^^' n 
 
 J ^. 
 
 n 'L 
 
 
 '/O^i 
 
 i 'in^ 
 
 i!\^ : i\\- 
 
 ;j .1
 
 \ni 
 
 

 
 LECTURES 
 
 ENGLISH COMIC WRITERS 
 
 Seliberetr at ff)t Sutrrs JSfnstttutiom 
 
 BY WILLIAM HAZLITT. 
 
 " It is a very good office one man does another, when lie telis him the 
 manner of his being pleased." Steele. 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 PRINTED FOR TAYLOR AND HESSEY, 
 
 93, FLEET STREET. 
 
 1819.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 LECTURE I. 
 
 Page 
 INTRODUCTORY. ON WIT AND HUMOUR 1 
 
 LECTURE IL 
 
 ON SHAKSPEARE AND BEN JONSON ........ 54 
 
 LECTURE III. 
 
 ON COWLEY, BUTLER, SUCKLING, ETHEREGE, &C. ... 92 
 
 LECTURE IV. 
 
 ON WYGHERLEY, CONGREVE, VANBRUGH, AND FARQVHAR 133 
 
 LECTURE V. 
 
 ON THE PERIODICAL ESSAYISTS 177 
 
 LECTURE VL 
 
 ON THE ENGLISH NOVELISTS 208 
 
 LECTURE VIL 
 
 ON THE WORKS OF HOGARTH 2fi8 
 
 LECTURE VI n. 
 
 ON THE COMIC WRITERS OF THE LAST CENTURY - . . 302 
 
 
 <' K.;
 
 LECTURES 
 
 THE COMIC WRITERS, &c. 
 
 OF GREAT BRITAIN. 
 
 LECTURE I. INTRODUCTORY, 
 ox WIT AND HUMOUR. 
 
 Man is the only animal that laughs and weeps ; 
 for he is the only animal that is struck with tlie 
 difference between what things are, and what they 
 ought to he. We weep at what thwarts or exceeds 
 our desires in serious matters : we laugh at what 
 only disappoints our expectations in trifles. We 
 shed tears from sympathy with real and necessary 
 distress ; as we hurst into laughter from want of 
 >yni])athy ^vitil that which is unreasonable and 
 unnecessary, the absurdity of which provokes our 
 spleen or mirth, rather than any serious reffn;- 
 tions on it.
 
 '2 ON WIT AND HUMOUR. 
 
 To explain the nature of laughter and tears, is 
 to account for the condition of human life; for it 
 is in a manner compounded of these two ! It is 
 a tragedy or a comedy sad or merry, as it hap- 
 pens. The crimes and misfortunes that are in- 
 separable from it, shock and wound the mind 
 when they once seize upon it, and when the pres- 
 sure can no longer be borne, seek relief in tears : 
 the follies and absurdities that men commit, or 
 the odd accidents that befal them, afford us amuse- 
 ment from the very rejection of these false claims 
 upon our sympathy, and end in laughter. If 
 every thing that went wrong, if every vanity or 
 weakness in another gave us a sensible pang, it 
 would be hard indeed : but as long as the dis- 
 agreeableness of the consequences of a sudden 
 disaster is kept out of sight by the immediate 
 oddity of the circumstances, and the absurdity or 
 unaccountableness of a foolish action is the most 
 striking thing in it, the ludicrous prevails over 
 the pathetic, and we receive pleasure instead of 
 pain from the farce of life which is played before 
 us, and which discomposes our gravity as often as 
 it fails to move our anger or our pity ! 
 
 Tears may be considered as the natural and in- 
 voluntary resource of the mind overcome by some 
 sudden and violent emotion, before it has had
 
 ON WIT AND HUMOUR. 3 
 
 time to reconcile its feelings to the change of 
 circumstances : while laughter may be defined to 
 be the same sort of convulsive and involuntary 
 movement, occasioned by mere surprise or con- 
 trast (in the absence of any moi-e serious emotion), 
 before it has time to reconcile its belief to contra- 
 dictory appearances. If we hold a mask before 
 our face, and approach a child with this disguise 
 on, it will at first, from the oddity and incongruity 
 of the appearance, be inclined to laugh ; if we go 
 nearer to it, steadily, and without saying a word, 
 it will begin to be alarmed, and be half inclined 
 to cry : if we suddenly take off the mask, it will 
 recover From its fears, and burst out a-laughing ; 
 but if, instead of presenting the old well-known 
 countenance, we have concealed a satyr's head or 
 some frightful caricature behind the first mask, 
 the suddenness of the change will not in this case 
 be a source of merriment to it, but will convert 
 its surprise into an agony of consternation, and 
 will make it scream out for help, even though it 
 may be convinced that the whole is a trick at 
 bottom. 
 
 The alternation of tears and laughter, in this 
 little episode in common life, depends almost en- 
 tirely on the greater or less degree of interest 
 attached to the different changes of ap]ip:uanr<v
 
 4 ON WIT AND HUMOUR. 
 
 Tiie mere suddenness of the transition, the mere 
 baulking our expectations, and turning them ab- 
 ruptly into another channel, seems to give addi- 
 tional liveliness and gaiety to the animal spirits ; 
 but the instant the change is not only sudden, but 
 threatens serious consequences, or calls up the 
 shape of danger, terror supersedes our disposition 
 to mirth, and laughter gives place to tears. It is 
 usual to play with infants, and make them laugh 
 by clapping your hands suddenly before them ; 
 but if you clap your hands too lond, or too near 
 their sight, their countenances immediately change, 
 and they hide them in the nurse's arms. Or 
 suppose the same child, grown up a little older, 
 conies to a place, expecting to meet a person it is 
 particularly fond of, and does not find that person 
 there, its countenance suddenly falls, its lips begin 
 to quiver, its cheek turns pale, its eye glistens, and 
 it vents its little sorrow (grown too big to be con- 
 cealed) in a flood of tears. Again, if the child 
 meets the same person unexpectedly after long 
 absence, the same effect will be produced by an 
 excess of joy, with different accompaniments ; that 
 is, the surprise and the emotion excited will make 
 the biood come into his face, his eyes sparkle, his 
 tongue falter or be mute, but in either case the 
 tears will gush to his relief, and lighten the pres- 
 nrc about his heart. On the other iraiuk if a cliihi
 
 ON WIT AND HUMOUR, 
 
 is playing at hide-and-seek, or blindman's-buff,witli 
 persons it is ever so fond of, and either^ misses 
 them where it had made sure of finding them, or 
 suddenly runs up against them where it had least 
 expected it, the shock or additional impetus given 
 to the imagination by the disappointment or the 
 discovery, in a matter of this indifference, will only 
 vent itself in a fit of laughter.* The transition 
 here is not from one thing of importance to another, 
 or from a state of indifference to a state of strong 
 excitement ; but merely from one impression to 
 another that we did not at all expect, and when we 
 had expected just the contrary. The mind having 
 been led to form a certain conclusion, and the result 
 producing an immediate solution of continuity in 
 the chain of our ideas, this alternate excitement 
 and relaxation of the imagination, the object also 
 striking upon the mind more vividly in its loose 
 unsettled state, and before it has had time to re- 
 cover and collect itself, causes that alternate ex- 
 citement and relaxation, or irregular convulsive 
 movement of the muscular and nervous system, 
 which constitutes physical laughter, Tlie discou- 
 
 * A child that has hid itself out of the way in sport, is 
 under a great temptation to laugh at the unconsciousness of 
 others as to its situation. A person concealed from assassins, 
 is in no danger of betraying his situation by laughing.
 
 6 ON WIT AND HUMOUR. 
 
 tinuous in our sensations produces a correspondent 
 jar and discord in the frame. The steadiness of 
 our faith and of our features begins to give way 
 at the same time. We turn with an incredulous 
 smile from a story that staggers our behef: and 
 we are ready to spUt our sides with laughing at 
 an extravagance that sets all common sense and 
 serious concern at defiance. 
 
 To understand or define the ludicrous, we must 
 first know Avhat the serious is. Now the serious 
 is the habitual stress which the mind lays upon 
 the expectation of a given order of events, follow- 
 ing one another with a certain regularity and 
 weight of interest attached to them. When this 
 stress is increased beyond its usual pitch of inten- 
 sity, so as to overstrain the feelings by the violent 
 opposition of good to bad, or of objects to our 
 desires, it becomes the pathetic or tragical. The 
 ludicrous, or comic, is the unexpected loosening 
 or relaxing this stress below its usual pitch of 
 intensity, by such an abrupt transposition of the 
 order of our ideas, as taking the mind unawares, 
 throws it off its guard, startles it into a lively 
 sense of pleasure, and leaves no time nor incli- 
 nation for painful reflections. 
 
 The essence of the laughable then is the incon-
 
 ON WIT AND HUMOUR. 7 
 
 gruous, the disconnecting one idea from another, 
 or the jostling of one feeling against another. 
 The first and most obvious cause of laughter is to 
 be found in the simple succession of events, as in 
 the sudden shifting of a disguise, or some unlooked- 
 for accident, without any absurdity of character or 
 situation. The accidental contradiction between 
 our expectations and the event can hardly be said, 
 however, to amount to the ludicrous : it is merely 
 laughable. The ludicrous is where there is the 
 same contradiction between the object and our ex- 
 pectations, heightened by some deformity or incon- 
 venience, that is, by its being contrary to what is 
 customary or desirable ; as the ridiculous, which is 
 the highest degree of the laughable, is that which is 
 contrary not only to custom but to sense and reason, 
 or is a voluntary departure from what we have a 
 right to expect from those who are conscious of 
 absurdity and propriety in words, looks, and ac- 
 tions. 
 
