"I fear," replied NEANDER, "that in obeying your commands, I shall draw a little envy upon myself. Besides, in performing them, it will be first necessary to speak somewhat of SHAKESPEARE and FLETCHER his Rivals in Poesy; and one of them, in my opinion, at least his Equal, perhaps his Superior. "To begin then with SHAKESPEARE. He was the man, who, of all Modern and perhaps Ancient poets, had the largest and most comprehensive Soul [p. 540]. All the Images of Nature [pp. 528, 533] were still present [_apparent_] to him [p. 489]: and he drew them not laboriously, but luckily [_felicitously_]. When he describes anything; you more than see it, you feel it too. Those who accuse him to have wanted learning; give him the greater commendation. He was naturally learned. He needed not the spectacles of books, to read Nature; he looked inwards, and found her there. I cannot say, he is everywhere alike. Were he so; I should do him injury to compare him [_even_] with the greatest of mankind. He is many times flat, insipid: his comic wit degenerating into clenches; his serious swelling, into bombast. "But he is always great, when some great occasion is presented to him. No man can say, he ever had a fit subject for his wit, and did not then raise himself as high above the rest of poets, "_Quantum lenta solent, inter viberna cupressi._ "The consideration of this, made Mr. HALES, of Eton, say, 'That there was no subject of which any poet ever writ; but he would produce it much better treated of in SHAKESPEARE.' And however others are, now, generally preferred before him; yet the Age wherein he lived (which had contemporaries with him, FLETCHER and JOHNSON) never equalled them to him, in their esteem. And in the last King's [_CHARLES I._] Court, when BEN.'s reputation was at [the] highest; Sir JOHN SUCKLING, and with him, the greater part of the Courtiers, set our SHAKESPEARE far above him. "BEAUMONT and FLETCHER (of whom I am next to speak), had, with the advantage of SHAKESPEARE's wit, which was their precedent, great natural gifts improved by study. BEAUMONT, especially, being so accurate a judge of plays, that BEN. JOHNSON, while he [_i.e., BEAUMONT_] lived, submitted all his writings to his censure; and,'tis thought, used his judgement in correcting, if not contriving all his plots. What value he had for [_i.e., attached to_] him, appears by the verses he writ to him: and therefore I need speak no farther of it.