der a necessary service, he printed between
inverted commas those passages which he thought most worthy of notice.

[10] The learned Hakewill (a third edition of whose book bears date
1635), writing to refute the error 'touching Nature's perpetual and
universal decay,' cites triumphantly the names of Ariosto, Tasso,
Bartas, and Spenser, as instances that poetic genius had not
degenerated; but he makes no mention of Shakspeare.

At this day, the French Critics have abated nothing of their aversion to
this darling of our Nation: 'the English, with their bouffon de
Shakspeare,' is as familiar an expression among them as in the time of
Voltaire. Baron Grimm is the only French writer who seems to have
perceived his infinite superiority to the first names of the French
theatre; an advantage which the Parisian critic owed to his German blood
and German education. The most enlightened Italians, though well
acquainted with our language, are wholly incompetent to measure the
proportions of Shakspeare. The Germans only, of foreign nations, are
approaching towards a knowledge and feeling of what he is. In some
respects they have acquired a superiority over the fellow-countrymen of
the Poet: for among us it is a current, I might say, an established
opinion, that Shakspeare is justly praised when he is pronounced to be
'a wild irregular genius, in whom great faults are compensated by great
beauties.' How long may it be before this misconception passes away, and
it becomes universally acknowledged that the judgment of Shakspeare in
the selection of his materials, and in the manner in which he has made
them, heterogeneous as they often are, constitute a unity of their own,
and contribute all to one great end, is not less admirable than his
imagination, his invention, and his intuitive knowledge of human Nature!

There is extant a small Volume of miscellaneous poems, in which
Shakspeare expresses his own feelings in his own person. It is not
difficult to conceive that the Editor, George Steevens, should have
been insensible to the beauties of one portion of that Volume, the
Sonnets; though in no part of the writings of this Poet is found, in an
equal compass, a greater number of exquisite feelings felicitously
expressed. But, from regard to the Critic's own credit, he would not
have ventured to talk of an[11] act of parliament not being strong
enough to compel the perusal of those little pieces, if he had not known
that the people of