 Of these different kinds or degrees of the 
 laughable, the first is the most shallow and short- 
 lived ; for the instant the immediate surprise of a 
 thing's merely happening one way or another is 
 over, there is nothing to throw us back upon our 
 former expectation, and renew our wonder at the 
 event a second time. The second sort, that is,
 
 3 ON WIT AND HUxMOUR. 
 
 the ludicrous arising out of the improbable or dis- 
 tressing, is more deep and lasting, either because 
 the painful catastrophe excites a greater curiosity, 
 or because the old impression, from its habitual 
 hold on the imagination, still recurs mechanically, 
 so that it is longer before we can seriously make 
 lip our minds to the unaccountable deviation from 
 it. The third sort, or the ridiculous arising out of 
 absurdity as well as improbability, that is, where 
 the defect or weakness is of a man's own seeking, 
 is the most refined of all, but not always so plea- 
 sant as the last, because the same contempt and 
 disapprobation which sharpens and subtilises our 
 sense of the impropriety, adds a severity to it in- 
 consistent with perfect ease and enjoyment. This 
 last species is properly the province of satire. 
 The principle of contrast is, however, the same 
 in all the stages, in the simply laughable, the lu- 
 dicrous, the ridiculous ; and the effect is only the 
 more complete, the more durably and pointedly 
 this principle operates. 
 
 To give some examples in these different kinds. 
 We laugh, when childi'en, at the sudden removing 
 of a pasteboard mask : we langli, when grown up, 
 more gravely at the tearing off the mask of deceit. 
 Wc laugh at absurdity ; we laugh at deformity. 
 U'e laugh at a bottle-nose in a caricature ; at n
 
 ON WIT AND HUMOUR. 9 
 
 Stuffed figure of an alderman in a pantomime, and 
 at the tale of Slaukenbergius. A giant standing 
 by a dwarf makes a contemptible figure enough. 
 Rosinante and Dapple are laughable from contrast, 
 as their masters from the same principle make two 
 for a pair. We laugh nt the dress of foreigners, 
 and they at ours. Three chimney-sweepers meet- 
 ing three Chinese in Lincoln's-inn Fields, they 
 laughed at one other till they were ready to drop 
 down. Country people laugh at a person because 
 they never saw him before. Any one dressed in the 
 height of the fashion, or quite out of it, is equally 
 an object of ridicule. One rich source of the lu- 
 dicrous is distress with which we cannot sympa- 
 thise from its absurdity or insignificance. Women 
 laugh at their lovers. We laugh at a damned 
 author, in spite of our teeth, and though he may 
 be our friend. " There is something in the mis- 
 fortunes of our best friends that pleases us." We 
 laugh at people on the top of a stage-coach, or in 
 it, if they seem in great extremity. It is hard to 
 hinder clsildren from laughing at a stammerer, at 
 a negro, at a drunken man, or even at a madman. 
 We laugh at mischief. We laugh at what we do 
 not believe. We say that an argument or an as- 
 sertion that is very absurd, is quite ludicrous. Wc 
 laugh to shew our satisfaction with ourselves, or 
 our contempt for those about us, or to conceal our
 
 in ON WIT AND HUMOUR. 
 
 envy or our ignorance. We laugh at fools, and 
 at those who pretend to be wise at extreme sim- 
 plicity, awkwardness, hypocrisy, and affectation. 
 " They were talking of me," says Scrub, " for they 
 laughed consumedlyr Lord Foppington's insensi- 
 bility to ridicule, and airs of ineffable self-conceit, 
 are no less admirable ; and Joseph Surface's cant 
 maxims of morality, when once disarmed of their 
 power to do hurt, become sufficiently ludicrous. 
 We laugh at that in others which is a serious 
 matter to ourselves ; because our self-love is 
 stronger than our sympathy, sooner takes the 
 alarm, and instantly turns our heedless mirth into 
 gravity, which only enhances the jest to others. 
 Some one is generally sure to be the sufferer by 
 a joko. What is sport to one, is death to another. 
 It is only very sensible or very honest people, 
 who laugh as freely at their own absurdities as at 
 those of their neighbours. In general the con- 
 trary rule holds, and we only laugh at those mis- 
 fortunes in which we are spectators, not sharers. 
 The injury, the disappointment, shame, and vexa- 
 tion that we feel, put a stop to our mirth ; while 
 the disasters that come home to us, and excite our 
 repugnance and dismay, are an amusing spectacle 
 to others. The greater resistance we make, and 
 the greater the perplexity into which we are thrown, 
 the more lively and piquant is the intellectual dis-
 
 ON WIT AND HUMOUR. 11 
 
 play of cross-purposes to the by-standers. Our 
 humiliation is their triumph. We are occupied 
 with the disagreeableness of the result instead of 
 its oddity or unexpectedness. Others see only the 
 conflict of motives, and the sudden alternation of 
 events ; we feel the pain as well, which more than 
 counterbalances the speculative entertainment we 
 might receive from the contemplation of our ab- 
 stract situation. 
 
 You cannot force people to laugh : you cannot 
 give a reason why they should laugh : they must 
 laugh of themselves, or not at all. As we laugh 
 from a spontaneous impulse, we laugh the more at 
 any restraint upon this impulse. We laugh at a 
 thing merely because we ought not. If we think 
 we must not laugh, this perverse impediment makes 
 our temptation to laugh the greater; for by en- 
 deavouring to keep the obnoxious image out of 
 sight, it comes upon us more irresistibly and re- 
 peatedly ; and the inclination to indulge our mirth, 
 the longer it is held back, collects its force, and 
 breaks out the more violently in peals of laughter. 
 In like manner, any thing we must not think cf 
 makes us laugh, by its coming upon us by stealth 
 and unawares, and from the very efforts we make 
 to exclude it. A secret, a loose word, a wanton 
 ifst, UKike pcopk^ iaugh. Aretinc laughed hini'sclf
 
 12 ON WIT AND HUMOUR. 
 
 to death at hearing a lascivious story. Wicked- 
 ness is often made a substitute for wit ; and in 
 most of our good old comedies, the intrigue of 
 the plot and the double meaning of the dialogue go 
 hand-in-handj and keep up the ball with wonderful 
 spirit between them. The consciousness, however it 
 may arise, that there is something that we ought to 
 look grave at, is almost always a signal for laugh- 
 ing outright : we can hardly keep our countenance 
 at a sermon, a funeral, or a wedding. What an 
 excellent old custom was that of throwing the 
 stocking ! What a deal of innocent mirth has 
 been spoiled by the disuse of it ! It is not an easy 
 matter to preserve decorum in courts of justice. 
 The smallest circumstance that interferes with the 
 solemnity of the proceedings, throws the whole 
 place into an uproar of laughter. People at the 
 point of death often say smart things. Sir Thomas 
 More jested with his executioner. Rabelais and 
 Wycherley both died with a boii-mot in their 
 mouths. 
 
 Misunderstandings, (maknieudus) where one 
 person means one thing, and another is aiming at 
 something else, are another great source of comic 
 humour, on the same principle of ambiguity and 
 contrast. There is a high-wrought instance of this 
 in the dialogue between Aiiiiwell and Gibbet, in
 
 ON WIT AND HUMOUR. 13 
 
 the Beaux' Stratagem, where Aimwell mistakes 
 his companion for an officer in a marching regi- 
 ment, and Gibbet takes it for granted that the 
 gentleman is a highwayman. The alarm and con- 
 sternation occasioned by some one saying to him, 
 in the course of common conversation, " I appre- 
 hend you," is the most ludicrous thing in that ad- 
 mirably natural and powerful performance, Mr. 
 Emery's Robert Tyke. Again, unconsciousness in 
 the person himself of what he is about, or of what 
 others think of him, is also a great heightener of 
 the sense of absurdity. It makes it come the fuller 
 home upon us from his insensibility to it. His 
 simplicity sets off the satire, and gives it a finer 
 edge. It is a more extreme case still where the 
 person is aware of being the object of ridicule, and 
 yet seems perfectly reconciled to it as a matter of 
 course. So wit is often the more forcible and 
 pointed for being dry and serious, for it then 
 seems as if the speaker himself had no inten- 
 tion in it, and we were the first to find it out. 
 Irony, as a species of wit, owes its force to the 
 same principle. In such cases it is the contrast 
 between the appearance and the reality, the sus- 
 pense of belief, and the seeming incongruity, that 
 gives point to the ridicule, and makes it enter the 
 deeper when the first impression is overcome. 
 Excessive impudence, as in the Liar ; or ex-
 
 14 ON WIT AND HUMOUR. 
 
 cessive modesty, as in the hero of 8hc Stoops to 
 Conquer ; or a mixture of the two, as in the Busy 
 Body, are equally amusing. Lying is a species of 
 wit and humour. To lay any thing to a person's 
 charge from which he is perfectly free, shews 
 spirit and invention ; and the more incredible the 
 effrontery, the greater is the joke. 
 
 There is nothing more powerfully humorous 
 than what is called keeping in comic character, as 
 we see it very finely exemplified in Sancho Panza 
 and Don Quixote. The proverbial phlegm and the 
 romantic gravity of these two celebrated persons 
 may be regarded as the height of this kind of excel- 
 lence. The deep feeling of character strengthens 
 the sense of the ludicrous. Keeping in comic cha- 
 racter is consistency in absurdity; a determined and 
 laudable attachment to the incongruous and singu- 
 lar. The regularity completes the contradiction ; for 
 the number of instances of deviation from the right 
 line, branching out in all directions, shews the in- 
 veteracy of the original bias to any extravagance or 
 folly, the natural improbability, as it were, in- 
 creasing every time with the multiplication of 
 chances for a return to common sense, and in the 
 end mounting up to an incredible and unaccountably 
 ridiculous height, when we find our expectations 
 as invariably baffled. The most curious problem
 
 ON WIT AND HUMOUR. 15 
 
 of all, is this truth of absurdity to itself. That 
 reason and good sense should be consistent, is not 
 wonderful : but that caprice, and whim, and fan- 
 tastical prejudice, should be uniform and infallible 
 in their results, is the surprising thing. But while 
 this characteristic clue to absurdity helps on the 
 ridicule, it also softens and harmonises its ex- 
 cesses ; and the ludicrous is here blended with a 
 certain beauty and decorum, from this very truth 
 of habit and sentiment, or from the principle of 
 similitude in dissimilitude. The devotion to non- 
 sense, and enthusiasm about trifles, is highly af- 
 fecting as a moral lesson : it is one of the striking 
 weaknesses and greatest happinesses of our nature. 
 That which excites so lively and lasting an interest 
 in itself, even though it should not be wisdom, is 
 not despicable in the sight of reason and hu- 
 manity. We cannot suppress the smile on the lip ; 
 but the tear should also stand ready to start from 
 the eye. The history of hobby-horses is equally 
 instructive and delightful ; and after the pair I 
 have just alluded to, My Uncle Toby's is one of 
 the best and gentlest that " ever lifted leg!" The 
 inconveniences, odd accidents, falls, and bruises, 
 to which they expose their riders, contribute their 
 share to the amusement of the spectators ; and 
 the blows and wounds that the Knight of the 
 Sorrowful (.'ountpnanre rpr(iv(^(l in his manv
 
