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'Extremum hunc'—.There are three powers:—
Wit, which discovers partial likeness hidden in general diversity;
subtlety, which discovers the diversity concealed in general apparent sameness;—
and profundity, which discovers an essential unity under all the semblances of difference.
Give to a subtle man fancy, and he is a wit; to a deep man imagination, and he is a philosopher. Add, again, pleasurable sensibility in the threefold form of sympathy with the interesting in morals, the impressive in form, and the harmonious in sound,—and you have the poet.
But combine all,—wit, subtlety, and fancy, with profundity, imagination, and moral and physical susceptibility of the pleasurable,— and let the object of action be man universal; and we shall have—O, rash prophecy! say, rather, we have—a SHAKSPEARE!