_Addison_ was so warm'd and affected with the Fire of _Shakespeare_'s
Description; that, instead of copying his Author's Sentiments, he
has, before he was aware, given us only the Image of his own
Impressions on the reading his great Original. For,
Oh, 'tis a dreadful Interval of Time,
Fill'd up with Horror all, and big with Death;
are but the Affections raised by such forcible Images as these;
----All the _Int'rim_ is
Like a Phantasma, or a hideous Dream.
----the State of Man,
Like to a little Kingdom, suffers then
The Nature of an Insurrection.
Comparing the Mind of a Conspirator to an Anarchy, is just and
beautiful; but the _Interim_ to a _hideous Dream_ has something in
it so wonderfully natural, and lays the human Soul so open, that one
cannot but be surpriz'd, that any Poet, who had not himself been,
some time or other, engaged in a Conspiracy, could ever have given
such Force of Colouring to Truth and Nature.
[Sidenote: The Question on _Shakespeare_'s Learning handled.]
It has been allow'd on all hands, far our Author was indebted to
_Nature_; it is not so well agreed, how much he ow'd to _Languages_
and acquir'd _Learning_. The Decisions on this Subject were
certainly set on Foot by the Hint from _Ben Jonson_, that he had
small _Latin_ and less _Greek_: And from this Tradition, as it were,
Mr. _Rowe_ has thought fit peremptorily to declare, that, "It is
without Controversy, he had no Knowledge of the Writings of the
ancient Poets, for that in his Works we find no Traces of any thing
which looks like an Imitation of the Ancients.
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