I may best perhaps explain my meaning by taking something written long ago; something very valuable, in order that I may not damage my argument by comparing the easiness of Thackeray with the harshness of some author who has in other respects failed of obtaining approbation.

If you take the play of _Cymbeline_ you will, I think, find it to be anything but easy reading.

Nor is Shakespeare always lucid.

For purposes of his own he will sometimes force his readers to doubt his meaning, even after prolonged study.

It has ever been so with _Hamlet_.
My readers will not, I think, be so crossgrained with me as to suppose that I am putting Thackeray as a master of style above Shakespeare.