"Still we have some objections to the style, which we think savours more of the pedantic spirit of Shakespeare’s time than of his own genius; more of controversial divinity, and the logic of Peter Lombard, than of the inspiration of the Muse. It transports us quite as much to the manners of the court, and the quirks of courts of law, as to the scenes of nature or the fairyland of his own imagination. Shakespeare has set himself to imitate the tone of polite conversation then prevailing among the fair, the witty, and the learned, and he has imitated it but too faithfully. It is as if the hand of Titian had been employed to give grace to the curls of a full-bottomed periwig, or Raphael had attempted to give expression to the tapestry figures in the House of Lords."
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Original Language: English
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Sources
William Hazlitt, Characters of Shakespear's Plays (London, 1817), pp. 293–4
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Love's_Labour's_Lost
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Love's Labour's Lost
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