[14]
ticism often necessarily must, on conjecture and inference; it addresses itself directly to the plain meaning of every passage where Shakspeare touches on this subject. The shortness of the time allotted for the performance of a play, usually makes it impracticable to allow the principal personages space sufficient for their unfolding themselves gradually before the spectator; it is, therefore, a necessary and beautiful artifice with dramatic writers, by an impressive description of their heroes, to bring us in great measure acquainted with them, before they aire visibly engaged in action on the stage; where, without this previous delineation, their
