The stream of time, which is continually washing the dissoluble
fabricks of other poets, passes without injury by the adamant of
Shakespeare.

If there be, what I believe there is, in every nation, a stile which
never becomes obsolete, a certain mode of phraseology so consonant
and congenial to the analogy and principles of its respective
language as to remain settled and unaltered; this stile is probably
to be sought in the common intercourse of life, among those who
speak only to be understood, without ambition of elegance. The
polite are always catching modish innovations, and the learned
depart from established forms of speech, in hope of finding or
making better; those who wish for distinction forsake the vulgar,
when the vulgar is right; but there is a conversation above grossness
and below refinement, where propriety resides, and where this poet
seems to have gathered his comick dialogue. He is therefore more
agreeable to the ears of the present age than any other authour
equally remote, and among his other excellencies deserves to be
studied as one of the original masters of our language.

These observations are to be considered not as unexceptionably constant,
but as containing general and predominant truth. Shakespeare's
familiar dialogue is affirmed to be smooth and clear, yet not wholly
without ruggedness or difficulty; as a country may be eminently
fruitful, though it has spots unfit for cultivation: His characters
are praised as natural, though their sentiments are sometimes
forced, and their actions improbable; as the earth upon the whole
is spherical, though its surface is varied with protuberances and
cavities.