 IG ON WIT AND HUMOUR. 
 
 perilous adventures, have applied their healing 
 influence to many a hurt mind. In what relates 
 to the laughable, as it arises from unforeseen ac- 
 cidents or self-willed scrapes, the pain, the shame, 
 the mortification, and utter helplessness of situa- 
 tion, add to the jke, provided they are momen- 
 tary, or overwhelming only to the imagination of 
 the sufferer. Malvolio's punishment and appre- 
 hensions are as comic, from our knowing that 
 they are not real, as Christopher Sly's drunken 
 transformation and short-lived dream of happiness 
 are for the like reason. Parson Adams's fall into 
 the tub at the 'Squire's, or his being discovered 
 in bed with Mrs. Slipslop, though pitiable, are 
 laughable accidents : nor do we read with much 
 gravity of the loss of his iEschylus, serious as it 
 Avas to him at the time. A Scotch clergyman, as 
 he was going to church, seeing a spruce conceited 
 mechanic who was walking before him, suddenly 
 covered all over with dirt, either by falling into 
 the kennel, or by some other calamity befalling 
 him, smiled and passed on: but afterwards seeing 
 the same person, who had stopped to refit, seated 
 directly facing him in the gallery, with a look of 
 perfect satisfiiction and composure, as if nothing 
 of the sort had happened to him, the idea of his 
 late disaster and present self-complacency struck 
 him so powerfully, that, unable to n.-sist th<; iiii-
 
 ON WIT AND HUMOUR. I7 
 
 pulse, he flung himself back in the pulpit, and 
 laughed till he could laugh no longer. I remember 
 reading a story in an odd number of the European 
 Magazine, of an old gentleman who used to walk 
 out every afternoon, with a gold-headed cane, in 
 the fields opposite Baltimore House, which were 
 tlien open, only with foot-paths crossing them. 
 He was frequently accosted by a beggar with a 
 wooden leg, to whom he gave money, which only 
 made him more importunate. One day, when he 
 was more troublesome than usual, a well-dressed 
 person happening to come up, and observing how 
 saucy the fellow was, said to the gentleman, " Sir, 
 if you will lend me your cane for a moment, I'll 
 give him a good threshing for his impertinence." 
 The old gentleman, smiling at the proposal, handed 
 him his cane, which the other no sooner was going 
 to apply to the shoulders of the culprit, than he 
 immediately whipped off his wooden leg, and 
 scampered off with great alacrity, and his chastiser 
 after him as hard as he could go. The faster the 
 one ran, the faster the other followed him, bran- 
 dishing the cane, to the great astonishment of the 
 gentleman who owned it, till having fairly crossed 
 the fields, they suddenly turned a corner, and 
 nothing more was seen of either of them. 
 
 In the way of mischievous adventure, and a 
 
 c
 
 18 ON WIT AND HUMOUR. 
 
 wanton exhibition of ludicrous weakness in cha- 
 racter, nothing is superior to the comic parts of 
 the Arabian Nights' Entertainments. To take 
 only the set of stories of the Little Hunchback, 
 who was choked with a bone, and the Barber of 
 Bagdad and his seven brothers, there is that of the 
 tailor who was persecuted by the miller s wife, and 
 who, after toiling all night in the mill, got nothing 
 for his pains : of another who fell in love with a 
 fine lady who pretended to return his passion, and 
 inviting him to her house, as the preliminary con- 
 dition of her favour, had his eyebrows shaved, his 
 clothes stripped off, and being turned loose into a 
 winding gallery, he was t6 follow her, and by over- 
 taking obtain all his wishes, but, after a turn or 
 two, stumbled on a trap-door, and fell plump into 
 the street, to the great astonishment of the specta- 
 tors and his own, shorn of his eyebrows, naked, and 
 without a ray of hope left: that of the castle- 
 building pedlar, who, in kicking his wife, the sup- 
 j)osed daughter of an emperor, kicks down his 
 basket of glass, the brittle foundation of his ideal 
 wealth, his good fortune, and his arrogance : that, 
 again, of the beggar who dined with the Barmecide, 
 and feasted with him on the names of wines and 
 dishes: and, last and best of all, the inimitable 
 story of the Impertinent Barber himself, one of 
 the seven, and worthy to be so ; his pertinacious,
 
 ON WIT AND HUMOUR. 19 
 
 incredible, teasing, deliberate, yet unmeaning folly, 
 his wearing out the patience of the young gentle- 
 man whom he is sent for to shave, his prepara- 
 tions and bis professions of speed, his taking out 
 an astrolabe to measure the height of the sun 
 while his razors are getting ready, his dancing the 
 dance of Zimri and singing the song of Zamtout, 
 his disappointing the young man of an assignation, 
 following him to the place of rendezvous, and 
 alarming the master of the house in his anxiety for 
 his safety, by which his unfortunate patron loses 
 his hand in the affray, and this is felt as an awkward 
 accident. The danger which the same loquacious 
 person is afterwards in, of losing his head for want 
 of saying who he was, because he would not forfeit 
 his character of being "justly called the Silent," is 
 a consummation of the jest, though, if it had really 
 taken place, it would have been carrying the joke 
 too far. There are a thousand instances of the 
 same sort in the Thousand and One Nights, which 
 are an inexhaustible mine of comic humour and 
 invention, and which, from the manners of the 
 East which they describe, carry the principle of 
 callous indifference in a jest as far as it can go. 
 The serious and marvellous stories in that work, 
 which have been so much admired and so greedily 
 read, iijipear to me monstrous and abortive fictions, 
 like disjointed dreams, dictated by a preteniatiiral
 
 20 ON WIT AND HUMOUR. 
 
 dread of arbitrary and despotic power, as the 
 comic and familiar stories are rendered propor- 
 tionably amusing and interesting from the same 
 principle operating in a different direction, and 
 producing endless uncertainty and vicissitude, and 
 an heroic contempt for the untoward accidents and 
 petty vexations of human life. It is the gaiety of 
 despair, the mirth and laughter of a respite during 
 pleasure from death. The strongest instances of 
 effectual and harrowing imagination, are in the story 
 of Amine and her three sisters, whom she led by her 
 side as a leash of hounds, and of the goul who nib- 
 bled grains of rice for her dinner, and preyed on hu- 
 man carcasses. In this condemnation of the serious 
 parts of the Arabian Nights, I have nearly all the 
 world, and in particular the author of the Ancient 
 Mariner, against me, who must be allowed to be 
 a judge of such matters, and who said, with a 
 subtlety of philosophical conjecture which he alone 
 possesses, " That if I did not like them, it was 
 because I did not dream." On the other hand, 
 I have Bishop Atterbury on my side, who, in a 
 letter to Pope, fairly confesses that " he could not 
 read them in his old age." 
 
 There is another source of comic humour 
 which has been but little touched on or attended 
 to by the critics not the infliction of casual pain.
 
 ON WIT AND HUMOUR. 21 
 
 but the pursuit of uncertain pleasure and idle gal- 
 lantry. Half the business and gaiety of comedy 
 turns upon this. Most of the adventures, diffi- 
 culties, demurs, hair-breadth 'scapes, disguises, 
 deceptions, blunders, disappointments, successes, 
 excuses, all the dextrous manoeuvres, artful inu- 
 endos, assignations, billets-doux, double entendres, 
 sly allusions, and elegant flattery, have an eye to 
 this to the obtaining of those " favours secret, 
 sweet, and precious," in which love and pleasure 
 consist, and which when attained, and the equivoque 
 is at an end, the curtain drops, and the play is 
 over. All the attractions of a subject that can 
 only be glanced at indirectly, that is a sort of for- 
 bidden ground to the imagination, except under 
 severe restrictions, which are constantly broken 
 through ; all the resources it supplies for intrigue 
 and invention ; the bashfulness of the clownish 
 lover, his looks of alarm and petrified astonish- 
 ment ; the foppish affectation and easy confidence 
 of the happy man ; the dress, the airs, the lan- 
 jjnor, the scorn, and indifference of the fine lady ; 
 the bustle, pertness, loquaciousness, and tricks of 
 the chambermaid; the impudence, lies, and roguery 
 of the valet ; the match-making and unmaking; the 
 wisdom of the wise ; the sayings of the vvitty, the 
 lolly of the fool ; " the soldier's, scholar's, courtier's 
 eye, tongue, sword, the glass of fashion and the mould
 
 22 ON WIT AND HUMOUR. 
 
 of form/' have all a view to this. It is the closet 
 in Blue-Beard. It is the life and soul of Wycherley, 
 Congreve, Vanbrugh, and Farquhar s plays. It is 
 the salt of comedy, without which it would be 
 worthless and insipid. It makes Horner decent, 
 and Millamant divine. It is the jest between 
 Tattle and Miss Prue. It is the bait with which 
 Olivia, in the Plain Dealer, plays with honest 
 Manly. It lurks at the bottom of the catechism 
 which Archer teaches Cherry, and which she 
 learns by heart. It gives the finishing grace to 
 Mrs. Amlet's confession " Though I'm old, I'm 
 chaste." Valentine and his Angelica would be 
 nothing without it; Miss Peggy would not be 
 worth a gallant ; and Slenders " sweet Anne Page" 
 would be no more ! " The age of comedy would 
 be gone, and the glory of our play-houses extin- 
 guished for ever." Our old comedies would be 
 invaluable, were it only for this, that they keep 
 alive this sentiment, which still survives in all its 
 fluttering grace and breathless palpitations on the 
 stage. 
 
