by versions, they supplied him with new subjects; he dilated some
of Plutarch's lives into plays, when they had been translated by
North.

His plots, whether historical or fabulous, are always crouded with
incidents, by which the attention of a rude people was more easily
caught than by sentiment or argumentation; and such is the power
of the marvellous even over those who despise it, that every man
finds his mind more strongly seized by the tragedies of Shakespeare
than of any other writer; others please us by particular speeches,
but he always makes us anxious for the event, and has perhaps
excelled all but Homer in securing the first purpose of a writer,
by exciting restless and unquenchable curiosity, and compelling
him that reads his work to read it through.

The shows and bustle with which his plays abound have the same
original. As knowledge advances, pleasure passes from the eye to the
ear, but returns, as it declines, from the ear to the eye. Those
to whom our authour's labours were exhibited had more skill in pomps
or processions than in poetical language, and perhaps wanted some
visible and discriminated events, as comments on the dialogue. He
knew how he should most please; and whether his practice is more
agreeable to nature, or whether his example has prejudiced the
nation, we still find that on our stage something must be done as
well as said, and inactive declamation is very coldly heard, however
musical or elegant, passionate or sublime.

Voltaire expresses his wonder, that our authour's extravagancies
are endured by a nation, which has seen the tragedy of Cato. Let
him be answered, that Addison speaks the language of poets, and