Whately died in 1772, and the Essay was published
posthumously in 1785 [2nd edition, 1808; 3rd edition, with a preface
by Archbishop Whately, the author's nephew, 1839]. Hazlitt confused
T. Whately's Observations on Modern Gardening with George Mason's
Essay on Design in Gardening, and the one error led to the other.]
the author of a Treatise on Ornamental Gardening (not Mason the
poet), began a work of a similar kind about forty years ago, but he
only lived to finish a parallel between the characters of Macbeth
and Richard III which is an exceedingly ingenious piece of
analytical criticism. Richardson's Essays include but a few of
Shakespeare's principal characters. The only work which seemed to
supersede the necessity of an attempt like the present was
Schlegel's very admirable Lectures on the Drama, which give by far
the best account of the plays of Shakespeare that has hitherto
appeared. The only circumstances in which it was thought not
impossible to improve on the manner in which the German critic has
executed this part of his design, were in avoiding an appearance of
mysticism in his style, not very attractive to the English reader,
and in bringing illustrations from particular passages of the plays
themselves, of which Schlegel's work, from the extensiveness of his
plan, did not admit. We will at the same time confess, that some
little jealousy of the character of the national understanding was
not without its share in producing the following undertaking, for
'we were piqued' that it should be reserved for a foreign critic to
give 'reasons for the faith which we English have in Shakespeare'.
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