or fabulous, are always crouded with
incidents, by which the attention of a rude people was more easily caught
than by sentiment or argumentation; and such is the power of the
marvellous, even over those who despise it, that every man finds his mind
more strongly seized by the tragedies of Shakespeare than of any other
writer; others please us by particular speeches, but he always makes us
anxious for the event, and has perhaps excelled all but Homer in securing
the first purpose of a writer, by exciting restless and unquenchable
curiosity, and compelling him that reads his work to read it through.

The shows and bustle with which his plays abound have the same original.
As knowledge advances, pleasure passes from the eye to the ear, but
returns, as it declines, from the ear to the eye.I might easily have accumulated a mass of seeming learning upon
easy scenes; but it ought not to be imputed to negligence, that, where
nothing was necessary, nothing has been done, or that, where others have
said enough, I have said no more.

Notes are often necessary, but they are necessary evils. Let him that is
yet unacquainted with the powers of Shakespeare, and who desires to feel
the highest pleasure that the drama can give, read every play, from the
first scene to the last, with utter negligence of all his commentators.
When his fancy is once on the wing, let it not stoop at correction or
explanation. When his attention is strongly engaged, let it disdain alike
to turn aside to the name of Theobald and of Pope. Let him read on through
brightness and obscurity, through