In tragedy his performance seems constantly to be worse, as his
labour is more. The effusions of passion which exigence forces
out are for the most part striking and energetick; but whenever he
solicits his invention, or strains his faculties, the offspring of
his throes is tumour, meanness, tediousness, and obscurity.

In narration he affects a disproportionate pomp of diction and a
wearisome train of circumlocution, and tells the incident imperfectly
in many words, which might have been more plainly delivered in
few. Narration in dramatick poetry is, naturally tedious, as it is
unanimated and inactive, and obstructs the progress of the action;
it should therefore always be rapid, and enlivened by frequent
interruption. Shakespeare found it an encumbrance, and instead of
lightening it by brevity, endeavoured to recommend it by dignity
and splendour.

His declamations or set speeches are commonly cold and weak, for
his power was the power of nature; when he endeavoured, like other
tragick writers, to catch opportunities of amplification, and
instead of inquiring what the occasion demanded, to show how much
his stores of knowledge could supply, he seldom escapes without
the pity or resentment of his reader.

It is incident to him to be now and then entangled with an unwieldy
sentiment, which he cannot well express, and will not reject; he
struggles with it a while, and if it continues stubborn, comprises
it in words such as occur, and leaves it to be disentangled and
evolved by those who have more leisure to bestow upon it.