---- Both have sinn’d! but thou Against God only; I, ’gainst God and thee: And to the place of judgement will return. There with my cries importune Heav’n; that all The sentence, from thy head remov’d, may light On me, sole cause to thee of all this woe; Me! Me! only just object of his ire. _Paradise Lost, book x. 930._ Shakespear is superior to all other writers in delineating passion. It is difficult to say in what part he most excels, whether in moulding every passion to peculiarity of character, in discovering the sentiments that proceed from various tones of passion, or in expressing properly every different sentiment. He imposes not upon his reader, general declamation and the false coin of unmeaning words, which the bulk of writers deal in. His sentiments are adjusted, with the greatest propriety, to the peculiar character and circumstances of the speaker; and the propriety is not less perfect betwixt his sentiments and his diction. That this is no exaggeration, will be evident to every one of taste, upon comparing Shakespear with other writers, in similar passages. If upon any occasion he fall below himself, it is in those scenes where passion enters not. By endeavouring in this case to raise his dialogue above the style of ordinary conversation, he sometimes deviates into intricate thought and obscure expression[67]. Sometimes, to throw his language out of the familiar, he employs rhyme. But may it not in some measure excuse Shakespear, I shall not say his works, that he had no pattern, in his own or in any living language, of dialogue fitted for the theatre? At the same time, it ought not to escape observation, that the stream clears in its progress, and that in his later plays he has attained the purity and perfection of dialogue; an observation that, with greater certainty than tradition, will direct us to arrange his plays in the order of time. This ought to be considered by those who magnify every blemish that is discovered in the finest genius for the drama ever the world enjoy’d. They ought also for their own sake to consider, that it is easier to discover his blemishes, which lie generally at the surface, than his beauties, of which none can have a thorough relish but those who dive deep into human nature. One thing must be evident to the meanest capacity, that where-ever passion is to be display’d, Nature shows itself strong in him, and is conspicuous by the most delicate propriety of sentiment and expression[68].