This, then, was the Condition of the _English_ Tongue when
_Shakespeare_ took it up: like a Beggar in a rich Wardrobe. He found
the pure native _English_ too cold and poor to second the Heat and
Abundance of his Imagination: and therefore was forc'd to dress it
up in the Robes, he saw provided for it: rich in themselves, but
ill-shaped; cut out to an air of Magnificence, but disproportion'd
and cumbersome. To the Costliness of Ornament, he added all the
Graces and Decorum of it. It may be said, this did not require, or
discover a Knowledge of the _Latin_. To the first, I think, it did
not; to the second, it is so far from discovering it, that, I think,
it discovers the contrary. To make This more obvious by a modern
Instance: The great MILTON likewise labour'd under the like
Inconvenience; when he first set upon adorning his own Tongue, he
likewise animated and enrich'd it with the _Latin_, but from his own
Stock: and so, rather by bringing in the Phrases, than the Words:
And This was natural; and will, I believe, always be the Case in the
same Circumstances. His Language, especially his Prose, is full of
_Latin_ Words indeed, but much fuller of _Latin_ Phrases: and his
Mastery in the Tongue made this unavoidable. On the contrary,
_Shakespeare_, who, perhaps, was not so intimately vers'd in the
_Language_, abounds in the Words of it, but has few or none of its
Phrases: Nor, indeed, if what I affirm be true, could He. This I
take to be the truest _Criterion_ to determine this long agitated
Question.
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