"To make a proper estimation of his merits as a dramatic writer, we are to consider what was the state of the drama and the usual practice of the stage-writers in those early times; and what alterations and improvements it received from the plays of Jonson. Shakespear, and Beaumont and Fletcher, are the only contemporary writers that can be put in competition with him; and as they have excellencies of genius superior to those of Jonson, they have weaknesses and defects which are proportionably greater. If they transcend him in the creative powers, and the astonishing flights of imagination, their judgment is much inferior to his; and if he doth not at any time rise so high, neither perhaps doth he sink so low as they have done."