"The tongue in general is so much refined since then, that many of
his words, and more of his phrases, are scarce intelligible. And of
those which we understand, some are ungrammatical, others coarse;
and his whole style is so pestered with figurative expressions,
that it is as affected as it is obscure. It is true that, in his
latter plays, he had worn off somewhat of the rust; but the tragedy
which I have undertaken to correct was in all probability one of
his first endeavours on the stage.... So lamely is it left to us,
that it is not divided into acts. For the play itself, the author
seems to have begun it with some fire. The characters of Pandarus
and Thersites are promising enough; but, as if he grew weary of his
task, after an entrance or two, he lets them fall; and the latter
part of the tragedy is nothing but a confusion of drums and
trumpets, excursions, and alarms. The persons who give name to the
tragedy are left alive. Cressida is false, and is not punished.
Yet, after all, because the play was Shakspeare's, and that there
appeared in some places of it the admirable genius of the author, I
undertook to remove that heap of rubbish, under which many
excellent thoughts lay wholly buried. Accordingly, I have
remodelled the plot, threw out many unnecessary persons, improved
those which were begun and left unfinished, as Hector, Troilus,
Pandarus, and Thersites, and added that of Andromache. After that,
I made, with no small trouble, an order and connexion of all the
scenes, removing them from the place where they were inartificially
set; and though it was impossible to keep them all unbroken,
because the scene must be sometimes in the city and sometimes in
the court, yet I have so ordered them, that there is a coherence of
them with one another, and a dependence on the main design: no
leaping from Troy to the Grecian tents, and thence back again, in
the same act, but a due proportion of time allowed for every
motion. I need not say that I have refined the language, which
before was obsolete; but I am willing to acknowledge, that as I
have often drawn his English nearer to our times, so I have
sometimes conformed my own to his; and consequently, the language
is not altogether so pure as it is significant."

John Dryden and Samuel Johnson resemble