If one would enter into the Beauties of _Shakespear_, there is
a much larger, as well as a more delightful Field; but as I won't
prescribe to the Tastes of other People, so I will only take the
liberty, with all due Submission to the Judgment of others, to observe
some of those Things I have been pleas'd with in looking him over.
His Plays are properly to be distinguish'd only into Comedies and
Tragedies. Those which are called Histories, and even some of his
Comedies, are really Tragedies, with a run or mixture of Comedy amongst
'em. That way of Trage-Comedy was the common Mistake of that Age, and is
indeed become so agreeable to the _English_ Tast, that tho' the severer
Critiques among us cannot bear it, yet the generality of our Audiences
seem to be better pleas'd with it than with an exact Tragedy. _The Merry
Wives of_ Windsor, _The Comedy of Errors_, and _The Taming of the
Shrew_, are all pure Comedy; the rest, however they are call'd, have
something of both Kinds. 'Tis not very easie to determine which way of
Writing he was most Excellent in. There is certainly a great deal of
Entertainment in his Comical Humours; and tho' they did not then strike
at all Ranks of People, as the Satyr of the present Age has taken the
Liberty to do, yet there is a pleasing and a well-distinguish'd Variety
in those Characters which he thought fit to meddle with.
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