Preface to Shakespeare

That praises are without reason lavished on the dead, and that the honours due only to excellence are paid to antiquity, is a com­plaint likely to be always continued by those, who, being able to add nothing to truth, hope for eminence from the heresies of par­adox; or those, who, being forced by disappointment upon con­solatory expedients, are willing to hope from posterity what the present age refuses, and flatter themselves that the regard which is yet denied by envy, will be at last bestowed by time.