"What then shall we say? even this; that {213} Shakespeare, no mere child of nature; no _automaton_ of genius; no passive vehicle of inspiration, possessed by the spirit, not possessing it; first studied patiently, meditated deeply, understood minutely, till knowledge, become habitual and intuitive, wedded itself to his habitual feelings, and at length gave birth to that stupendous power, by which he stands alone, with no equal or second in his own class; to that power which seated him on one of the two glory-smitten summits of the poetic mountain, with Milton as his compeer, not rival. While the former darts himself forth, and passes into all the forms of human character and passion...; the other attracts all forms and things to himself, into the unity of his own ideal. All things and modes of action shape themselves anew in the being of Milton; while Shakespeare becomes all things, yet for ever remaining himself." Some of this we can understand. Shakespeare and Milton both had great genius. But Shakespeare understood all kinds of human beings and showed them as they really were. Milton changed what he wrote about to be like himself. What Shakespeare did, of course, is the greater work of the two. It is pleasant to read what the critic William Hazlitt wrote in praise of the essays of his friend Charles Lamb, not for friendship's sake merely, but because he loved and valued the essays. Notice, while Hazlitt seems to write easily and simply, he succeeds in explaining to us at the same time the charm and lasting quality of Charles Lamb as a writer. It is a fine, brief example of one kind of criticism and of the work of a critic. {214} "With what a gusto Mr. Lamb describes the inns and courts of law, the Temple and Gray's Inn, as if he had been a student there for the last two hundred years, and had been as well acquainted with the person of Sir Francis Bacon as he is with his portrait or writings! ... He (Lamb) haunts Watling-street like a gentle spirit; ... and Christ's-Hospital still breathes the balmy breath of infancy in his description of it! Whittington and his Cat are a fine hallucination for Mr. Lamb's historic Muse, and we believe he never heartily forgave a certain writer who took the subject of Guy Faux out of his hands. The streets of London are his fairy-land, teeming with wonder, with life and interest to his retrospective glance, as it did to the eager eye of childhood; he has contrived to weave its tritest traditions into a bright and endless romance!" The quotation from Coleridge is taken from his _Biographia Literaria_, and Hazlitt's writing from his book called _The Spirit of the Age and Lectures on English poets_.