Anonymous is an earlier member of the School of Taste. He is
none-the-less concerned with firm principles by which to justify his
acceptances and rejections. His announced over-all rule is conformity to
"Reason and Nature"--old words that he uses in the newer way. But he is
also handily equipped with a stock of stubbornly conservative
principles, reaching at times the status of bias, that serve to hold his
taste in balance and effectively check unrestrained admiration.

This conservative side of Anonymous must not pass unnoticed, for it is
the part of him that most closely identifies him with his forebears and
so throws his more original, independent side into stronger relief. Our
author is, not unexpectedly, an invariable moralist; is throughout a
stickler for dignity; is sensitive to absurdities, improprieties, and
slips in decorum; will have no truck with tragi-comedy in any of its
forms. He hates puns and bombast, demands refinement in speech and
restraint in manners. He regards Hamlet's speeches to Ophelia in the
Player scene as a violation of propriety, is shocked by the lack of
decency in the representation of Ophelia's madness, finds Hamlet's
frequent levity and the buffoonery of Polonius alike regrettable
--Shakespeare's favorite foible, he feels, is "that of raising a laugh."
The introduction of Fortinbras and his army on the stage is "an Absurdity";
the grave-diggers' scene is "very unbecoming to tragedy"; the satire on
the "Children of the Chapel" is not allowable in this kind of piece.

In all these things Anonymous is an upholder of the tradition of true,
restrained wit. But unlike some of his contemporaries, he has a formula
for discounting faults. "But we should be very cautious in finding Fault
with Men of such exalted Genius as our Author certainly was, lest we
should blame them when in reality the Fault lies in our own slow
Conceptions ..." This is the language of tolerance, a tolerance that can