John Dennis, 1712 (1657-1734)
Shakespeare was one of the greatest geniuses that the world e’er saw for the Tragic Stage. Though he lay under greater disadvantages than any of his successors, yet had he greater and more genuine beauties than the best and greatest of them. And what makes the brightest glory of his character, those beauties were entirely his own, and owing to the force of his own nature; whereas his faults were owing to his education, and to the age that he lived in. One may say of him as they did of Homer, that he had none to imitate, and is himself inimitable.
An Essay on the Genius and Writings of Shakespear: with some Letters of Criticism to the Spectator. 1712, pp. 1, 2.