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Might then have made renowned and glorious.Let me confide a secret to your ear:Three tragedies I've written in a styleNever attempted by another poet,Original in matter as in form,And full of great sensational effects,Which, were they once produced upon the stage,Would rank me even with the Bard of Avon. You smile, sir! but I mean just what I say,In fact I know not if I'm not too modest,And should not claim a higher place than Shakespeare:For what says Bernard Shaw?—"Excepting Homer,There is no famous writer I despiseSo much as I despise the vaunted Shakespeare,When I compare my intellect with his:"(And that is just what I should say of Shaw,Were I—but modesty restrains my speech.)Buchanan too (I mean the famous Robert,The author of—hang it! I've clean forgottenTheir names—of countless poems, plays, and novels,)He also thinks that Shakespeare's overrated,—See! here's his "Open Letter," where he showsThat the absurd idolatry of ShakespeareIs but a superstition of the mob,Who worship him for his faults and not his merits;(Robert, you see, is candid and allowsThat Shakespeare has some merits): Listen now—"Shakespeare, of course, writing in barbarous times,Wrote like a savage: he could do naught else!But what is most amazing in his mostAmazing genius is the thorough-goingConsistency with which he ever seizesThe brutal and the barbarous side of things,Be it the Trojan War or Jack Cade's rising,
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