enth century, English criticism sought to put Beaumont
and Fletcher, Massinger, Otway, Wycherly, Congreve, Cowley, Dryden, and
even the madman Lee, above Shakspere. Denham in 1667 sings an obituary
to the memory of the "immortal" Cowley,--

"By Shakspere's, Jonson's, Fletcher's lines,
Our stage's lustre Rome's outshines.

* * * * *

Old Mother Wit and Nature gave
Shakspere and Fletcher all they have;
In Spencer and in Jonson, art
Of slower Nature got the start.
But both in him so equal are,
None knows which bears the happiest share."

One knows not which to admire most, the beauty of the poetry or the
justice of the encomium.

James Shirly, whom Shakspere has not yet been accused of imitating, said
in 1640 that he had few friends, and Tateham, an obscure versifier, in
1652, that he was the "plebeian driller."

Philipps, the pupil of Milton, refers to Shakspere's "unfiled
expressions, his rambling and undigested fancies, the laughter of the
critical." Dryden "regretted that Shakspere did not know or rarely
observed the Aristotelian laws of the three unities," but was good
enough to express his surprise at the powerful effect of his plays. "He
is many times flat, insipid, his comic wit degenerating into clenches,
his serious swelling, into bombast."

Thomas Rymer, another disciple of the unities, in 1693, declared
"Othello" to be a "bloody farce without salt or savor," and says that
"in the neighing of a horse or the growling of a mastiff there is a
meaning, there is a lively expression, and ... more humanity, than many
times in the tragical flights of Shakspere." How much humanity may be
shown in the neighing of a horse or the growling of a mastiff may be
left to the impartial judgment of the jockey or the dog fancier, but the
world has got beyond the criticism of Rymer. In his view, "almost
everything in Shakspere's plays is so wretched that he is surprised how
critics could condescend to honor so wretched a poet with critical
discussions."

John Dennis and Charles Gildon, whose books are forgotten under the dust
of more than two centuries, in 1693 and 1694 denied that Shakspere's
plays had any excellence, any wealth in profound sentences or truth to
nature, any originality, force or beauty of diction; and placed him far
below the ancients in all essential points,--in composition, invention,
characterization.

Dennis says Shakspe