er this happens with
regard to _Shakespeare_ I would willingly impute it to a Vice of _his
Times_. We see Complaisance enough, in our Days, paid to a _bad Taste_. So
that his _Clinches_, _false Wit_, and descending beneath himself, may have
proceeded from a Deference paid to the then _reigning Barbarism_.

I have not thought it out of my Province, whenever Occasion offer'd, to
take notice of some of our Poet's grand Touches of Nature: Some that do
not appear superficially such; but in which he seems the most deeply
instructed; and to which, no doubt, he has so much ow'd that happy
Preservation of his _Characters_, for which he is justly celebrated. Great
Genius's, like his, naturally unambitious, are satisfy'd to conceal their
Art in these Points. 'Tis the Foible of your worser Poets to make a Parade
and Ostentation of that little Science they have; and to throw it out in
the most ambitious Colours. And whenever a Writer of this Class shall
attempt to copy these artful Concealments of our Author, and shall either
think them easy, or practised by a Writer for his Ease, he will soon be
convinced of his Mistake by the Difficulty of reaching the Imitation of
them.

Speret idem, sudet multum, frustraque laboret,
Ausus idem:----

Indeed, to point out, and exclaim upon, all the Beauties of _Shakespeare_,
as they come singly in Review, would be as insipid, as endless; as
tedious, as unnecessary: But the Explanation of those Beauties that are
less obvious to common Readers, and whose Illustration depends on the
Rules of just Criticism, and an exact knowledge of human Life, should
deservedly have a Share in a general Critic upon the Author. But, to pass
over at once to another Subject:----

It has been allow'd on all hands, how far our Author was indebted to
_Nature_; it is not so well agreed, how much he ow'd to _Languages_ and
acquired _Learning_. The Decisions on this Subject were certainly set on
Foot by the Hint from _Ben Jonson_, that he had small _Latin_ and less
_Greek_: And from this Tradition, as it were, Mr. _Rowe_ has thought fit
peremptorily to declare, that, "It is without Controversy, he had no
Knowledge of the Writings of the ancient Poets, for that in his Works we
find no Traces of any thing which looks like an imitation of the Ancients.
For the Delicacy of his Taste (_continues He_) and the natural Bent of his
own great Genius (equal, if not superior, to some of the Best of theirs),
would certain