The beauties of Shakspeare [antikvár]

PREFACE. I shall not attempt any laboured encomiums on Shakspeare, or endeavour to set forth his perfections, at a time when such universal and just applause is paid him, and when every tongue is big with his boundless fame. He himself tells us— " To gild refined gold, to paint the lily, To throw a perfume on the violet, To smooth the ice, or add another hue Unto the rainbow, or with taper-light To seek the beauteous eye of heaven to garnish, Is wasteful and ridiculous excess." And wasteful and ridiculous indeed it would be to say anything in his praise, when presenting the world with such a collection of Beauties as perhaps is nowhere to be met with, and, I may very safely affirm, cannot be paralleled from the productions of any other single author, ancient or modern. There is scarcely a topic, common with other writers, on which he has not excelled them all; there are many nobly peculiar to himself, where he shines unrivalled; and, like the eagle, properest emblem of his> daring genius, soars beyond the common reach and gazes undazzled on the sun. His flights are sometimes so bold, frigid criticism