Spectat Roma potens; 'habet hos numeratque poetas Ad nostrum tempus, Livî scriptoris ab ævo. NOTES. participating more of the freedom of the old comic banter, and rejecting, as improper to its end, the refinements of the new, insensibly depraved the public taste; which by degrees only, and not till a studied and cautious declamation had, by the necessary influence of absolute power, succeeded to the liberty of their old oratory, was fully reconciled to the delicacy and strict decorum of Menander's wit." Ver. 89. the people's Voice is odd,] "The capricious levity," says Dr. Hurd, on this passage, "of popular opinion hath been noted even to a proverb: and yet it is this, which, after all, fixes the fate of authors. This seemingly odd phenomenon I would thus account for: What is usually complimented with the high and reverend appellation of public judgment is, in any single instance, but the repetition or echo, for the most part eagerly catched and strongly reverberated on all sides, of a few leading voices, which have happened to gain the confidence, and so direct the cry, of the public. But (as, in fact, it too often falls out) this prerogative of the few may be abused to the prejudice of the many. The partialities of friendship, the fashionableness of the writer, his compliance with the reigning taste, the lucky concurrence of time and opportunity, the cabal of a party, nay, the very freaks of whim and caprice; these, or any of them, as occasion serves, can support the dullest, as the opposite disadvantages can depress the noblest, performance; and give a currency or neglect to either, far beyond what the genuine character of each demands. Hence the public voice, which is but the aggregate of these corrupt judgments, infinitely multiplied, is, with the wise, at such a juncture, deservedly of little esteem. Yet in a succession of such judgments, delivered at different times and by different sets or juntos of these sovereign arbiters of the fate of au These, 'only these, support the crowded stage, All this may be; the People's Voice is odd: It is, and it is not, the voice of God. h To Gammer Gurton if it give the bays, And yet deny the Careless Husband praise, 90 NOTES. thors, the public opinion naturally gets clear of these accidental corruptions. Every fresh succession shakes off some: till, by degrees, the work is seen in its proper form, unsupported of every other recommendation, than what its native inherent excellence bestows upon it. Then, and not till then, the voice of the people becomes sacred; after which it soon advances into divinity, before which all ages must fall down and worship. For now reason alone, without her corrupt assessors, takes the chair; and her sentence, when once promulgated and authorized by the general voice, fixes the unalterable doom of authors." Ολως καλὰ νόμιζε ὕψη καὶ ἀληθινὰ, τὰ διαπαντὸς ἀρέσκοντα καὶ πᾶσιν. Longinus, Sect. 7. Ver. 91. Gammer Gurton] A piece of very low humour, one of the first printed Plays in English, and therefore much valued by some Antiquaries. P. It was written by J. Still, afterward Bishop of Bath and Wells. If our author had been more acquainted with, and had not so much despised, our old Plays, he would have acquitted himself better in his edition of Shakspeare. A correct edition of this Comedy, written 1551, was given by Mr. R. Dodsley, in his valuable Collection of Old Plays; a publication which had the merit of exciting an attention to our ancient writers. Mr. R. Dodsley was a man of singular integrity, modesty, good sense, and good taste. He was honoured with the regard and friendship of some of the most celebrated writers of his time; particularly of Mr. Pope himself. He planned and conducted several works of great utility. He himself produced many pleasing and agreeable pieces, though not of the first rate; particularly his Si quædam nimis 'antique, si pleraque dure Et sapit, et mecum facit, et Jove judicat æquo. NOTES. Toyshop; his Economy of Human Life; his Poem on Public Virtue; his Ode, entitled Melpomene; and his Tragedy of Cleone. I reflect with pleasure on the number of eminent men I have met at his hospitable Table. "The true Noctes Attica," Johnson used to say, are revived at honest Dodsley's House." Ver. 92. Careless Husband praise,] This line is quoted as an instance of our Author's candour towards Cibber. This play was at first denied to be Cibber's, and was given to the Duke of Argyle, and other noblemen. It met with the greatest success, and was soon ascribed to its right author. Mrs. Oldfield's abilities were first known and admired by her acting Lady Betty Modish. The reconciliation scene between