Page:Shakspeare and His Times (1852).djvu/11

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PREFACE.
v

velop regarding the nature of dramatic art in general, and the particular and diversified forms which it has assumed among those nations and in those ages in which it has shone with greatest brilliancy: an art so powerful and attractive, that, in all times and at all places, in the period of its infancy as well as in that of its maturity—of its glory as well as of its decline—it has ever remained invincibly popular, and has never ceased to charm all men either by its master-pieces or by its sparkling bluettes.

Paris, June 10, 1852.