contemporaries, the direct contrary of which can, however, be easily
shown. In no language is everything determined on principle; much is
always left to the caprice of custom, and if this has since changed,
is the poet to be made answerable for it? The English language had not
then attained to that correct insipidity which has been introduced
into the more recent literature of the country, to the prejudice,
perhaps, of its originality. As a field when first brought under the
plough produces, along with the fruitful shoots, many luxuriant weeds,
so the poetical diction of the day ran occasionally into extravagance,
but an extravagance originating in the exuberance of its vigor. We may
still perceive traces of awkwardness, but nowhere of a labored and
spiritless display of art. In general, Shakespeare's style yet remains
the very best model, both in the vigorous and sublime, and the
pleasing and tender. In his sphere he has exhausted all the means and
appliances of language. On all he has impressed the stamp of his
mighty spirit. His images and figures, in their unsought, nay,
uncapricious singularity, have often a sweetness altogether peculiar.
He becomes occasionally obscure from too great fondness for compressed
brevity; but still, the labor of poring over Shakespeare's lines will
invariably meet an ample requital.

The verse in all his plays is generally the rhymeless iambic of ten or
eleven syllables, only occasionally intermixed with rhymes, but more
frequently alternating with prose. No one piece is written entirely in
prose; for even in those which approach the most to the pure Comedy,
there is always something added which gives them a more poetical hue
than usually belongs to this species. Many scenes are wholly in prose,
in others verse and prose succeed each other alternately. This can
appear an impropriety only in the eyes of those who are accustomed to
consider the lines of a drama like so many soldiers drawn up rank and