 Humour is the describing the ludicrous as it 
 is in itself; wit is the exposing it, by comparing 
 or contrasting it with something else. Humour 
 is, as it were, the growth of nature and accident ; 
 wit is the product of art and fancy. Humour, as
 
 ON WIT AND HUMOUR. 28 
 
 it is shewn in books, is an imitation of the natural 
 or acquired absurdities of mankind, or of the ludi- 
 crous in accident, situation, and character: wit is 
 the illustrating and heightening the sense of that 
 absurdity by some sudden and unexpected likeness 
 or opposition of one thing to another, which sets off 
 the quality we laugh at or despise in a still more 
 contemptible or striking point of view. Wit, as 
 distinguished from poetry, is the imagination or 
 fancy inverted, and so applied to given objects, as 
 to make the little look less, the mean more light 
 and worthless ; or to divert our admiration or 
 wean our affections from that which is lofty and 
 impressive, instead of producing a more intense 
 admiration and exalted passion, as poetry does. 
 Wit may sometimes, indeed, be shewn in com- 
 pliments as well as satire ; as in the common 
 epigram 
 
 " Accept a miracle, instead of wit : 
 
 See two dull lines with Stanhope's pencil writ." 
 
 But then the mode of paying it is playful and 
 ironical, and contradicts itself in the very act of 
 making its own performance an humble foil to 
 another's. Wit hovers round the borders of the 
 light and trifling, whether in matters of pleasure 
 or pain ; for as soon as it describes the serious 
 seriously, it ceases to be wit, and passes into a 
 (lift'erent form. Wit is, in fact, the eloquence of
 
 24 ON WIT AND HUMOUR. 
 
 indifference, or an ingenious and striking exposi- 
 tion of those evanescent and glancing impressions 
 of objects which affect us more from surprise or 
 contrast to the train of our ordinary and literal 
 preconceptions, than from any thing in the objects 
 themselves exciting our necessary sympathy or 
 lasting hatred. The favourite employment of wit 
 is to add littleness to littleness, and heap contempt 
 on insignificance by all the arts of petty an(J 
 incessant warfare ; or if it ever affects to ag- 
 grandise, and use the language of hyperbole, it 
 is only to betray into derision by a fatal compari- 
 son, as in the mock-heroic ; or if it treats of 
 serious passion, it must do it so as to lower the 
 tone of intense and high-wrought sentiment, by 
 the introduction of burlesque and familiar circum- 
 stances. To give an instance or two. Butler, in 
 his Hudibras, compares the change of night into 
 day, to the change of colour in a boiled lobster. 
 
 " The sun had long since, in the lap 
 
 Of Thetis, taken out his nap ; 
 
 And, like a lobster boil'd, the morn 
 
 From black to red, began to turn : 
 
 When Hudibras, whom thoughts and aching 
 
 'Twixt sleeping kept all night, and waking. 
 
 Began to rub his drowsy eyes. 
 
 And from his couch prepared to rise. 
 
 Resolving to dispatch the deed 
 
 He vow'd to do with trusty speed."
 
 ON WIT AND HUMOUR. 35 
 
 Compare this with the following stanzas in Spenser, 
 treating of the same subject : 
 
 " By this the Northern Waggoner had set 
 His seven-fold team behind the stedfast star. 
 That was in Ocean waves yet never wet. 
 But firm is fix'd and sendeth light from far 
 To all that in the wide deep wand'ring are: 
 And cheerful chanticleer with his note shrill. 
 Had warned once that Phoebus' fiery car 
 In haste was climbing up the eastern hill. 
 Full envious that night so long his room did fill. 
 
 At last the golden oriental gate 
 
 Of greatest heaven 'gan to open fair. 
 
 And Phoebus, fresh as bridegroom to his mate. 
 
 Came dancing forth, shaking his dewy hair. 
 
 And liurl'd his glist'ring beams through gloomy air : 
 
 Which when the wakeful elf perceiv'd, straitway 
 
 He started up and did himself prepare 
 
 In sun-bright arms and battailous array. 
 
 For with that pagan proud he combat will that day." 
 
 In this last passage, every image is brought for- 
 ward that can give effect to our natural impres- 
 sion of the beauty, the splendour, and solemn 
 grandeur of the rising sun ; pleasure and power 
 wait on every line and word : whereas, in the 
 other, the only memorable thing is a grotesque 
 and ludicrous illustration of the alteration which 
 takes place from darkness to gorgeous light, and 
 that brought from the lowest instance, and with
 
 26 ON WIT AND HUMOUR. 
 
 associations that can only disturb and pei*plex the 
 imagination in its conception of the real object it 
 describes. There cannot be a more witty, and at 
 the same time degrading comparison, than that in 
 the same author, of the Bear turning round the 
 pole-star to a bear tied to a stake : 
 
 " But now a sport more formidable 
 
 Had raked together village rabble ; 
 
 'Twas an old way of recreating 
 
 Which learned butchers call bear-baiting, 
 
 A bold adventrous exercise 
 
 With ancient heroes in high prize, 
 
 For authors do affirm it came 
 
 From Isthmian or Nemaean game j 
 
 Others derive it from the Bear 
 
 That's fixed in Northern hemisphere. 
 
 And round about his pole does make 
 
 A circle like a bear at stake. 
 
 That at the chain's end wheels about 
 
 And overturns the rabble rout." 
 
 I need not multiply examples of this sort. Wit 
 or ludicrous invention produces its effect oftenest 
 by comparison, but not always. It frequently 
 effects its purposes by unexpected and subtle 
 distinctions. For instance, in the first kind, Mr. 
 Sheridan's description of Mr. Addington's adminis- 
 tration as the fag-end of Mr. Pitt's, who had re- 
 mained so long on the treasury bench that, like
 
 ON WIT AND HUMOUR. 27 
 
 Nicias in the fable, " he left the sitting part of 
 the man behind him," is as fine an example of 
 metaphorical wit as any on record. The same 
 idea seems, however, to have been included in the 
 old well-known nickname of the Rump Parlia- 
 ment. Almost as happy an instance of the other 
 kind of wit, which consists in sudden retorts, in 
 turns upon an idea, and diverting the train of your 
 adversary's argument abruptly and adroitly into 
 another channel, may be seen in the sarcastic 
 reply of Porson, who hearing some one observe, 
 that " certain modern poets would be read and 
 admired when Homer and Virgil were forgotten," 
 made answer " And not till then!" Sir Robert 
 Walpoles definition of the gratitude of place- 
 expectants, " That it is a lively sense of future 
 favours," is no doubt wit, but it does not consist 
 in the finding out any coincidence or likeness, but 
 in suddenly transposing the order of time in the 
 common account of this feeling, so as to make the 
 professions of those who pretend to it correspond 
 more with their practice. It is filling up a blank 
 in the human heart with a word that explains its 
 liollowness at once. Voltaire's saying, in answer 
 to a stranger who was observing how tall his trees 
 grew " Tliat they had nothing else to do" was 
 a quaint mixture of wit and humour, making it 
 out as if they really led a lazy, laborious life ; but
 
 $8 ON WIT AND HUMOUR. 
 
 there was here neither allusion or metaphor. 
 Again, that master-stroke in Hudibras is sterling 
 wit and profound satire, where speaking of certain 
 religious hypocrites he says, that they 
 
 " Compound for sins they are inclin'd to. 
 By damning those they have no mind to j" 
 
 but the wit consists in the truth of the character, 
 and in the happy exposure of the ludicrous con 
 tradiction between the pretext and the practice ; 
 between their lenity towards their own vices, and 
 their severity to those of others. The same prin- 
 ciple of nice distinction must be allowed to prevail 
 in those lines of the same author, where he is pro- 
 fessing to expound the dreams of judicial astrology. 
 
 There's but the twinkling of a star 
 Betwixt a man of peace and war, 
 A thief and justice, fool and knave, 
 A huffing officer and a slave 3 
 A crafty lawyer and pickpocket j 
 A great philosopher and a blockhead ; 
 A formal preacher and a player; 
 A learn'd physician and man slayer." 
 
 The finest piece of wit I know of, is in the lines 
 of Pope on the Lord Mayor s show 
 
 " Now night descending, the proud scene is o'er. 
 But lives in Settle's numbers one day more."
 
 ON WIT AND HUMOUR. 29 
 
 This is certainly as mortifying an inversion of the 
 idea of poetical immortality as could be thought 
 of; it fixes the maximum of littleness and insig- 
 nificance : but it is not by likeness to any thing 
 else that it does this, but by literally taking the 
 lowest possible duration of ephemeral reputation, 
 marking it (as with a slider) on the scale of end- 
 less renown, and giving a rival credit for it as his 
 loftiest praise. In a word, the shrewd separation 
 or disentangling of ideas that seem the same, or 
 where the secret contradiction is not sufficiently 
 suspected, and is of a ludicrous and whimsical 
 nature, is wit just as much as the bringing 
 together those that appear at first sight totally 
 different. There is then no sufficient ground for 
 admitting Mr. Locke's celebrated definition of wit, 
 which he makes to consist in the finding out 
 striking and unexpected resemblances in things 
 so as to make pleasant pictures in the fancy, 
 while judgment and reason, according to him, lie 
 the clean contrary way, in separating and nicely 
 distinguishing those wherein the smallest difference 
 is to be found.* 
 
 * His words are " If in having our ideas in the memorv 
 ready at hand consists quickness of parts, in this of havini: 
 them unconfused, and being able nicely to distinguish one 
 thing from another, where there is but tlie least difference, 
 consists in a great measure the exactness of judgment and
 
 30 ON WIT AND HUMOUR. 
 
 On this definition Harris, the author of Hermes, 
 has very well observed that the demonstrating the 
 
 clearness of reason, which is to be observed in one man above 
 another. And hence, perhaps, may be given some reason of 
 that common observation, that men who have a great deal of 
 wit and prompt memories, have not always the clearest judg- 
 ment or deepest reason. For wit lying mostly in the as- 
 semblage of ideas, and putting them together with quickness 
 and variety, wherein can be found any resemblance or con- 
 gruity, thereby to make up pleasant pictures and agreeable 
 visions in the fancy j judgment, on the contrary, lies quite on 
 the other side, in separating carefully one from another, ideas 
 wherein can be found the least difference, thereby to avoid 
 being misled by similitude, and by affinity to take one thing 
 for another," {Essay, vol. i, p. 143.) This definition, such 
 as it is, Mr. Locke took without acknowledgment from 
 Hobbes, who says in his Leviathan, " This difference of 
 quickness in imagining is caused by the difference of men's 
 passions, that love and dislike some one thing, some another, 
 and therefore some men's thoughts run one way, some an- 
 other, and are held to and observe differently the things that 
 pass through their imagination. And whereas in this suc- 
 cession of thoughts there is nothing to observe in the things 
 they think on, but eitlier in what they be like one another, or 
 in what they be unlike, those that observe their similitudes, 
 in case ti;ey be such as are but rarely observed by others, are 
 said to have a good wit, by which is meant on this occasion a 
 good fancy. But they that observe their differences and dis- 
 similitudes, which is called distinguishing and discerning and 
 judging between thing and thing; in case such discerning be 
 not easy, are said to have a good judgment ; and particularly
 
