Perhaps we can give an idea of the difference between Shakespeare and other poets, by a passage from "Lear." When Cordelia places her hand upon her father's head and speaks of the night and of the storm, an ordinary poet might have said:
"On such a night, a dog
Should have stood against my fire."
A very great poet might have gone a step further and exclaimed:
"On such a night, mine enemy's dog
Should have stood against my fire."
But Shakespeare said:
"Mine enemy's dog, though he had bit me,
Should have stood, that night, against my fire."
Of all the poets—of all the writers—Shakespeare is the most original. He is as original as Nature.
It may truthfully be said that "Nature wants stuff to vie strange forms with fancy, to make another."
VIII.
THERE is in the greatest poetry a kind of extravagance that touches the infinite, and in this Shakespeare exceeds all others.