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above twenty years together. When he was but fifty years old, he desired only that he might live to see his son settled in the world; I granted it. He then begged the same favour for his daughter, and afterwards that he might see the education of a grandson: when all this was brought about, he puts up a petition that he might live to finish a house he was building. In short, he is an unreasonable old cur, and never wants an excuse; I will hear no more of him. Upon which he flung down the trap-door in a passion, and was resolved to give no more audiences that day."

Notwithstanding the levity of this fable, the moral of it very well deserves our attention, and is the same with that which has been inculcated by Socrates and Plato, not to mention Juvenal and Persius, who have each of them made the finest satire in their whole works upon this subject. The vanity of men's wishes, which are the natural prayers of the mind, as well as many of those secret devotions which they offer to the Supreme Being, are sufficiently exposed by it. Among other reasons for set forms of prayer, I have often thought it a very good one, that by this means the folly and extravagance of men's desires may be kept within due bounds, and not break out in absurd and ridiculous petitions, on so great and solemn an occa. sion.

I.

MODERN CRITICS.

Studium sine divite vena.

Art without a vein.

HOR.

ROSCOMMON.

I LOOK upon

the play-house as a world within itself.

They have lately furnished the middle region of it

with a new set of meteors, in order to give the sub

lime to many modern tragedies. I was there last winter at the first rehearsal of the new thunder, which is much more deep and sonorous than any hitherto made use of. They have a Salmoneus behind the scenes who plays it off with great success. Their lightnings are made to flash more briskly than heretofore; their clouds are also better furbelowed, and more voluminous; not to mention a violent storm locked up in a great chest, that is designed for the Tempest. They are also provided with above a dozen showers of snow, which, as I am informed, are the plays of many unsuccessful poets artificially cut and shredded for that

use.

I do not indeed wonder that the actors should be such professed enemies to those among our nation who are commonly known by the name of critics, since it is a rule among these gentlemen to fall upon a play, not because it is written, but because it takes. Several of them lay it down as a maxim, that whatever dramatic performance has a long run, must of necessity be good for nothing: as though the first precept in poetry were "not to please." Whether this rule holds good or not, I shall leave to the determina. tion of those who are better judges than myself; if it does, I am sure it tends very much to the honour of those gentlemen who have established it; few of their pieces having been disgraced by a run of three days, and most of them being so exquisitely written, that the town would never give them more than one night's bearing.

I have a great esteem for a true critic, euch as Aristotle and Longinus among the Greeks, Horace and Quintillian among the Romans, Boileau and Dacier among the French. But it is our misfortune, that some who set up for professed critics among us are so stupid, that they do not know how to put ten words together with elegance or common propriety, and withal so illiterate, that they have no taste of the learn

ed languages, and therefore criticise upon old authors only at second hand. They judge of them by what others have written, and not by any notions they have of the authors themselves. The words unity, action, sentiment, and diction, pronounced with an air of authority, give them a figure among unlearned readers, who are apt to believe they are very deep, because they are unintelligible. The ancient critics are full of the praises of their contemporaries; they discover beauties which escaped the observation of the vulgar, and very often find out reasons for palliating and excusing such little slips and oversights as were committed in the writings of eminent authors. On the contrary, most of the smatterers in criticism who appear among us, make it their business to vilify and depreciate every new production that gains applause, to descry imaginary blemishes, and to prove by far fetched arguments, that what pass for beauties in any cele brated piece, are faults and errors. In short, the writings of these critics, compared with those of the ancients, are like the works of the sophists compared with those of the old philosophers.

Envy and cavil are the natural fruits of laziness and ignorance; which was probably the reason, that in the heathen mythology Momus is said to be the son of Nox and Somnus, of darkness and sleep. Idle men, who have not been at the pains to accomplish or dis tinguish themselves, are very apt to detract from others; as ignorant men are very subject to decry those beauties in a celebrated work which they have not eyes to discover. Many of our sons of Momus, who dignify themselves by the name of critics, are the genuine descendants of these two illustrious ancestors. They are often led into those numerous absurdities, in which they daily instruct the people, by not considering that, First, There is sometimes a greater judgment shown in deviating from the rules of art, than in adhering to them; and, Secondly, That there is more beauty in the works of a great genius, who is ignorant

of all the rules of art, than in the works of a little genius, who not only knows, but scrupulously observes them.

First, We may often take notice of men who are perfectly acquainted with all the rules of good writing, and notwithstanding choose to depart from them on extraordinary occasions. I could give instances out of all the tragic writers of antiquity who have shown their judgment in this particular; and purposely receded from an established rule of the drama, when it has made way for a much higher beauty than the observation of such a rule would have been. Those who have surveyed the noblest pieces of architecture and statuary, both ancient and modern, know very well that there are frequent deviations from art in the works of the greatest masters, which have produced a much nobler effect than a more accurate and exact way of proceeding could have done. This often arises from what the Italians call the Gusto grande in these arts, which is what we call the sublime in writing.

In the next place, our critics do not seem sensible that there is more beauty in the works of a great genius who is ignorant of the rules of art, than in those of a little genius who knows and observes them. It is of these men of genius that Terence speaks, in opposition to the little artificial cavillers of his time;

Quorum æmulari exoptat negligentiam
Potius quam istorum obscuram diligentiam.

"Whose negligence he would rather imitate than these men's obscure diligence."

A critic may have the same consolation in the illsuccess of his play, as Dr. South tells us a physician has at the death of a patient, that he was killed secundum artem. Our inimitable Shakspeare is a stumbling-block to the whole tribe of these rigid critics. Who would not rather read one of his plays, where

there is not a single rule of the stage observed, than any production of a modern critic, where there is not one of them violated? Shakspeare was indeed born with all the seeds of poetry, and may be compared to the stone in Pyrrhus's ring, which, as Pliny tells us, had the figure of Apollo and the nine Muses in the veins of it, produced by the spontaneous hand of nature, without any help from art.

SCANDAL-BEARERS BAD
HEARTED.

Quantum a rerum turpitudine abes, tantum te a verborum libertate sejungas.

TULL.

We should be as careful of our words as our ac tions; and as far from speaking, as from doing ill.

IT is a certain sign of an ill heart to be inclined to

defamation. They who are harmless and innocent, can have no gratification that way; but it ever arises from a neglect of what is laudable in a man's self, and an impatience of seeing it in another. Else why should Virtue provoke? Why should Beauty displease in such a degree, that a man given to scandal never lets the mention of either pass by him without offering some. thing to the diminution of it? A lady the other day at a visit being attacked somewhat rudely by one, whose own character has been very roughly treated, answered a great deal of heat and intemperance very calmly, "Good madam, spare me, who am none of your match; I speak ill of nobody, and it is a new thing to me to be spoken ill off." Little minds think fame consists in the number of votes they have on their side among the multitude, whereas it is really the inseparable follower of good and worthy actions.

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