’Tis Garrick, and not Shakespeare, they admire,

Without his breath, inspiring every thought,

They ne’er perhaps had known what Shakespeare wrote;

Without his eager, his becoming zeal,

To teach them, though they scarce know why, to feel,

A crude unmeaning mass had Jonson been,

And a dead letter Shakespeare’s noblest scene.

A Charge to the Poets. 1762, ll. 167-190.

WILLIAM THOMPSON, 1763
(1712?-1766?)