He tells us, evidently thinking of himself, that in a poet,
"from fifty to threescore, the balance generally holds even in our colder
climates, for he loses not much in fancy, and judgment, which is the
effect of observation, still increases. His succeeding years afford him
little more than the stubble of his own harvest, yet, if his constitution
be healthful, his mind may still retain a decent vigor, and the gleanings
of that of Ephraim, in comparison with others, will surpass the vintage
of Abiezer."[12] Since Chaucer, none of our poets has had a constitution
more healthful, and it was his old age that yielded the best of him. In
him the understanding was, perhaps, in overplus for his entire good
fortune as a poet, and that is a faculty among the earliest to mature. We
have seen him, at only ten years, divining the power of reason in
Polybius.[13] The same turn of mind led him later to imitate the French
school of tragedy, and to admire in Ben Jonson the most correct of
English poets. It was his imagination that needed quickening, and it is
very curious to trace through his different prefaces the gradual opening
of his eyes to the causes of the solitary pre-eminence of Shakespeare. At
first he is sensible of an attraction towards him which he cannot
explain, and for which he apologizes, as if it were wrong.
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