Shakespeare, of men. We find in Cato innumerable beauties which
enamour us of its authour, but we see nothing that acquaints us
with human sentiments or human actions; we place it with the fairest
and the noblest progeny which judgment propagates by conjunction
with learning, but "Othello" is the vigorous and vivacious offspring
of observation impregnated by genius. Cato affords a splendid
exhibition of artificial and fictitious manners, and delivers just
and noble sentiments, in diction easy, elevated and harmonious,
but its hopes and fears communicate no vibration to the heart; the
composition refers us only to the writer; we pronounce the name of
Cato, but we think on Addison.

The work of a correct and regular writer is a garden accurately
formed and diligently planted, varied with shades, and scented with
flowers; the composition of Shakespeare is a forest, in which oaks
extend their branches, and pines tower in the air, interspersed
sometimes with weeds and brambles, and sometimes giving shelter to
myrtles and to roses; filling the eye with awful pomp, and gratifying
the mind with endless diversity. Other poets display cabinets
of precious rarities, minutely finished, wrought into shape, and
polished unto brightness. Shakespeare opens a mine which contains
gold and diamonds in unexhaustible plenty, though clouded by
incrustations, debased by impurities, and mingled with a mass of
meaner minerals.

It has been much disputed, whether Shakespeare owed his excellence
to his own native force, or whether he had the common helps of
scholastick education, the precepts of critical science, and the
examples of ancient authours.