particular opportunities; and though to the reader a book be not
worse or better for the circumstances of the authour, yet as there
is always a silent reference of human works to human abilities, and
as the enquiry, how far man may extend his designs, or how high
he may rate his native force, is of far greater dignity than in
what rank we shall place any particular performance, curiosity is
always busy to discover the instruments, as well as to survey the
workmanship, to know how much is to be ascribed to original powers,
and how much to casual and adventitious help. The palaces of Peru
or Mexico were certainly mean and incommodious habitations, if
compared to the houses of European monarchs; yet who could forbear
to view them with astonishment, who remembered that they were built
without the use of iron?

The English nation, in the time of Shakespeare, was yet struggling
to emerge from barbarity. The philology of Italy had been transplanted
hither in the reign of Henry the Eighth; and the learned languages
had been successfully cultivated by Lilly and More; by Pole, Cheke,
and Gardiner; and afterwards by Smith, Clerk, Haddon, and Ascham.
Greek was now taught to boys in the principal schools; and those
who united elegance with learning, read, with great diligence,
the Italian and Spanish poets. But literature was yet confined to
professed scholars, or to men and women of high rank. The publick
was gross and dark; and to be able to read and write, was an
accomplishment still valued for its rarity.

Nations, like individuals, have their infancy. A people newly awakened
to literary curiosity, being yet unacquainted with the true state
of things, knows not how to judge of that which is proposed as its
resemblance. Whatever is remote from common appearances is always