Held from afar, aloft, th' immortal prize, NOTES. 96 contained them, and which, by becoming likewise the depositaries of Christian doctrine, have been rendered sacred language." To this sort of reasoning, the imitators of the ancients, by way of answer, must say, that all they mean in adhering to rules, is to adopt, "that method of treating any subject, that may render it most interesting to a reader." This, for instance, was the reason why Aristotle gives the preference to those tragedies, where there is a discovery and peripetic. And hence, they will say, the Edipus of Sophocles is as perfect a model of dramatic, as the Medicean Venus is of female, beauty. The learned and ingenious translator of Aristotle's Treatise on Poetry, with whose words I conclude this long note, is of a different opinion. "When we speak (says he) of the Greek tragedies, as perfect and correct models, we seem merely to conform to the established language of prejudice, and content ourselves with echoing, without reflection or examination, what has been said before us. I should be sorry to be ranked in the class of those critics, who prefer that poetry which has the fewest faults, to that which has the greatest beauties. I mean only to combat that conventional and hearsay kind of praise, which has so often held out the tragedies of the Greek poets, as elaborate and perfect models, such as had received the last polish of art and meditation. The true praise of Eschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides, is (in kind at least, if not in degree) the praise of Shakspeare; that of strong, but irregular, unequal, and hasty genius. Every thing which this genius, and the feeling of the moment, could produce, in an early period of the art, before time and long experience, and criticism, had cultivated and refined it, these writers possess in great abundance: what meditation, and the labour and delay of the file only, can effect, they too often want. Of Shakspeare, however, compared with the Greek poets, it may justly, I think, be pronounced, that he has much more both of this want, and of that abundance." Twining's Aristotle, p. 207. Ver. 92. Hear how learn'd Greece] In the second part of Shaftesbury's Advice to an Author, is a judicious and elegant account of the rise and progress of arts and sciences, in ancient Greece; to subjects of which sort it were to be wished this au Just precepts thus from great examples giv'n, She drew from them what they deriv'd from Heav'n. The gen'rous Critic fann'd the Poet's fire, And taught the world with reason to admire. NOTES. 100 thor had always confined himself, as he indisputably understood them well, rather than have blemished and belied his patriotism, by writing against the religion of his country. I shall give the reader a passage that relates to the origin of criticism, which is curious and just. "When the persuasive arts, which were necessary to be cultivated among a people that were to be convinced before they acted, were grown thus in repute; and the power of moving the affections become the study and emulation of the forward wits and aspiring geniuses of the times; it would necessarily happen, that many geniuses of equal size and strength, though less covetous of public applause, of power, or of influence over mankind, would content themselves with the contemplation, merely, of these enchanting arts. These they would the better enjoy, the more they refined their taste and cultivated their ear. Hence was the origin of Critics; who, as arts and sciences advanced, would necessarily come withal into repute; and being heard with satisfaction in their turn, were at length tempted to become authors, and appear in public. These were honoured with the name of Sophists; a character which in early times was highly respected. Nor did the gravest philosophers, who were censors of manners, and critics of a higher degree, disdain to exert their criticism on the inferior arts; especially in those relating to speech, and the power of argument and persuasion. When such a race as this was once risen, it was no longer possible to impose on mankind, by what was specious and pretending. The public would be paid in no false wit, or jingling eloquence. Where the learned critics were so well received, and philosophers themselves disdained not to be of the number, there could not fail to arise critics of an inferior order, who would subdivide the several provinces of this empire." Characteristics, vol. i. 12mo. p. 163. Our author might have profited much by reading Shaftesbury's Advice to an Author; but his essay preceded it. Ver. 98. Just precepts] "Nec enim artibus editis factum est ut argumenta inveniremus, sed dicta sunt omnia antequam præ Then Criticism the Muse's handmaid prov'd, NOTES. 