'I do not care for a First Folio ofShakespeare. I rather prefer the common editions of Rowe and Tonson, without notes, and with plates, which, being so execrably bad, serve as maps, or modest remembrancers, to the text; and without pretending to any supposable emulation with it, are so much better than the Shakespeare gallery engravings, which did. [...] Winter evenings-the world shut out-with less of ceremony the gentle Shakespeare. At such a season, the Tempest, or his own Winter's Tale- These two poets [Shakespeare and Milton] youcannot avoid reading aloud-to your-self or (as it chances) to some single person listening. More than one-and it degenerates into an audience.'