OUR modern tragedies, hundreds of them do not contain a good line; nor are they a jot the better, because Shakespeare, who was superior to all mankind, wrote some whole plays that are as bad as any of our present writers'.

HORACE WALPOLE (1717-1797). Letter to Sir Horace

Mann, Oct. 8, 1778. Letters. Ed. Peter
Cunningham, 1858, vol. vii. p. 135.

WRITE like Shakespeare, and laugh at the critics.

Daniel Webb (1719?-1798). Literary Amusements, 1787, p. 22.

Lord of the mighty spell: around him press
Spirits and fairy forms. He, ruling wide
His visionary world, bids terror fill
The shivering breast, or softer pity thrill
E'en to the inmost heart.

W. L. BOWLES (1762-1850). "Monody on the Death of Dr. Warton," 1801. Poems, 1803, vol. ii. pp. 141–2.

Is there no bard of heavenly power possess'd,
To thrill, to rouse, to animate the breast?
Like Shakespeare o'er the sacred mind to sway,
And call each wayward passion to obey?

F. D. HEMANS (1793-1835).

Spain," 1807.

"England and

OUR love of Shakespeare, therefore, is not a monomania or solitary and unaccountable infatuation; but is merely the natural love which all men bear to those forms of excellence that are accommodated to their peculiar character, temperament, and situation; and which will always return, and assert its power over their affections, long after authority has lost its reverence, fashions been antiquated, and artificial tastes passed away.

FRANCIS LORD Jeffrey (1773-1850). Edinburgh

Review, Aug. 1811, vol. xviii. p. 285.