In their opening letter (to the First Folio) Heminges and Condell address the reader with a eulogy of Shakespeare:

who, as he was a happy imitator of Nature, was a most gentle expressor of it. His mind and hand went together: And what he thought, he uttered with that easinesse, that wee have scarse recieved from him a blot in his papers. But it is not our province, who onely gather his works, and give them you, to praise him. It is yours that reade him. And there we hope, to your divers capacities, you will finde enough, both to draw, and hold you : for his wit can no more lie hid, then it could be lost. Reade him, therefore; and againe, and againe.

From Shakespeare's Restless World, Neil MacGregor



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