Edward Young, 1712 (1683-1765)
To claim attention, and the heart invade,
Shakespeare but wrote the play th’ Almighty made.
Our neighbour’s stage art too bare-fac’d betrays,
’Tis great Corneille at every scene we praise;
On nature’s surer aid Britannia calls,
None think of Shakespeare till the curtain falls;
Then with a sigh returns our audience home,
From Venice, Egypt, Persia, Greece, or Rome.
......
And yet in Shakespeare something still I find,
That makes me less esteem all humankind;
He made one nature and another found,
Both in his page with master-strokes abound;
His witches, fairies, and enchanted isle,
Bid us no longer at our nurses smile;
Of lost historians we almost complain,
Nor think it the creation of his brain.
Epistle to the Right Honourable George, Lord Lansdowne. 1712, ll. 295-302 and 313-20.