lived to the end of the play and died in his bed, without offence to any
man." Wit Shakspeare had in common with his ingenious contemporaries;
but theirs, to speak out plainly, "was not that of gentlemen; there was
ever somewhat that was ill-natured and clownish in it, and which
confessed the conversation of the authors." "In this age," Dryden
declares the last and greatest advantage of writing proceeds from
conversation. "In that age" there was "less gallantry;" and "neither did
they (Shakspeare, Ben, and the rest) keep the best company of theirs."
But let the illustrious time-server speak at large.

"Now, if they ask me, whence it is that our conversation is so much
refined? I must freely, and without flattery, ascribe it to the
court; and in it, particularly to the king, whose example gives a
law to it. His own misfortunes, and the nation's, afforded him an
opportunity, which is rarely allowed to sovereign princes--I mean
of travelling, and being conversant in the most polished courts of
Europe; and, thereby, of cultivating a spirit which was formed by
nature to receive the impressions of a gallant and generous
education. At his return, he found a nation lost as much in
barbarism as in rebellion; and, as the excellency of his nature
forgave the one, so the excellency of his manners reformed the
other. The desire of imitating so great a pattern, first awakened
the dull and heavy spirits of the English from their natural
reservedness; loosened them from their stiff forms of conversation,
and made them easy and pliant to each other in discourse. Thus,
insensibly, our way of living became more free; and the fire of the
English wit, which was before stifled under a constrained,
melancholy way of breeding, began first to display its force by
mixing the solidity of our nation with the air and gaiety of our
neighbours. This being granted to be true, it would be a wonder if
the poets, whose work is imitation, should be the only persons in
three kingdoms who should not receive advantage by it; or, if they
should not more easily imitate the wit and conversation of the
present age than of the past.

"Let us, therefore, admire the beauties and the heights of
Shakspeare, without falling after him into a carelessness, and, as
I may call it, a lethargy of thought, for whole scenes together."

Shaks