Shakeſpeare’s plays are not in the rigorous and critical ſenſe either tragedies or comedies, but compoſitions of a diſtinct kind; exhibiting the real ſtate of ſublunary nature, which partakes of good and evil, joy and ſorrow, mingled with endleſs variety of proportion and innumerable modes of combination; and expreſſing the courſe of the world, in which the loſs of one is the gain of another; in which, at the ſame time, the reveller is haſting to his wine, and the mourner burying his friend; in which the malignity of one is ſometimes defeated by the frolick of another; and many miſchiefs and many benefits are done and hindered without deſign.
Out of this chaos of mingled purpoſes and caſualties the ancient poets, according to the laws which cuſtom had preſcribed, ſelected ſome the crimes of men, and ſome their abſurdities; ſome the momentous viciſſitudes of life, and ſome the lighter occurrences; ſome the terrors of diſtreſs, and ſome the gayeties of proſperity. Thus roſe the two modes of imitation, known by the names of tragedy and comedy, compoſitions intended to promote different ends by contrary means, and conſidered as ſo little allied, that I do not recollect among the Greeks or Romans a ſingle writer who attempted both.
Shakeſpeare has united the powers of exciting laughter and ſorrow not only in one mind, but in one compoſition. Almoſt all his plays are divided between ſerious and ludicrous characters, and, in the ſucceſſive evolutions of the deſign, ſometimes pro-
