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who affects an impartial and philofophic fpirit, should not rather speak with admiration, than contempt, of an author, who by the force of genius rofe fo much above the age and circumftances in which he was born, and who, even when he deviates most from rules, can rife to faults true critics dare not mend. In delineating characters he must be allowed very far to furpafs all dramatic writers, and even Homer himself; he gives an air of reality to every thing, and, in spite of many and great faults, effects, better than any one has ever done, the chief purposes of theatrical representation. It avails little to prove, that the means by which he effects them are not those prescribed in any Art of Poetry. While we feel the power and energy of his predominant genius, fhall we not be apt to treat the cold formal precepts of the Critic, with the fame peevish contempt, that the good lady in the Guardian, smarting in the anguish of a burn, does her fon's pedantic intrusion of Mr. Lock's doctrine, to prove that there is no heat in fire? Nature

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and fentiment will pronounce our Shakespear a mighty Genius; judgment and taste will confefs, that as a Writer he is far from being faultlefs.

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