 ON WIT AND HUMOUR. 31 
 
 equality of the three angles of a right-angled tri- 
 angle to two right ones, would, upon the principle 
 here stated, be a piece of wit instead of an act of the 
 judgment or understanding, and Euclid's Elements 
 a collection of epigrams. On the contrary it has 
 appeared, that the detection and exposure of differ- 
 ence, particularly where this implies nice and subtle 
 observation, as in discriminating between pretence 
 and practice, between appearance and reality, is 
 common to wit and satire with judgment and reason- 
 ing, and certainly the comparing and coimecting 
 our ideas together is an essential part of reason 
 and judgment, as well as of wit and fancy. Mere 
 wit, as opposed to reason or argument, consists in 
 striking out some casual and partial coincidence 
 which has nothing to do, or at least implies no 
 necessai7 connection with the nature of the things, 
 which are forced into a seeming analogy by a play 
 upon words, or some irrelevant conceit, as in puns, 
 riddles, alliteration, &c. The jest, in all such 
 cases, lies in the sort of mock-identity, or nominal 
 resemblance, established by the intervention of 
 
 in matter of conversation and business, wherein times, places, 
 and persons are to be discerned, this virtue is called dis- 
 cretion. The former, that is, fancy, without the help of 
 judgment, is not commended for a virtue j but the latter, 
 which is judgment or discretion, is commended for itself, 
 without tlie hel]> of fancy." Leviathan, p. 3<2.
 
 32 ON WIT AND HUMOUR. 
 
 the same words expressing different ideas, and 
 countenancing as it were, by a fatality of language, 
 the mischievous insinuation which the person who 
 has the wit to take advantage of it wishes to con- 
 vey. So when the disaffected French wits applied to 
 the new order of the Fleur du lys the double enten- 
 dre of Compagnons d'Ulysse^ or companions of 
 Ulysses, meaning the animal into which the fellow- 
 travellers of the hero of the Odyssey were trans- 
 formed, this was a shrewd and biting intimation 
 of a galling truth (if truth it were) by a fortuitous 
 concourse of letters of the alphabet, jumping in 
 *' a foregone conclusion," but there was no proof 
 of the thing, unless it was self-evident. And, in- 
 deed, this may be considered as the best defence 
 of the contested maxim That ridicule is the test 
 oftiiith; viz. that it does not contain or attempt 
 a formal proof of it, but owes its power of convic- 
 tion to the bare suggestion of it, so that if the 
 thing when once hinted is not clear in itself, the 
 satire fails of its effect and falls to the ground. 
 The sarcasm here glanced at the character of the 
 new or old French noblesse may not be well 
 founded ; but it is so like truth, and " comes in 
 such a questionable shape," backed with the ap- 
 pearance of an identical proposition, that it would 
 require a long train of facts and laboured argu- 
 ments to do away the impression, even if we vve?c
 
 ON WIT AND HUMOUR. 33 
 
 sure of the honesty and wisdom of the person 
 who undertook to refute it. A flippant jest is 
 as good a test of truth as a solid bribe ; and there 
 are serious sophistries, 
 
 " Soul-killing lies, and truths that work snaall good," 
 
 as well as idle pleasantries. Of this we may be 
 sure, that ridicule fastens on the vulnerable points 
 of a cause, and finds out the weak sides of an ar- 
 gument ; if those who resort to it sometimes rely 
 too much on its success, those who are chiefly 
 annoyed by it almost always are so with reason, 
 and cannot be too much on their guard against 
 deserving it. Before we can laugh at a thing, its 
 absurdity must at least be open and palpable to 
 common apprehension. Ridicule is necessarily 
 built on certain supposed facts, whether true or 
 false, and on their inconsistency with certain ac- 
 knowledged maxims, whether right or wrong. It 
 is, therefore, a fair test, if not of philosophical or 
 abstract truth, at least of what is truth according 
 to public opinion and common sense; for it can 
 only expose to instantaneous contempt that which 
 is condemned by public oj)inion, and is hostile to 
 the common sense of mankind. Or to put it dif- 
 ferently, it is the test of the quantity of truth that 
 there is in onr favourite prejudices. To shew how
 
 34 ON WIT AND HUMOUR. 
 
 nearly allied wit is thought to be to truth, it is not 
 unusual to say of any person " Such a one is a 
 man of sense, for though he said nothing, he 
 laughed in the right place." Alliteration comes in 
 here under, the head of a certain sort of verbal wit ; 
 or, by pointing the expression, sometimes points 
 the sense. Mr. Grattan's wit or eloquence (I don't 
 know by what name to call it) would be nothing 
 without this accompaniment. Speaking of some 
 ministers whom he did not like, he said, " Their 
 only means of government are the guinea and the 
 gallows." There can scarcely, it must be con- 
 fessed, be a more effectual mode of political 
 conversion than one of these applied to a man's 
 friends, and the other to himself. The fine sar- 
 casm of Junius on the effect of the supposed in- 
 gratitude of the Dnke of Grafton at court "The 
 instance might be painful, but the principle would 
 please" notwithstanding the profound insight 
 into human nature it implies, would hardly pass 
 for wit without the alliteration, as some poetry 
 would hardly be acknowledged as such without the 
 rhvnie to clench it. A quotation or a hackneyed 
 ])hrase dextrously turned or wrested to another 
 purj)Ose, has often t!]e eflbct of the liveliest wit. 
 An idle fellow who had only fourpence Icjft in the 
 world, which had been put by to pay for tlie bakiiig 
 some meat for his dinnci , went and laid it out to
 
 ON WIT AND HUMOUR. 35 
 
 buy a new string for a guitar. An old acquaint- 
 ance on hearing this story, repeated those lines out 
 of the Allegro 
 
 " And ever against eating cares 
 Lap me in soft Lydian airs." 
 
 The reply of the author of the periodical paper 
 called the World to a lady at church, who seeing 
 him look thoughtful, asked what he was thinking 
 of "The next World," is a perversion of an 
 established formula of language, something of the 
 same kind. Rhymes are sometimes a species of 
 wit, where there is an alternate combination and 
 resolution or decomposition of the elements of 
 sound, contrary to our usual division and classi- 
 fication of them in ordinary speech, not unlike the 
 sudden separation and re-union of the component 
 parts of the machinery in a pantomime. The author 
 who excels infinitely the most in this way is the 
 Avriter of Hudibras. He also excels in the invention 
 of single words and names which have the effect of 
 wit by sounding big, and meaning nothing : 
 " full of sound and fury, signifying nothing." But 
 of tlie artifices of this author s burlesque style I 
 shall have occasion to speak hereafter. It is not 
 ahvavs ea^,y to distinguish between the wit in 
 v^ords and that of things. " For thin partition? 
 lo their bounds divide." Some of t'le latr Mr.
 
 36 ON WIT AND HUMOUR. 
 
 Curran's bon mots or jeux d'esprit, might be said to 
 owe their birth to this sort of equivocal generation ; 
 or were a happy mixture of verbal wit and a lively 
 and picturesque fancy, of legal acuteness in detect- 
 ing the variable applications of words, and of a 
 mind apt at perceiving the ludicrous in external 
 objects. " Do you see any thing ridiculous in this 
 wig?" said one of his brother judges to him. 
 " Nothing but the head," was the answer. Now 
 here instantaneous advantage was taken of the 
 slight technical ambiguity in the construction of 
 language, and the matter-of-fact is flung into the 
 scale as a thumping makeweight. After all, ver- 
 bal and accidental strokes of wit, though the most 
 surprising and laughable, are not the best and 
 most lasting. That wit is the most refined and 
 effectual, which is founded on the detection of un- 
 expected likeness or distinction in things, rather 
 than in words. It is more severe and galling, that 
 is, it is more unpardonable though less surprising, 
 in proportion as the thought suggested is more 
 complete and satisfactory, from its being inherent 
 in the nature of the things themselves. HcEi^et 
 lateri IcthaUs arundo. Truth makes the greatest 
 libel ; and it is that which barbs the darts of wit. 
 The Duke of Buckingham's saying, " Laws are 
 not, like women, the worse for being old," is an 
 instance of a harmless ti'uism and the utmost ma-
 
 ON WIT AND HUMOUR. 37 
 
 lice of wit united. This is, perhaps, what has 
 been meant by the distinction between true and 
 false wit. Mr. Addison, indeed, goes so far as 
 to make it the exclusive test of true wit that it 
 will bear translation into another language, that is 
 to say, that it does not depend at all on the form 
 of expression. But this is by no means the case. 
 Swift would hardly have allowed of such a strait- 
 laced theory, to make havoc with his darling 
 conundrums ; though there is no one whose se- 
 rious wit is more that of things, as opposed to 
 a mere play either of words or fancy. I ought, 
 I believe, to have noticed before, in speaking of 
 the difference between wit and humour, that wit is 
 often pretended absurdity, where the person over- 
 acts or exaggerates a certain part with a conscious 
 design to expose it as if it were another person, 
 as when Mandrake in the Twin Rivals says, 
 ' This glass is too big, carry it away, I'll drink 
 (jut of the bottle." On the contrary, when Sir 
 Hugh Evans says very innocently, " 'Od's plessed 
 will, I will not be absence at the grace," thougli 
 there is here a great deal of humour, there is no 
 wit. This kind of wit of the humorist, where 
 the person makes a butt of himself, and exhibits 
 iiis own absurdities or foibles purposely in the 
 most pointed and glaring lights, runs through the 
 whole of the character of Falstaff, and is, in trutli,
 
 38 ON WIT AND HUMOUR. 
 
 the principle on which it is founded. It is an 
 irony directed against one's-self. Wit is, in fact, 
 a voluntary* act of the mind, or exercise of the in- 
 vention, shewing the absurd and ludicrous consci- 
 ously, whether in ourselves or another. Cross- 
 readings, where the blunders are designed, are wit : 
 but if any one were to light upon them through 
 ignorance or accident, they would be merely ludi- 
 crous. 
 
