along with him when he adds--"The account of
Shakspeare may stand as a perpetual model of encomiastic criticism,
exact without minuteness, and lofty without exaggeration. The praise
lavished by Longinus on the attestation of the heroes of Marathon by
Demosthenes, fades away before it. In a few lines is exhibited a
character, so sublime in its comprehension, and so curious in its
limitations, that nothing can be added, diminished, or reformed; nor
can the editors and admirers of Shakspeare, in all their emulation of
reverence, boast of much more than of having diffused and paraphrased
his epitome of excellence; of having changed Dryden's gold for baser
metal, of lower value, though of greater bulk." Since this great
critic's day--ay, with all his defects and perversities, Samuel was a
great critic--what a blaze of illumination has been brought to bear on
the genius of Shakspeare! Nevertheless, all honour to Glorious John!
Next comes the famous prologue:--

As when a tree's cut down, the secret root
Lives under ground, and thence new branches shoot;
So, from old Shakspeare's honour'd dust, this day
Springs up the buds, a new reviving play.
Shakspeare, who (taught by none) did first impart
To Fletcher wit, to labouring Jonson art;
He, monarch-like, gave those, his subjects, law,
And is that nature which they paint and draw.
Fletcher reach'd that which on his heights did grow,
While Jonson crept and gather'd all below.
This did his love, and this his mirth digest;
One imitates him most, the other best.
If they have since outwrit all other men,
'Tis with the drops which fell from Shakspeare's pen.
The storm which vanish'd on the neighbouring shore,
Was taught by Shakspeare's 'Tempest' first to roar.
That innocence and beauty which did smile
In Fletcher, grew on this enchanted isle.
But Shakspeare's magic could not copied be--
Within that circle none durst walk but he.
I must confess 'twas bold, nor would you now
That liberty to vulgar wits allow,
Which works by magic supernatural things;
But Shakspeare's power is sacred as a king's.
Those legends from old priesthood were received,
And he them writ as people them believed."

Strange that he who could write so nobly about Shakspeare, could commit
such an outrage on his divine genius as the play to which this is the
prologue--"The Tempest, or the Enchanted Island," a Comedy. It
was--Dryden tells us, and we must belie