ABSTRACT
Our English Poets may, I think, be disposed in four different classes and degrees. In the first class I would place our only three sublime and pathetic poets: SPENSER, SHAKESPEARE, MILTON. In the second class should be ranked such as possessed the true poetical genius in a more moderate degree, but who had noble talents for moral, ethical, and panegyrical poesy. At the head of these are DRYDEN, PRIOR, ADDISON, COWLEY, WALLER, GARTH, FENTON, GAY, DENHAM, PARNELL. In the third class may be placed men of wit, of elegant taste and lively fancy in describing familiar life though not the higher scenes of poetry. Here may be numbered BUTLER, SWIFT, ROCHESTER, DONNE, DORSET, OLDHAM. In the fourth class the mere versifiers, however smooth and mellifluous some of them may be thought, should be disposed. Such as PITT, SANDYS, FAIRFAX, BROOME, BUCKINGHAM, LANSDOWNE. (I, vi-vii)
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[On the rarity of excellence in both comedy and tragedy]
Terence has left us no tragedy; and the Mourning Bride of Congreve, notwithstanding the praises bestowed on it by POPE in the Dunciad, is certainly a despicable performance: the plot is unnaturally intricate and overcharged with incidents, the sentiments trite, and the language turgid and
bombast. Heemskirk and Teniers could not succeed in a serious and sublime subject of history-painting. The latter, it is well known, designed cartoons for tapestry, representing the history of the Turriani of Lombardy. Both the composition and the expression are extremely indifferent, and certain nicer virtuosi have remarked that in the serious pieces of Titian himself, even in one of his Last Suppers, a circumstance of the Ridiculous and the Familiar is introduced which suits not with the dignity of his subject. Hogarth’s picture of Richard III is pure and unmixed with any dissimilar and degrading circumstances, and strongly impresses terror and amazement. The modesty and good sense of the ancients is in this particular, as in others, remarkable. The same writer never presumed to undertake more than one kind of dramatic poetry, if we except the Cyclops of Euripides. A poet never presumed to plead in public, or to write history, or, indeed, any considerable work in prose. The same actors never recited tragedy and comedy: this was observed long ago by Plato in the third book of his Republic. They seem to have held that diversity, nay, universality of excellence, at which the moderns frequently aim, to be a gift unattainable by man. We, therefore, of Great Britain have perhaps more reason to congratulate ourselves on two very singular phenomena; I mean Shakespeare’s being able to pourtray characters so very different as FALSTAFF and MACBETH, and Garrick’s being able to personate so inimitably a LEAR or an ABEL DRUGGER. Nothing can more fully demonstrate the extent and versatility of these two original geniuses. Corneille, whom the French are so fond of opposing to Shakespeare, produced very contemptible comedies. (I, 118-9)
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[On Shakespeare’s irregularities]
Correctness is a vague term, frequently used without meaning and precision. It is perpetually the nauseous cant of the French critics, and of their advocates and pupils, that the English writers are generally INCORRECT. If CORRECTNESS implies an absence of petty faults this perhaps may be granted. If it means that, because their tragedians have avoided the irregularities of Shakespeare and have observed a juster œconomy in their fables, therefore the Athalia, for instance, is preferable to Lear the notion is groundless and absurd. Though the Henriade should be allowed to be free from any very gross absurdities yet who will dare to rank it with the Paradise Lost? Some of their most perfect tragedies abound in faults as contrary to the nature of that species of poetry, and as destructive of its end, as the fools or grave-diggers of Shakespeare. (I, 196-7)
* * * With what wildness of imagination, but yet with what propriety, are the amusements of the fairies pointed out in the Midsummer Night’s Dream: amusements proper for none but fairies!