 It might be made an argument of the intrinsic 
 superiority of poetry or imagination to wit, that 
 tbe former does not admit of mere verbal com- 
 binations. Whenever they do occur, they are 
 uniformly blemishes. It requires something more 
 solid and substantial to raise admiration or pas- 
 sion. The general forms and aggregate masses of 
 our ideas must be brouglit more into plav, to give 
 weight and magnitude. .Imagination may be said 
 to be the finding out something similar in thinjjs 
 generally alike, or with like feelings attached to 
 them ; while wit principally aims at finding out 
 yoniething that seems the same, or iiniounts to a 
 momentary deception where you least expected 
 it, viz. in things totally o])posite. The reason 
 why more slight and partial, or merely accidental 
 and nominal resemblances serve the purposes of 
 wit, and indeed characterise its essence as a dis-
 
 ON WIT AND HUMOUR. 39 
 
 tinct operation and faculty of the mind, is, that the 
 object of ludicrous poetry is naturally to let down 
 and lessen ; and it is easier to let down than to 
 raise up, to weaken than to strengthen, to dis- 
 connect our sympathy from passion and power, 
 than to attach and rivet it to any object of gran- 
 dour or interest, to startle and shock our precon- 
 ceptions by incongruous and equivocal combina- 
 tions, than to confirm, enforce, and expand them 
 bv poweiful and lasting associations of ideas, or 
 striking and true analogies. A slight cause is 
 sufficient to produce a slight effect. To be indif- 
 ferent or sceptical, requires no effort ; to be 
 enthusiastic and in earnest, requires a strong 
 impulse, and collective power. Wit and hu- 
 mour (comparatively speaking, or taking the 
 extremes to judge of the gradations by) appeal 
 to our indolence, our vanity, our weakness, and 
 insensibility ; serious and impassioned poetry ap- 
 peals to our strength, our magnanimity, our virtue, 
 and humanity. Any thing is sufficient to heap 
 contempt upon an object; even the bare sug- 
 t^^estioii of a mischievcms allusion to what is im- 
 propcM", dissolves the whole charm, and puts an 
 end to our admiration of the sublime or beautiful. 
 Reading the finest passage i'l Miltons Paradise 
 Lost in a false tone, will make it seem insipid and 
 jb.nrd. The cavilling at, or invidiously pointing
 
 40 ON WIT AND HUMOUR. 
 
 out, a few slips of the pen, will embitter the 
 pleasure, or alter onr opinion of a whole work, 
 and make us throw it down in disgust. The 
 critics are aware of this vice and infirmity in our 
 nature, and play upon it with periodical success. 
 The meanest weapons are strong enough for this 
 kind of warfare, and the meanest hands can wield 
 them. Spleen can subsist on any kind of food. 
 The shadow of a doubt, the hint of an incon- 
 sistency, a word, a look, a syllable, will destroy 
 our best-formed convictions. What puts this 
 argument in as striking a point of view as any 
 thing, is the nature of parody or burlesque, the 
 secret of which lies merely in transposing or ap- 
 plying at a venture to any thing, or to the lowest 
 objects, that vvhich is applicable only to certain 
 given things, or to the highest matters. " From 
 the sublime to the ridiculous, there is but one step." 
 The slightest want of unity of impression destroys 
 the sublime ; the detection of the smallest incon- 
 gruity is an infallible ground to rest the ludicrous 
 upon. But in serious poetry, which aims at rivet- 
 ting our affections, every blow must teli home. 
 The missing a single time is fatal, and undoes the 
 spell. We see how difficult it is to sustain a con- 
 tinued flight of impressive sentiment : how easy it 
 nmst be then to travestie or burlesque it, to floun- 
 der into nonsense, and be witty ])y playing the
 
 ON WIT AND HUMOUR. 41 
 
 fool. It is a common mistake, however, to sup- 
 pose that parodies degrade, or imply a stigma on 
 the subject: on the contrary, they in general 
 imply something serious or sacred in the originals. 
 Without this, they would be good for nothing; 
 for the immediate contrast would be wanting, and 
 with this they are sure to tell. The best parodies 
 are, accordingly, the best and most striking things 
 reversed. Witness the common travesties of Homer 
 and Virgil. Mr. Canning's court parodies on Mr. 
 Southey's popular odes, are also an instance in 
 point (I do not know which were the cleverest) ; 
 and the best of the Rejected Addresses is the 
 parody on Crabbe, though I do not certainly think 
 that Crabbe is the most ridiculous poet now living. 
 
 Lear and the Fool are the sublimest in- 
 stance I know of passion and wit united, or of 
 imagination unfolding the most tremendous suf- 
 ferings, and of burlesque on passion playing with 
 it, aiding and relieving its intensity by the most 
 pointed, but familiar and indifferent illustrations 
 of the same thing in different objects, and on a 
 meaner scale. The Fool's reproaching Lear with 
 "' making his daughters his mothers," his snatches 
 of proverbs and old ballads, " The hedge-sparrow 
 fed the cuckoo so long, that it had its head bit off 
 by its young, ' and " Whoop jug, 1 know when the 
 horse follows the cart," are a running commentary
 
 4'2 ON WIT AND HUMOUR. 
 
 of" trite truisms, pointing out the extreme folly of 
 the infatuated old monarch, and in a manner re- 
 conciling us to its inevitable consequences. 
 
 Lastly, there is a wit of sense and observation, 
 which consists in the acute illustration of good 
 sense and practical wisdom, by means of some far- 
 fetched conceit or quaint imagery. The matter is 
 sense, but the form is wit. Thus the lines in 
 Pope 
 
 " 'Tis with our judgments as our watches, none 
 Go just alike ; yet each believes his own " 
 
 are witty, rather than poetical ; because the truth 
 they convey is a mere dry observation on human 
 life, without elevation or enthusiasm, and the illus- 
 tration of it is of that quaint and familiar kind that 
 is merely curious and fanciful. Cowley is an in- 
 stance of the same kind in almost all his writings. 
 Many of the jests and witticisms in the best 
 comedies are moral aphorisms and rules for tlie 
 conduct of life, sparkling with wit and fancy in the 
 mode of expression. The ancient philosophers also 
 abounded in the same kind of wit, in telling home 
 truths in the most unexpected manner. In this 
 sense y^sop was the greatest wit and moralist that 
 ever lived. A])e and slave, he looked askance at 
 human nature, and beheld its weaknesses and 
 errois transferred to another species. Vice and 
 virtue were to him as plain as any objectH ot
 
 ON WIT AND HUMOUR. 43 
 
 sense. He saw in man a talking, absurd, obsti- 
 nate, proud, angry animal ; and clothed these ab- 
 stractions with wings, or a beak, or tail, or claws, 
 or long ears, as they appeared embodied in these 
 hieroglyphics in the brute creation. His moral 
 philosophy is natural history. He makes an ass 
 bray wisdom, and a hog croak humanity. The 
 store of moral truth, and the fund of invention in 
 exhibiting it in eternal forms, palpable and in- 
 telligible, and delightful to children and grown 
 persons, and to all ages and nations, are almost 
 miraculous. The invention of a fable is to me the 
 most enviable exertion of human genius : it is the 
 discovering a truth to which there is no clue, and 
 which, when once found out, can never be for- 
 gotten. I would ratlier have been the author of 
 y^sop's Fables, than of Euclid's Elements ! That 
 popular entertainment, Punch and the Puppet- 
 show, owes part of its irresistible and universal 
 attraction to nearly the same principle of inspiring 
 inanimate and mechanical agents with sense and 
 consciousness. The drollery and wit of a piece of 
 wood is doubly droll and tkrcical. Punch is not 
 merry in himself, but "be is the cause of heartfelt 
 mirth in other men." The wires and pulleys that 
 govern his motions are conductors to carrvoff the 
 spleen, and all "that perilous stuff that weighs upon 
 the heart.' If we see a number of people turning
 
 44 ON WIT AND HUMOUR. 
 
 the corner of a street, ready to burst with secret sa- 
 tisfaction, and with their faces bathed in laughter, 
 we know what is the matter that they are just 
 come from a puppet-show. Who can see three 
 little painted, patched-up figures, no bigger than 
 one's thumb, strut, squeak and gibber, sing, dance, 
 chatter, scold, knock one another about the head, 
 give themselves airs of importance, and " imitate 
 humanity most abominably," without laughing: 
 immoderately ? We overlook the farce and mum- 
 mery of human life in little, and for nothing ; and 
 what is still better, it costs them who have to play 
 in it nothing. We place the mirth, and glee, 
 and triumph, to our own account ; and we know 
 that the bangs and blows they have received go 
 for nothing, as soon as the showman puts them up 
 in his box and marches off quietly with them, as jug- 
 glers of a less amusing description sometimes march 
 off with the wrongs and rights of mankind in their 
 pockets ! I have heard no bad judge of such 
 matters say, that " he liked a comedy better than 
 a tragedy, a farce better than a comedy, a panto- 
 mime better than a farce, but a puppet-show best 
 of all." I look upon it, that he who invented 
 puppet-shows was a greater benefactor to his spe- 
 cies, than he who invented Operas ! 
 
