et plein de genie comme lui:  mais le genie de Corneille etoit a celui de Shakespeare ce qu’ un seigneur est a l’egard d’un homme de peuple, ne avec le meme esprit que lui.” In other words, the works of the one retain the rough, bold tints of nature and originality, while those of the other are qualified by the artificial restraints which fashion imposes upon the homme de condition.  It is, therefore, unjustly, that Dryden dwells so long on Shakespeare’s irregularities, amongst which I cannot help suspecting he includes some of his greatest beauties.  While we do not defend his quibbles and carwitchets, as Bibber would have termed them, we may rejoice that he purchased, at so slight a sacrifice, the power and privilege of launching into every subject with a liberty as unbounded as his genius;

  As there is music, uninformed by art,
  In those wild notes, which, with a merry heart,
  The birds in unfrequented shades express,
  Which better taught at home, yet please us less.

Footnotes: 
1.  In mitigation of the censure which must be passed on our author for
   this hasty and ill-considered judgment, let us remember the very
   inaccurate manner in which Shakespeare’s plays were printed in the
   early editions.

2.  Mr Malone has judiciously remarked, that Dryden seems to have been
   ignorant of the order in which Shakespeare wrote his plays; and
   there will be charity in believing, that he was not intimately
   acquainted with those he so summarily and unjustly censures.

3.  In these criticisms, we see the effects of the refinement which our
   stage had now borrowed from the French.  It is probable, that, in
   the age of heroic plays, any degree of dulness, or extravagance,
   would have been tolerated in the dialogue, rather than an offence
   against the decorum of the scene.

4.  Jonson seems to have used it for to go on against.

5.  The Apollo was Ben Jonson’s favourite club-room in the Devil
   Tavern.  The custom of adopting his admirers and imitators, by
   bestowing upon them the title of Son, is often alluded to in his
   works.  In Dryden’s time, the fashion had so far changed, that the
   poetical progeny of old Ben seem to have incurred more ridicule
   than honour by this ambitious distinction.  Oldwit, in Shadwell’s
   play, called Bury Fair, is described as “a paltry old-fashioned wit
   and punner of the last age, that pretends to have been one of Ben
   Jonson’s sons, and to have seen plays at the Blackfriars.”

6.  This passage, though complimentary to Charles, contains much sober
   truth:  Having considerable taste for the Belles Lettres, he
   cultivated them during his exile, and was naturally swayed by the
   French rules of composition, particularly as applicable to the
   Theatre.  These he imported with him at his Restoration; and hence
   arose the Heroic Drama, so much cultivated by our author.