[68] The critics seem not perfectly to comprehend the genius of Shakespear. His plays are defective in the mechanical part, which is less the work of genius than of experience; and is not otherwise brought to perfection than by diligently observing the errors of former compositions. Shakespear excels all the ancients and moderns, in knowledge of human nature, and in unfolding even the most obscure and refined emotions. This is a rare faculty, and of the greatest importance in a dramatic author; and it is this faculty which makes him surpass all other writers in the comic as well as tragic vein.
[69] Soliloquies accounted for chap. 15.
[70] Act 2. sc. 2.
[71] Act 1. sc. 1.
[72] Act 1. sc. 2.
[73] Act 1. sc. 2.
[74] See chap. 2. part 1. sect. 4.
[75] Here the German a is understood.
[76] That the Italian tongue is rather too smooth, seems to appear from considering, that in versification vowels are frequently suppressed in order to produce a rougher and bolder tone.
[77] See Swift’s proposal for correcting the English tongue, in a letter to the Earl of Oxford.