Sir Charles and Lady Easy was applauded. But Dr. Armstrong in his Sketches, p. 247, thinks it unnatural. Cibber was fond of these reconciliation scenes, and has used them in four of his plays; namely, Love's Last Shift, The Careless Husband, Wife's Resentment, Provoked Husband. It is singular, that Cibber should be the first writer that, after the Restoration, produced a play, his Love's Last Shift, in which any purity of manners, any decency of language, and any respect to the honour of the marriage-bed, were preserved. (See Davis's Miscell. p. 400. v. 3.) Cibber, says Dr. Armstrong, besides his abilities as a writer, and the singular variety of his powers as an actor, was, to the last, one of the most agreeable, cheerful, and best humoured men you would ever wish to converse with. Armstrong, consequently, could not think him a proper hero for the Dunciad. Ver. 97. affects the Obsolete,] One, who is allowed to have studied Spenser attentively, has remarked, "that the censure of Johnson upon his style, is perhaps unreasonable; Spenser in affecting the ancients writ no language." The ground-work and substance of his style is the language of his age. This indeed Or say our Fathers never broke a rule; But let them own, that greater Faults than we 95 And Sidney's verse halts ill on Roman feet : Milton's strong pinion now not Heav'n can bound, Now Serpent-like, in 'prose he sweeps the ground, In Quibbles, Angel and Archangel join, And God the Father turns a School-divine. 101 NOTES. is seasoned with various expressions, adopted from the elder poets; but in such a manner, that the language of his age was rather strengthened and dignified, than debased and disguised, by such a practice. In truth, the affectation of Spenser in this point is by no means so striking and visible as B. Jonson has insinuated; nor is his phraseology so difficult and obsolete as it is generally supposed to be. For many stanzas, together, we may frequently read him with as much facility as we can the same number of lines in Shakspeare. Observations on the Fairy Queen, vol. i. p. 133, by Thomas Warton, A. M. Ver. 98. And Sidney's verse] For a specimen, take the following stanza of one of his Sapphics. Arcadia, book i. p. 142. If the spheres senseless do yet hold a music, If the swan's sweet voice be not heard, but at death, Yieldeth a lute's tune. Ver. 100. Now Serpent-like,] Nobody can deny there are inequalities in this poem; and this observation of our Author is adopted from Dryden, who says, that Milton runs into a flat thought sometimes for a hundred lines together; "but 'tis when he is got into a track of Scripture;" but such passages bear no proportion to the general sublime of the poem; which, as the same Dryden says, we all admire with so much justice. m Non equidem insector, delendaque carmina Livî Esse reor, memini quæ "plagosum mihi parvo Orbilium dictare; sed emendata videri Pulcraque, et exactis minimum distantia, miror: NOTES. For this he had a of penetration, and All which qualities he Ver. 104. Bentley] This excellent Critic, who had the fortune to be extravagantly despised and ridiculed by two of the greatest Wits, [P. S.] and as extravagantly feared and flattered by two of the greatest Scholars of his time, [C. H.] will deserve to have that justice done him now, which he never met with while alive. He was a great Master both of the languages and the learning of polite Antiquity; whose Writings he studied with no other design than to correct the errors of the text. strong natural understanding, a great share a sagacity and acumen very uncommon. had greatly improved by long exercise and application. Yet, at the same time, he had so little of that elegance of judgment, we call Taste, that he knew nothing of Style, as it accommodates itself, and is appropriated to, the various kinds of composition. And his reasoning faculty being infinitely better than that of his imagination, the Style of Poetry was what he least understood. So that, that clearness of conception, which so much assisted his critical sagacity, in discovering and reforming errors in books of science, where a philosophical precision, and grammatical exactness of language is employed, served but to betray him into absurd and extravagant conjectures, whenever he attempted to reform the text of a Poet; whose diction he was always for reducing to the prosaic rules of logical severity; and whenever he found what a great master of speech call verbum ardens, he was sure not to leave it till he had thoroughly quenched it in his critical standish. But to make Philology amends, he was a perfect Master of all the mysteries of the ancient Rhythmus. |