56o ESSAYS HISTORICAL AND LITERARY»

will arrive, when he {hall receive» not merely poetical butreal and fubllantial juliice. The proper catallropheiof a Tragedy mull, however,

"be determined by the nature and circumllances ' ‘ I

of the fable : and it would have been as abfurd ' in Shakelpeare, to make the Tragedy of Othello terminate in happinels, as in Racine ‘that of

_Athalie in the reverie. And of thele two chef-

(Yocuvres of the modern drama it may be re-

marked, that Athalie, though a molt beautiful, .

regular and fattltlels performance, is itfelf a {hiking proof how much art may be excelled by naturer For xvith all its eccentricities, »the general eiiefit produced by the Tragedy ofOthello is f0 prodigioufly liuperior, that were we not fully apprized of the unparalleled force and gran- deur of the genius of Shakelpeare, we might be tempted hallily ‘to condemn all rules of compo- fition as totally uifclels; and ferioully to approve

the laxiguage of one of the heroes celebrated in i the Dunciad, who being advifed, as Mr. Pope

tells us, by a friend to whom he declared his in- _ ention of writing a Tragedy, previoully to ‘ltudy __

the critics in order to acquire a perfefl know- ledge of the laws of the drama, coldly and con- ternptuoully replied, “ SHAKESPEARE wrote with- out any knowledge of rules.”

FINDIS.