King's Theatre, where we saw "Midsummer's Night's Dream [sic]," which I had never seen before, nor shall ever again, for it is the most insipid ridiculous play that ever I saw in my life. I saw, I confess, some good dancing and some handsome women, which was all my pleasure." John Dryden, 1668: "To begin then with Shakespeare; he was the man who of all Modern, and perhaps Ancient Poets, had the largest and most comprehensive soul. All the Images of Nature were still present to him, and he drew them not laboriously, but luckily: when he describes any thing, you more than see it, you feel it too. Those who accuse him to have wanted learning, give him the greater commendation: he was naturally learn'd; he needed not the spectacles of Books to read Nature; he look'd inwards, and found her there." Essay of Dramatic Poesy Thomas Rymer (neo-classical "rules" and "classical unities" extremist), 1692: "The Moral, sure, of this Fable [Othello] is very instructive. First, This may be a caution to all Maidens of Quality how, without their Parents consent, they run away with Blackamoors. Secondly, This may be a warning to all good Wives, that they look well to their Linnen. Thirdly, This may be a lesson to Husbands, that before their Jealousie be Tragical, the proofs may be Mathematical". (Rymer's notorious attack on Othello ultimately did Shakespeare's reputation more good than harm, by firing up John Dryden, John Dennis and other influential critics into writing eloquent replies.) Samuel Cobb (1675–1713), translator and master at Christ's Hospital: From Poetica Brittanici (1700). Cobb provides an example of the diffusion of Jonson's concept of Shakespeare as the "child of nature." 18th century Bevill Higgons: From the preface to the revision of The Merchant of Venice (1701) by George Granville, 1st Baron Lansdowne. Here, Shakespeare is made both to recognize his own lack of sophistication and to approve the neoclassical polish added by Granville. Joseph Addison, 1712: "Among the English, Shakespeare has incomparably excelled all others. That noble extravagance of fancy, which he had in so great perfection, thoroughly qualified him to touch... his reader's imagination, and made him capable of succeeding, where he had nothing to support him besides the strength of his own genius." Spectator no. 419 Alexander Pope, 1725: "His Characters are so much Nature her self that 'tis a sort of injury to call them by