_Shakespeare_ was all Openness, Candour, and Complacence; and had such a Share of Harmony in his Frame and Temperature, that we have no Reason to doubt, from a Number of fine Passages, Allusions, Similies, &_c._ fetch’d from _Musick_, but that He was a passionate Lover of it. And to this, perhaps, we may owe that great Number of _Sonnets_, which are sprinkled thro’ his _Plays_. I have found, that the Stanza’s sung by the Gravedigger in _Hamlet_, are not of _Shakespeare_’s own Composition, but owe their Original to the old Earl of _Surrey_’s Poems. Many other of his Occasional little Songs, I doubt not, but he purposely copied from his Contemporary Writers; sometimes, out of Banter; sometimes, to do them Honour. The Manner of their Introduction, and the Uses to which he has assigned them, will easily determine for which of the Reasons they are respectively employ’d. In _As you like it_, there are several little Copies of Verses on _Rosalind_, which are said to be the right _Butter-woman’s Rank to Market_, and the very _false Gallop of Verses_. Dr. _Thomas Lodge_, a Physician who flourish’d early in Queen _Elizabeth_’s Reign, and was a great Writer of the Pastoral Songs and Madrigals, which were so much the Strain of those Times, composed a whole Volume of Poems in Praise of his Mistress, whom he calls _Rosalinde_. I never yet could meet with this Collection; but whenever I do, I am persuaded, I shall find many of our Author’s Canzonets on this Subject to be Scraps of the Doctor’s amorous Muse: as, perhaps, those by _Biron_ too, and the other Lovers in _Love’s Labour’s lost_, may prove to be. It has been remark’d in the Course of my Notes, that Musick in our Author’s time had a very different Use from what it has now. At this Time, it is only employ’d to raise and inflame the Passions; it, then, was apply’d to calm and allay all kinds of Perturbations. And, agreeable to this Observation, throughout all _Shakespeare_’s Plays, where Musick is either actually used, or its Powers describ’d, it is chiefly said to be for these Ends. His _Twelfth-Night_, particularly, begins with a fine Reflexion that admirably marks its soothing Properties. That Strain again;--It had a dying Fall. Oh, it came o’er my Ear like the sweet South, That breathes upon a Bank of Violets, Stealing and giving Odour! [Sidenote*: _Milton_ an Imitator of him.]