th shades, and scented with flowers; the
composition of Shakespeare is a forest, in which oaks extend their
branches, and pines tower in the air, interspersed sometimes with weeds
and brambles, and sometimes giving shelter to myrtles and to roses;
filling the eye with awful pomp, and gratifying the mind with endless
diversity. Other poets display cabinets of precious rarities, minutely
finished, wrought into shape, and polished into brightness. Shakespeare
opens a mine which contains gold and diamonds in unexhaustible plenty,
though clouded by incrustations, debased by impurities, and mingled with a
mass of meaner minerals.

It has been much disputed, whether Shakespeare owed his excellence to his
own native force, or whether he had the common helps of scholastick
education, the precepts of critical science, and the examples of ancient
authors.

There has always prevailed a tradition, that Shakespeare wanted learning,
that he had no regular education, nor much skill in the dead languages.
Jonson, his friend, affirms that _he had small Latin, and less Greek_;
who, besides that he had no imaginable temptation to falsehood, wrote at a
time when the character and acquisitions of Shakespeare were known to
multitudes. His evidence ought therefore to decide the controversy, unless
some testimony of equal force could be opposed.

Some have imagined that they have discovered deep learning in many
imitations of old writers; but the examples which I have known urged, were
drawn from books translated in his time; or were such easy coincidences of
thought, as will happen to all who consider the same subjects; or such
remarks on life or axioms of morality as float in conversation, and are
transmitted through the world in proverbial sentences.

I have found it remarked that, in this important sentence, _Go before,
I'll follow_, we read a translation of, _I prae, sequar_. I have been told
that when Caliban, after a pleasing dream, says, _I cry'd to sleep again_,
the author imitates Anacreon, who had, like every other man, the same wish
on the same occasion.

There are a few passages which may pass for imitations, but so few, that
the exception only confirms the rule; he obtained them from accidental
quotations, or by oral communication, and as he used what he had, would
have used more if he had obtained it.

The _Comedy of Errors_ is confessedly taken from the _Menaechmi_ of
Plautus; from the only play of Plautus which was then i