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The Praise of Shakespeare

by C. E. Hughes

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Epigraph

Death makes no conquest of this conqueror;
For now he lives in fame, though not in life.

Who is it that says most? which can say more
 Than this rich praise,—that you alone are you?
In whose confine immured is the store
 Which should example where your equal grew.
Lean penury within that pen doth dwell,
 That to his subject lends not some small glory;
But he that writes of you, if he can tell
 That you are you, so dignifies his story;
Let him but copy what in you is writ,
 Not making worse what nature made so clear,
And such a counterpart shall fame his wit,
 Making his style admired everywhere.

Sonnet LXXXIV.

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