Shakespear each passion drew in every dress:
Great above rule, and imitating none;
Rich without borrowing, nature was his own.
Yet is his sense debas’d by gross alloy:
As gold in mines lies mix’d with dirt and clay.
Now, eagle-wing’d, his heavenward flight he takes;
The big stage thunders, and the soul awakes:
Now, low on earth, a kindred reptile creeps;
Sad Hamlet quibbles, and the hearer sleeps.
Of Verbal Criticism, ll. 47-58. Works, 1759, vol. i. p. 21.