characters by the poet rather than the characters themselves; we are
told, and impressively told, of their being; but we rarely or never feel
that they actually are.

Beaumont and Fletcher are the most lyrical of our dramatists. I think
their comedies the best part of their works, although there are scenes
of very deep tragic interest in some of their plays. I particularly
recommend Monsieur Thomas for good pure comic humor.

There is, occasionally, considerable license in their dramas; and this
opens a subject much needing vindication and sound exposition, but which
is beset with such difficulties for a Lecturer, that I must pass it by.
Only as far as Shakspeare is concerned, I own, I can with less pain
admit a fault in him than beg an excuse for it. I will not, therefore,
attempt to palliate the grossness that actually exists in his plays by
the customs of his age, or by the far greater coarseness of all his
contemporaries, excepting Spenser, who is himself not wholly blameless,
though nearly so;--for I place Shakspeare's merit on being of no age.
But I would clear away what is, in my judgment, not his, as that scene
of the Porter [2] in Macbeth, and many other such passages, and abstract
what is coarse in manners only, and all that which from the frequency of
our own vices, we associate with his words. If this were truly done,
little that could be justly reprehensible would remain. Compare the vile
comments, offensive and defensive, on Pope's

Lust thro' some gentle strainers, &c.

with the worst thing in Shakspeare, or even in Beaumont and Fletcher;
and then consider how unfair the attack is on our old dramatists;
especially because it is an attack that cannot be properly answered in