiefly conversant in Authors that were well known in his day*.

General References are given; chapter and page are seldom quoted; the passages generally being well known. Much pains, as will be seen by those who attend to such particulars, has been taken in forming the Index: which will enable the Reader to find at once what Shakespeare has said on any particular Topic. Some attention has been given to concentrate the object and bearing of the Aphorism into the shortest compass: or

* The Progress, however, of my observations, has tended to increase my opinion of the knowledge of Shakespeare in

It'

etry.

when that could not be done more concisely than in the Aphorism itself, then to express the subject in a single word. Considering the use of this, and the almost impossibility of forming an Index that should be useful or intelligible without it, I trust it will not be thought that such Heads to the Aphorisms are superfluous. An Expla nation is added of the Marks used, where there is the least alteration made,

I add an Appendix from the Miscellaneous Poems of Shakespeare: consisting of Aphorisms and of Practical Reflections containing Aphorisms, which are, as it were, embost with brilliant imagery, like ore of iron, silver, or gold, running in veins amid pyrites and spars. Their number and their value will, I think, surprise; even after those which the Reader will previously have had an opportunity of considering. Especially if it be recollected how mere a Youth he was when the two principal were written.

I own, after a familiarity with his Writings, if I may be allowed the expression, of almost as long standing as my life has been, (for my excellent Mother made me acquainted with Shakespeare before I was seven years old) I am more and more astonisht that a life of 52 years--and

but little part of his could be a life of studious leisure-should give time for such Attainments and Performances.

Transcendant as his original and singular Genius was, I think it is not easy, with due attention to these Poems, to doubt of his having acquir'd, when a boy, no ordinary facility in the classic language of Rome; though his knowledge of it might be small, comparatively, to the knowledge of that great and indefatigable Scholar, Ben Jonson. And when Jonson says he had "less Greek," had it been true that he had none, it would have been as easy for the verse as for the sentiment to have said "6 no Greek."

But what is of unspeakably more importance is, what his Genius, his Temper, his Morals were +: what treasures of Genius and of Goodness he has left us. And on this, naturally enthusiastic as his admirers have been, I believe it will be thought that they have said too little, rather than too much if it were not that such Excellence supersedes encomium.

I have preferr'd carrying on the Numbers,

«Small Latin, and less Greek."

Que Vita, qui Mores fuerint. LIV.

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from the Dramatic Works to these, to beginning a Series. And I trust it will be thought preferable in all respects.

In eight years more, two complete Centuries will have elapsed from the Death of Shakespeare. And although even with his contemporaries his estimation was high indeed, we have ever since been progressive in our Admiration and Affection for him, as our knowledge of the Principles of Poetry and of Human Nature has become more general, more correct, and refined.

To present him to our Contemplation as a preeminently philosophic, and moral Poet, was one object of these Extracts: To give in a detacht form those passages which are most independent of the context, and which with most ease and benefit will implant themselves on the memory, was another closely connected with the first. And in his miscellaneous Poems, particularly, there are many passages which he seems, like Butler, to have compil'd from little detacht Compositions which he had made so that it is not wonderful that they should appear to more advantage when so re-detacht, if such be the fact, than in their connection with the Body of the

Poem; which cannot be denied to be sometimes forc'd.

Whether taken from his Plays or Miscellanies, considering whose they are, and what they are, it will not be vanity or presumption in me to remark, that I know not how to imagine that any one should rise from the perusal of this little Volume without still higher thoughts of Shakespeare than they brought with them when they sat down; some accession of intellectual strength; improvement in the conduct of Life; a more lively sense of the Beauty of Virtue, and of all the rela tive Offices and Affections which cement and adorn Society, constituting individual Happiness and public Welfare. I know not any profest, System of Ethics from which they could have been extracted more copiously, more perspicuously, and correctly; or, by the influence of their form and manner, so impressively.

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JJ endal A And I think may flatter myself this little Book may contribute to make Shakespeare even now more known among us: and to give For reigners, should it fall into their hands, a more just sense of the greatness of his Intellect and the goodness of his Heart: the Merit of bis Apho

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