Besides, _Wit_ lying mostly in the Assemblage of _Ideas_, and in the putting Those together with Quickness and Variety, wherein can be found any Resemblance, or Congruity, to make up pleasant Pictures, and agreeable Visions in the Fancy; the Writer, who aims at Wit, must of course range far and wide for Materials. Now, the Age in which _Shakespeare_ liv’d, having, above all others, a wonderful Affection to appear Learned, They declined vulgar Images, such as are immediately fetch’d from Nature, and rang’d thro’ the Circle of the Sciences to fetch their Ideas from thence. But as the Resemblances of such Ideas to the Subject must necessarily lie very much out of the common Way, and every Piece of Wit appear a Riddle to the Vulgar; This, that should have taught them the forced, quaint, unnatural Tract they were in (and induce them to follow a more natural One), was the very Thing that kept them attach’d to it. The ostentatious Affectation of abstruse Learning, peculiar to that Time, the Love that Men naturally have to every Thing that looks like Mystery, fixed them down to this Habit of Obscurity. Thus became the Poetry of DONNE (tho’ the wittiest Man of that Age) nothing but a continued Heap of Riddles. And our _Shakespeare_, with all his easy Nature about him, for want of the Knowledge of the true Rules of Art, falls frequently into this vicious Manner. The third Species of _Obscurities_ which deform our Author, as the Effects of his own Genius and Character, are Those that proceed from his peculiar Manner of _Thinking_, and as peculiar a Manner of _cloathing_ those _Thoughts_. With regard to his _Thinking_, it is certain that he had a general Knowledge of all the Sciences: But his Acquaintance was rather That of a Traveller, than a Native. Nothing in Philosophy was unknown to him; but every Thing in it had the Grace and Force of Novelty. And as Novelty is one main Source of Admiration, we are not to wonder that He has perpetual Allusions to the most recondite Parts of the Sciences: and This was done not so much out of Affectation, as the Effect of Admiration begot by Novelty. Then, as to his _Style_ and _Diction_, we may much more justly apply to SHAKESPEARE what a celebrated Writer has said of MILTON; _Our Language sunk under him, and was unequal to that Greatness of Soul which furnish’d him with such glorious Conceptions._ He therefore frequently uses old Words, to give his Diction an Air of Solemnity; as he coins others, to express the Novelty and Variety of his Ideas.