we are not to look for his beginning, like thoſe of other writers, in his leaſt perfect works; art had ſo little, and nature ſo large a ſhare in what he did, that for ought I know, ſays he, the performances of his youth, as they were the moſt vigorous, were the beſt. But the power of nature is only the power of uſing to any certain purpoſe the materials which diligence procures, or opportunity ſupplies. Nature gives no man knowledge, and when images are collected by ſtudy and experience, can only aſſiſt in combining or applying them. Shakeſpeare, however favoured by nature, could impart only what he had learned; and as he muſt increaſe his ideas, like other mortals, by gradual acquiſition, he, like them, grew wiſer as he grew older, could diſplay life better, as he knew it more, and inſtruct with more efficacy, as he was himſelf more amply inſtructed.
There is a vigilance of obſervation and accuracy of diſtinction which books and precepts cannot confer; from this amoſt all original and native excellence proceeds. Shakeſpeare muſt have looked upon mankind with perſpicacity, in the higheſt degree curious and attentive. Other writers borrow their characters from preceding writers, and diverſify them only by the accidental appendages of preſent manners; the dreſs is a little varied, but the body is the ſame. Our author had both matter and form to provide; for, except the characters of Chaucer, to whom I think he is not much indebted, there were no writers in Engliſh, and perhaps not many in other modern languages, which ſhewed life in its native colours.