110 ciperentur; mox ea scriptores observata et collecta ediderunt." Quintil. P. Ver. 103. To dress her charms,] What a dreadful picture has Swift drawn of the evil demon of criticism. "Momus fearing the worst, and calling to mind an ancient prophecy, which bore no very good face to his children the moderns; bent his flight to the region of a malignant deity, called Criticism, She dwelt on the top of a snowy mountain in Nova Zembla; there Momus found her extended in her den, upon the spoils of numberless volumes half devoured. At her right hand sat Ignorance, her father and husband, blind with age; at her left, Pride, her mother, dressing her up in the scraps of paper herself had torn. There, was Opinion, her sister, light of foot, hoodwinked, and headstrong, yet giddy, and perpetually turning. About her played her children, Noise and Impudence, Dulness and Vanity, Positiveness, Pedantry, and Ill-manners. The goddess herself had claws like a cat; her head, and ears, and voice, resembled those of an ass; her teeth fallen out before; her eyes turned inward, as if she looked only upon herself; her diet was the overflowing of her own gall; her spleen was so large, as to stand prominent like a dug of the first rate, nor wanted excrescences in form of teats, at which a crew of ugly monsters were greedily sucking; and, what is wonderful to conceive, the bulk of spleen increased faster than the sucking could diminish it." Tale of a Tub, p. 200. Ver. 107. Sure to hate] A feeble line of monosyllables, consisting of ten low words. Some on the leaves of ancient authors prey, Write dull receipts how poems may be made. 115 You then whose judgment the right course would steer, Know well each ANCIENT'S proper character; NOTES. Ver. 112. Some on the leaves] He has too frequently expressed an idle contempt of the Heinsiuses, Burmans, Gronoviuses, Reiskiuses, Marklands, and Gesners; and other searchers into various readings, who have done so much towards settling the texts of ancient authors. Ver. 115. Write dull] Perhaps he glanced at Bossu's famous Treatise on Epic Poetry; which may have been too much praised. D'Aubignac, under the patronage of Richlieu, wrote a treatise on the drama; and Mambrun on the epopée; but the tragedy of the one, and the Constantine, an epic poem, of the other, were despicable performances, which induced the great Condé to say, "Je scais bon gré, à l'Abbé D'Aubignac d'avoir suivi les regles d'Aristote, mais je ne pardonne pas aux regles d'Aristote d'avoir fait faire une si mauvaise tragedie à l'Abbé D'Aubignac." Ver. 119. Know well each Ancient's proper character ;] From their inattention to these particulars, many critics, and particularly the French, have been guilty of great absurdities. When Perrault impotently attempted to ridicule the first stanza of the first Olympic of Pindar, he was ignorant that the poet, in beginning with the praises of water, alluded to the philosophy of Thales, who taught, that water was the principle of all things; and which philosophy, Empedocles the Sicilian, a contemporary of Pindar, and a subject of Hiero, to whom Pindar wrote, had adopted in his beautiful poem. Homer and the Greek tragedians have been likewise censured; the former for protracting the Iliad after the death of Hector, and the latter for continuing the Ajax and Phœnissæ, after the deaths of their respective heroes. His Fable, Subject, scope, in ev'ry page; Be Homer's works your study and delight, VARIATIONS. 120 125 Ver. 123. Cavil you may, but never criticise.] The author after this verse originally inserted the following, which he has however omitted in all the editions Zoilus, had these been known, without a Name Had died, and Perrault ne'er been damn'd to fame; None e'er had thought his comprehensive mind NOTES. P. But the censurers did not consider the importance of burial among the ancients; and that the action of the Iliad would have been imperfect without a description of the funeral rites of Hector and Patroclus; as the two tragedies, without those of Polynices and Eteocles; for the ancients esteemed a deprivation of sepulture to be a more severe calamity than death itself. It is observable, that this circumstance did not occur to Pope, when he endeavoured to justify this conduct of Homer, by only saying, that as the anger of Achilles does not die with Hector, but persecutes his very remains, the poet still keeps up to his subject, by describing the many effects of his anger, till it is fully satisfied; and that for this reason, the two last books of the Iliad may be thought not to be excrescences, but essential to the poem. I will only add, that I do not know an author, whose capital excellence suffers more from the reader's not regarding his climate and country, than the incomparable Cervantes. There is a striking propriety in the madness of Don Quixote, not frequently taken notice of; for Thuanus informs us, that madness is a common disorder among the Spaniards at the latter part of life, about the age of which the knight is represented. "Sur la fin de ses jours Mendozza devint furieux, comme sont d'ordinaire les Espagnols." |