operate but upon small numbers; or by the accidents of transient
fashions or temporary opinions: they are the genuine progeny of
common humanity, such as the world will always supply, and observation
will always find. His persons act and speak by the influence of those
general passions and principles by which all minds are agitated,
and the whole system of life is continued in motion. In the writings
of other poets a character is too often an 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 shown in the splendour
of particular passages, but by the progress of his fable, and the
tenour 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 excells in
accommodating his sentiments to real life, but by comparing him
with other authours. 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