which they once illuminated. The effects of favour and competition
are at an end; the tradition of his friendships and his enmities has
perished; his works support no opinion with arguments, nor supply
any faction with invectives; they can neither indulge vanity nor
gratify malignity, but are read without any other reason than the
desire of pleasure, and are therefore praised only as pleasure is
obtained; yet, thus unassisted by interest or passion, they have
past through variations of taste and changes of manners, and, as
they devolved from one generation to another, have received new
honours at every transmission.

But because human judgment, though it be gradually gaining upon
certainty, never becomes infallible; and approbation, though long
continued, may yet be only the approbation of prejudice or fashion;
it is proper to inquire, by what peculiarities of excellence
Shakespeare has gained and kept the favour of his countrymen.

Nothing can please many, and please long, but just representations
of general nature. Particular manners can be known to few,
and therefore few only can judge how nearly they are copied. The
irregular combinations of fanciful invention may delight a-while,
by that novelty of which the common satiety of life sends us all
in quest; but the pleasures of sudden wonder are soon exhausted,
and the mind can only repose on the stability of truth.

Shakespeare is above all writers, at least above all modern writers,
the poet of nature; the poet that holds up to his readers a faithful
mirrour of manners and of life. His characters are not modified by
the customs of particular places, unpractised by the rest of the
world; by the peculiarities of studies or professions, which can