Preface to Shakespeare • Paragraph 9
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He has not studied the niceties of expression, nor the exactness of thought; but he has had a large conception of human life, and has displayed it with warmth and with illumination. He is a writer that delights, not by the elegance of style, but by the vigor of imagination. His characters move not like puppets, but like people that breathe; and therefore, though he be often incorrect, he is always natural.