 I shall conclude this imperfect and desultory
 
 ON WIT AND HUMOUR. 45 
 
 sketch of wit and humour with Barrow's cele- 
 brated description of the same subject. He says, 
 " But first it may be demanded, what the thing 
 we speak of is, or what this facetiousness doth 
 import ; to which question I might reply, as De- 
 mocritus did to him that asked the definition of a 
 man 'tis that which zve all see and know ; and one 
 better apprehends what it is by acquaintance, than 
 I can inform him by description. It is, indeed, a 
 thing so versatile and multiform, appearing in so 
 many shapes, so many postures, so many garbs, 
 so variously apprehended by several eyes and 
 judgments, that it seemeth no less hard to settle a 
 clear and certain notice thereof, than to make a 
 portrait of Proteus, or to define the figure of 
 fleeting air. Sometimes it lieth in pat allusion 
 to a known story, or in seasonable application 
 of a trivial saying, or in forging an apposite 
 tale : sometimes it playeth in words and phrases, 
 taking advantage from the ambiguity of their 
 sense, or the affinity of their sound : sometimes, 
 it is wrapped in a dress of luminous expression ; 
 sometimes it hirketii under an odd similitude. 
 Sometimes it is lodged in a sly question, in a 
 smart answer ; in a quirkish reason ; in a shrewd 
 intimation ; in cunningly diverting or cleverly re- 
 storing an objection : sometimes it is couched in 
 a bold scheme of speech ; in a tart irony ; in a
 
 46 ON WIT AND HUMOUR. 
 
 lusty hyperbole ; in a startling metaphor ; in a 
 plausible reconciling of contradictions, or in acute 
 nonsense: sometimes a scenical representation of 
 persons or things, a counterfeit speech, a mimi- 
 cal look or gesture passeth for it ; sometimes an 
 affected simplicity, sometimes a presumptuous 
 bluntness giveth it being ; sometimes it riseth only 
 from a lucky hitting upon what is strange : some- 
 times from a crafty wresting obvious matter to the 
 purpose: often it consisteth in one knows not 
 what, and springeth up one can hardly tell how. 
 Its ways are unaccountable and inexplicable, being 
 answerable to the numberless rovings of fancy and 
 windings of language. It is, in short, a manner 
 of speaking out of the simple and plain way (such 
 as reason teacheth and knoweth things by), which 
 by a pretty surprising uncouthness in conceit or 
 expression doth affect and anmse the fancy, shew- 
 ing in it some wonder, and breathing some delight 
 thereto. It raiseth admiration, as signifying a 
 nimble sagacity of apprehension, a special felicity 
 of invention, a vivacity of spirit, and reacli of wit 
 more than vulgar: it seeming to argue a rare 
 (juickness of parts, that one can fetch in remote 
 conceits applicable ; a notable skill that he can 
 dextrously accommodate them to a purpose before 
 him, together with a lively briskness of luimour, 
 not apt to damp tliose sportful flashes of ininL'"ii<;-
 
 ON WIT AND HUMOUR. 47 
 
 tlon. (Whence in Aristotle such persons are 
 termed smSs^ioi, dexterous men and evrpoiroi, men 
 of facile or versatile manners, who can easily 
 turn themselves to all things, or tarn all things to 
 themselves.) It also procureth delight by grati- 
 fying curiosity with its rareness or semblance of 
 difficulty (as monsters, not for their beauty but 
 their rarity ; as juggling tricks, not for their use 
 but their abstruseness, are beheld with pleasure ;) 
 by diverting the mind from its road of serious 
 thoughts ; by instilling gaiety and airiness of 
 spirit ; by provoking to such dispositions of spirit, 
 in way of emulation or complaisance, and by sea- 
 soning matter, otherwise distasteful or insipid, with 
 an unusual and thence grateful tang." Barrow's 
 IForliS, Senn. 14. 
 
 I will only add by way of general caution, that 
 there is nothing more ridiculous than laughter 
 without a cause, nor any thing more troublesome 
 than what are called laughing people. A profes- 
 sed laugher is as contemptible and tiresome a cha- 
 racter as a professed wit: the one is always con- 
 triving something to laugh at, the other is always 
 laughing at nothing. An excess of levity is as 
 impertinent as an excess of gravity. A character 
 of this sort is well personified bv Spenser, in tho 
 Damsel of the Idle Lake
 
 48 ON WIT AND HUMOUR. 
 
 -Who did assay 
 
 To laugh at shaking of the leaves light." 
 
 Any one must be mainly ignorant or thought- 
 less, who is surprised at every thing he sees ; or 
 wonderfully conceited, who expects every thing to 
 conform to his standard of propriety. Clowns 
 and idiots laugh on all occasions ; and the com- 
 mon failing of wishing to be thought satirical 
 often runs through whole families in country 
 places, to the great annoyance of their neighbours. 
 To be stnick with incongruity in whatever comes 
 before us, does not argue great comprehension 
 or refinement of perception, but rather a looseness 
 and flippancy of mind and temper, which prevents 
 the individual from connecting any two ideas stea- 
 dily or consistently together. It is owing to a 
 natural crudity and precipitateness of the ima- 
 gination, which assimilates nothing properly to 
 itself. People who are always laughing, at length 
 laugh on the wrong side of their faces ; for they 
 cannot get others to laugh with them. In like 
 manner, an affectation of wit by degrees hardens 
 the heart, and spoils good company and good 
 manners. A perpetual succession of good things 
 puts an end to common conversation. Tliere is 
 no answer to a jest, but another; and even where 
 the ball can be kept up in this way without ceas- 
 ing, it tires the patience of the by-standcrs, and
 
 ON WIT AND HUMOUR. 49 
 
 runs the speakers out of breath. Wit is the salt 
 of conversation, not the food. 
 
 The four chief names for comic humonr ont 
 of our own language are Aristophanes and Lucian 
 among the ancients, Moliere and Rabelais among 
 the moderns. Of the two first I shall say, for I 
 know but little. I should have liked Aristophanes 
 better, if he had treated Socrates less scurvily, for 
 he has treated him most scurvily both as to wit 
 and argument. His Plutus and his Birds are 
 striking instances, the one of dry humour, the 
 other of airy fancy. Lucian is a writer who ap- 
 pears to deserve his full fame: he has the licen- 
 tious and extravagant wit of Rabelais, but directed 
 more uniformly to a purpose; and his comic pro- 
 ductions are interspersed with beautiful and elo- 
 quent descriptions, full of sentiment, such as the 
 exquisite account of the fable of the halcyon put 
 into the mouth of Socrates, and the heroic eulogy 
 on Bacchus, which is conceived in the highest 
 strain of glowing panegyric. 
 
 The two other authors I proposed to mention 
 are modern, and French. Moliere, however, in the 
 s})irit of his writings, is ahnost as much an English 
 as a French author quite a barbare in all in which 
 he really excelled. He was unquestionably one of
 
 50 ON WIT AND HUMOUR. 
 
 the greatest comic geniuses that ever lived ; a man 
 of infinite wit, gaiety, and invention full of life, 
 laughter, and whim. But it cannot be denied, 
 that his plays are in general mere farces, without 
 scrupulous adherence to nature, refinement of 
 character, or common probability. The plots of 
 several of them could not be carried on for a 
 moment without a perfect collusion between the 
 parties to wink at contradictions, and act in de- 
 fiance of the evidence of their senses. For in- 
 stance, take the Medccin malgre lid (the Mock 
 Doctor), in which a common wood-cutter takes 
 upon himself, and is made successfully to support 
 through a whole play, the character of a learned 
 physician, without exciting the least suspicion; 
 and yet, notwithstanding the absurdity of the plot, 
 it is one of tiie most laughable and truly comic 
 ]nodnctions that can well i)e imagined. The rest 
 oF his lighter pie-ces, the BuiU'Li^t'ois GintUhomme, 
 Mowucur Foarctantjiiac, Gtorge DcduUii, (or Bar- 
 iiaby Brittle,) (k.c. are ot tiie same description 
 gratuitous ashumptions of cbaiticter, and J'anciful 
 and ontiiigeous caricatures of nature. He indulges 
 at his j)erjl in the utmost license ot burlesque ex- 
 aggeiation ; and gives a loose to the intoxication 
 of his animal spirits. With respect to his two 
 most laboured comedies, the Tartuffe and INIisan- 
 tlnope, I conless that I fmd them rather hard to
 
 ON WIT AND HUMOUR. 51 
 
 get through : they have much of the iraprobabihty 
 and extravagance of the others, united with the 
 endless common-place prosing of French declama- 
 tion. What can exceed, for example, the absurdity 
 of the Misanthrope, who leaves his mistress, after 
 every proof of her attachment and constancy, for 
 no other reason than that she will not submit to 
 the technical formality of going to live with him in 
 a wilderness ? The characters, again, which Celi- 
 mene gives of her female friends, near the opening 
 of the play, are admirable satires, (as good as 
 Pope's characters of women,) but not exactly in 
 the spirit of comic dialogue. The strictures of 
 Rousseau on this play, in his Letter to D'Alem- 
 bert, are a fine specimen of the best philosophical 
 criticism. ^The same remarks apply in a greater 
 degree to the Tartuffe. The long speeches and 
 reasonings in this play tire one almost to death : 
 they may be very good logic, or rhetoric, or phi- 
 losophy, or any thing but comedy. If each of the 
 parties had retained a special pleader to speak his 
 sentiments, they could not have appeared more 
 verbose or intricate. The improbability of the 
 character of Orgon is wonderful. This play is in 
 one point of view invaluable, as a lasting monu- 
 ment of the credulity of the French to all verbal 
 professions of wisdom or virtue; and its existence 
 can only be accounted for from that astonishing
 
 52 ON WIT AND HUMOUR. 
 
 and tyrannical predominance which words exercise 
 over tilings in the mind of every Frenchman. The 
 Ecole des Femmes, from which Wycherley has bor- 
 rowed his Country Wife, with the true spirit of 
 original genius, is, in my judgment, the master- 
 piece of Moliere. The set speeches in the original 
 play, it is true, would not he borne on the English 
 stage, nor indeed on the French, but that they are 
 carried off by the verse. The Critique de I'Ecole 
 des Femmes, the dialogue of which is prose, is 
 written in a very different style. Among other 
 things, this little piece contains an exquisite, and 
 almost unanswerable defence of the superiority of 
 comedy over tragedy. Moliere was to be excused 
 for taking this side of the question. 
 
 A writer of some pretensions among ourselves 
 has reproached the French with " an equal want 
 of books and men." There is a common French 
 print, in which Moliere is represented reading 
 one of his plays in the presence of the cele- 
 brated Ninon de I'Enclos, to a circle of the wits 
 and first men of his own time. Among these 
 are the great Conieilie ; the tendei', faultless 
 Racine; Fontaine, the artless old man, uncon- 
 scious of immortality ; the accomplished St. Evre- 
 mond ; the Duke d<; la Rochefoeault, the severe 
 .inatomiser ol" the human breast ; Boileau, the 
 flatterer of < ourts and .judge of men ! Were these
 
 ON WIT AND HUMOUR. 55 
 
 men nothing? They have passed for men (and 
 frreat ones) hitherto, and thongh the prejudice is 
 an old one, I should hope it may still last our 
 time. 
 
