A few, not acquainted with the peculiarities of his line of studies, deemed them little more than dalliance with letters—a kind of agreeable disporting over the green fields of literature. They knew not the labours it involved; the occasional difficulties of access to the places where deposited; the interminable research, the exhausted patience, eyes, and frames of which I have in him endeavoured to depict an outline. None of his predecessors had attempted what he accomplished. Few of his successors have, on most points, added materially to our knowledge. When assailed for excess of accuracy by the idle or superficial, he disdained reply.
He was studious, and selected an object of popular study; inquiring, and left nothing unexplored likely to afford information; reflective, and therefore usually accurate in drawing conclusions where positive testimony was at fault. His talents were steady and practical; his learning extensive; his critical judgments, as we have seen in the preceding pages, sound. He who could throw light upon the career of Shakspeare and Dryden—give us the first and best history of the Stage—and leave, for our study and guidance, volumes at Oxford which no other spot supplies, must be considered no small benefactor to letters.
