ding "a man, take him for all in all," very highly respectable
for his genius and his learning. What however may be chiefly complained of
in these gentlemen is, that having erected themselves into the condition,
as it were, of guardians and trustees of _Shakespeare_, they have never
undertaken to discharge the disgraceful incumbrances of some wretched
productions which have long hung heavy on his fame. Besides the evidence
of taste, which indeed is not communicable, there are yet other and more
general proofs that these incumbrances were not incurred by _Shakespeare_:
The _Latin_ sentences dispersed thro' the imputed trash is, I think, of
itself a decisive one. _Love's Labour lost_ contains a very conclusive one
of another kind; tho' the very last Editor has, I believe, in his critical
sagacity, suppressed the evidence, and withdrawn the record.

Yet whatever may be the neglect of some, or the censure of others, there
are those who firmly believe that this wild, this uncultivated Barbarian
has not yet obtained one half of his fame; and who trust that some new
Stagyrite will arise, who instead of pecking at the surface of things will
enter into the inward soul of his compositions, and expel, by the force of
congenial feelings, those foreign impurities which have stained and
disgraced his page. And as to those _spots_ which will still remain, they
may perhaps become invisible to those who shall seek them thro' the medium
of his beauties, instead of looking for those beauties, as is too
frequently done, thro' the smoke of some real or imputed obscurity. When
the hand of time shall have brushed off his present Editors and
Commentators, and when the very name of _Voltaire_, and even the memory of
the language in which he has written, shall be no more, the _Apalachian_
mountains, the banks of the _Ohio_, and the plains of _Sciota_ shall
resound with the accents of this Barbarian: In his native tongue he shall
roll the genuine passions of nature; nor shall the griefs of _Lear_ be
alleviated, or the charms and wit of _Rosalind_ be abated by time. There
is indeed nothing perishable about him, except that very learning which he
is said so much to want. He had not, it is true, enough for the demands of
the age in which he lived, but he had perhaps too much for the reach of
his genius, and the interest of his fame. _Milton_ and he will carry the
decayed remnants and fripperies of antient mythology into more distant
ages than they are