individual; in thoſe of Shakeſpeare it is commonly a ſpecies.
It is from this wide extenſion of deſign that ſo much inſtruction is derived. It is this which fills the plays of Shakeſpeare with practical axioms and domeſtick wiſdom. It was ſaid of Euripides, that every verſe was a precept; and it may be ſaid of Shakeſpeare, that from his works may be collected a ſyſtem of civil and oeconomical prudence. Yet his real power is not ſhewn in the ſplendor of particular paſſages, but by the progreſs of his fable, and the tenor of his dialogue; and he that tries to recommend him by ſelect quotations, will ſucceed like the pedant in Hierocles, who, when he offered his houſe to ſale, carried a brick in his pocket as a ſpecimen.
It will not eaſily be imagined how much Shakeſpeare excels in accommodating his ſentiments to real life, but by comparing hm with other authors. It was obſerved of the ancient ſchools of declamation, that the more diligently they were frequented, the more was the ſtudent diſqualified for the world, becauſe he found nothing there which he ſhould ever meet in any other place. The ſame remark may be applied to every ſtage but that of Shakeſpeare. The theatre, when it is under any other direction, is peopled by ſuch characters as were never ſeen, converſing in a language which was never heard, upon topicks which will never ariſe in the commerce of mankind. But the dialogue of this author is often ſo evidently determined by the incident which produces it, and is purſued with ſo much eaſe and ſimplicity, that it
