In spite of his statement that "the English stage might be considered equally without rule and without model when Shakspeare arose," Scott did not seem inclined to leave the great man altogether unaccounted for, as some critics have preferred to do, for he says, "The effect of the genius of an individual upon the taste of a nation is mighty; but that genius in its turn is formed according to the opinions prevalent at the period when it comes into existence." These opinions, however, Scott assigns very vaguely to the influence of "a nameless crowd of obscure writers," and thinks it fortunate that Shakspere was unacquainted with classical rules. The critic had evidently made no attempt to define the influence of particular writers upon Shakspere. His criticism is at some points purely conventional, as for instance when he calls the poet "that powerful magician, whose art could fascinate us even by means of deformity itself "; but on the whole Scott seems to write about Shakspere in a very reasonable and discriminating way. He has a good deal to say of Ben Jonson, in other places as well as in this Essay on the Drama.[145] He was evidently well acquainted with that poet, and admired him without liking him. Somewhere he calls him "the dry and dogged Jonson,"[146] and again he speaks of his genius in very high terms. The contrast between Shakspere and Jonson moved him even to epigram:[147] "In reading Shakespeare we often meet passages so congenial to our nature and feelings that, beautiful as they are, we can hardly help wondering they did not occur to ourselves; in studying Jonson, we have often to marvel how his conceptions could have occurred to any human being." It was characteristic of Scott to note the fact that Shakspere wrote rapidly, Jonson slowly, for he was fond of getting support for his theory that rapid writing is the better.