 Rabelais is another name that might have 
 saved this unjust censure. The wise sayings and 
 heroic deeds of Gargantua and Pantagruel ought 
 not to be set down as nothing. I have already 
 spoken my mind at large of this author ; but I 
 cannot help thinking of him here, sitting in his easy 
 chair, with an eye languid with excess of mirth, 
 his lip cjuivering with a new-born conceit, and 
 wiping his beard after a well-seasoned jest, with his 
 pen held carelessly in his hand, his wine-flagons, and 
 his books of law, of school divinity, and physic 
 before him, which were his jest-books, whence he 
 drew endless stores of absurdity; laughing at the 
 worhl and enjoying it by turns, and making the 
 world laugh with him again, for the last three 
 hundred years, at his teeming wit and its own pro- 
 lific follies. Even to those who have never read 
 his works, the name of Rabelais is a cordial to the 
 spirits, and the mention of it cannot consist with 
 gravity or spleen !
 
 LECTURE II. 
 
 ON SHAKSPEARE AND BEN JONSON. 
 
 Dr. JoHNsoAf thought Shakspeare's comedies 
 better than his tragedies, and gives as a reason, 
 that he was more at home in the one than in the 
 other. That comedies should be written in a more 
 easy and careless vein than tragedies, is but natu- 
 ral. This is only saying that a comedy is not so 
 serious a thing as a tragedy. But that he shewed 
 a greater mastery in the one than the other, I can- 
 not allow, nor is it generally felt. The labour 
 which the Doctor thought it cost Shakspeare to 
 write his tragedies, only shewed the labour which 
 it cost the critic in reading them, that is, his gene- 
 ral indisposition to sympathise heartily and spon- 
 taneously with works of high-wrought passion or 
 imagination. There is not in any part of this 
 author's writings the slightest trace of his having 
 ever been " smit with the love of sacred song," ex- 
 cept some passages in Pope. His habitually mor- 
 bid temperament and saturnine turn of thought
 
 ON SHAKSPEARE AND BEN JONSON. 55 
 
 required that the string should rather be relaxed 
 than tightened, that the weight upon the mind 
 should rather be taken off than have any thing 
 added to it. There was a sluggish moroseness 
 about his moral constitution that refused to be 
 roused to any keen agony of thought, and that 
 was not very safely to be trifled with in lighter 
 matters, though this last was allowed to pass off 
 as the most pardonable offence against the gravity 
 of his pretensions. It is in fact the establislied 
 rule at present, in these cases, to speak highly of 
 the Doctors authoritv, and to dissent from almost 
 every one of his critical decisions. For my own 
 part, I so far consider this preference given to the 
 comic genius of the poet as erroneous and un- 
 founded, that I should say that ho is the only 
 tragic poet in the world iu the highest sense, as 
 being on a par with, and the same as Nature, in 
 her greatest heights and depths of action and 
 suffering. There is but one who durst walk within 
 that mighty circle, treading the utmost bound of 
 nature and passion, shewing us the dread abyss of 
 woe iu all its ghastly shapes and colours, and 
 laying open all the faculties of the human soul to 
 act, to think, and suffer, in (Hrest extremities ; 
 whereas 1 think, on the other hand, tliat in 
 comedy, though his talents there too were as 
 wonderful as they were delightful, vet tluii llirrr
 
 56 ON SHAKSPEARE AND BEN JONSON. 
 
 were some before him, others on a level with him, 
 and many close behind him. I cannot help think- 
 ing, for instance, that MoHere was as great, or a 
 greater comic genius than Shakspeare, though 
 assuredly I do not think that Racine was as great, 
 or a greater tragic genius. I think that both 
 Rabelais and Cervantes, the one in the power of 
 ludicrous description, the other in the invention 
 and perfect keeping of comic character, excelled 
 Shakspeare ; that is, they would have been greater 
 men, if they had had equal power with him over 
 the stronger passions. For my own reading, I 
 like Vanbrugh's City Wives' Confederacy as well, 
 or (" not to speak it profanely") better than the 
 Merry Wives of Windsor, and Congreve's Way 
 of the World as well as the Comedy of Errors or 
 Love's Labour Lost. But I cannot say that I 
 know of any tragedies in the world that make 
 even a tolerable approach to Hamlet, or Lear, or 
 Othello, or some others, either in the sum total of 
 their eflTcct, or in their complete distinctness from 
 every thing else, by which they take not only un- 
 questioned, but undivided possession of the mind, 
 and form a class, a world by themselves, mingling 
 with all our thoughts like a second being. Other 
 tragedies tell for more or less, are good, bad, or 
 indifterent, us they have more or less txcellence of 
 a kind common to them with others : but these
 
 ON SHAKSPEARE AND BEN JONSON. 57 
 
 Stand alone by themselves ; they have nothing 
 common-place in them ; they are a new power in 
 the imagination, they tell for their whole amount, 
 they measure from the ground. There is not 
 only nothing so good (in my judgment) as Ham- 
 let, or Lear, or Othello, or Macbeth, but there is 
 nothing like Hamlet, or Lear, or Othello, or 
 Macbeth. There is nothing, I believe, in the 
 majestic Coraeille, equal to the stern pride of 
 Coriolanus, or which gives such an idea of the 
 crumbling in pieces of the Roman grandeur, " like 
 an unsubstantial pageant faded," as the Antony 
 and Cleopatra. But to match the best serious 
 comedies, such as Moliere's Misanthrope and his 
 Tartuffc, we must go to Shakspeare's tragic cha- 
 racters, the Timon of Athens or honest lago, 
 when we shall more than succeed. He put his 
 strength into his tragedies, and played with comedy. 
 He was greatest in what was greatest ; and his 
 forte was not trifling, according to the opinion 
 here combated, even though he might do that as 
 well as any body else, unless he could do it better 
 than any body else. I would not be understood 
 to say that there are not scenes or whole cha- 
 racters in Sliakspeare equal in wit and drollery to 
 any thing upon record. Falstaft' alone is an in- 
 stance which, if I vvould, I could not get over. 
 "' He is the leviathan of all th(^ creatures ot the
 
 58 ON SHAKSPEARE AND BEN JONSON. 
 
 author's comic genius, and tumbles about his un- 
 wieldy bulk in an ocean of wit and humour." But 
 in general it will be found (if 1 am not mistaken) 
 that even in the very best of these, the spirit of 
 humanity and the fancy of the poet gn.'atly ])re- 
 vail over the mere wit and satire, and that we 
 sympathise with his characters oftener than we 
 laugh at them. His ridicule wants the sting of 
 ill-nature. He had hardly such a thing as spleen 
 in his composition. FalstaiF himself is so great a 
 joke, rather from his being so huge a mass of en- 
 joyment than of absurdity. His re-appearance in 
 the Merry Wives of Windsor is not " a consumma- 
 tion devoutly to be wished," for we do not take 
 pleasure in the repeated triumphs over him. Mer 
 cutio's (juips and banter upon his friends shew 
 amazing gaiety, frankness, and volubility of tongue, 
 but we think no more of them when the poet takes 
 the words out of his mouth, and gives the descrip- 
 tion of Queen Mab. Touchstone, again, is a shrcAvd 
 biting fellow, a lively mischievous wag : but still 
 what are his gibing sentences and chopped logic to 
 the fine moralising vein of the fantastical Jacques, 
 stretched beneath " the shade of melancholy 
 boughs?' Nothing. That is, Shakspeare was a 
 greater poet than Avit : his imagination was tlie 
 leading and master-quality of his mind, which was 
 always ready to soar into its native clement : the
 
 ON SHAKSPEARE AND BEN JONSON. 59 
 
 ludicrous was only secondary and subordinate. In 
 the comedies of gallantry and intrigue, with what 
 freshness and delight we come to the serious and 
 romantic parts ! What a relief they are to the mind, 
 after those of mere ribaldry or mirth ! Those in 
 Twelfth Niglit, for instance, and Much Ado about 
 Nothing, where Olivia and Hero are concerned, 
 throw even Malvolioand Sir Toby, and Benedick and 
 Beatrice, into the shade. They " give a very echo 
 to the seat where love is throned." What he has 
 said of music might be said of his own poetry 
 
 " Oh ! it came o'er the ear like the sweet south 
 Breathing upon a bank of violets. 
 Stealing and giving odour." 
 
 How poor, in general, what a falling-off, these 
 parts seem in mere comic authors ; how ashamed 
 we are of them ; and how fast we hurry the blank 
 verse over, that we may get upon safe ground 
 again, and recover our good opinion of the author ! 
 A striking and lamentable instance of this may be 
 found (by any one who chooses) in the high-flown 
 speeches in Sir Richard Steele's Conscious Lovers. 
 As good an example as any of this informing and 
 redeeming powder in our author's genius miglit be 
 taken from the comic scenes in both parts of 
 Henry IV. Nothing can go much lower in in- 
 tellect or morals than many of the characters.
 
 60 ON SHAKSPEARE AND JONSOX. 
 
 Here are knaves and fools in abundancej of the 
 meanest order, and stripped stark-naked. But 
 genius, like charity, " covers a multitude of sins :" 
 we pity as much as we despise them ; in spite of 
 our disgust we like them, because they like them- 
 selves, and because we are made to sympathise 
 with them ; and the ligament, fine as it is, which 
 links them to humanity, is never broken. Who 
 would quarrel with Wart or Feeble, or Mouldy or 
 Bull-calf, or even with Pistol, Nym, or Bardolph ? 
 None but a hypocrite. The severe censurers of 
 the morals of imaginary characters can generally 
 find a hole for their own vices to creep out at; and 
 yet do not perceive how it is that the imperfect 
 and even deformed characters in Shakspeare's 
 plays, as done to the life, by forming a part of our 
 personal consciousness, claim our personal forgive- 
 ness, and suspend or evade our moral judg- 
 ment, by bribing our self-love to side with them. 
 Not to do so, is not morality, but affectation, 
 stupidity, or ill-nature. I have more sympathy 
 with one of Shakspeare's pick-purses, Gadshill 
 or Peto, than I can possibly have with any 
 member of the Society for the Suppression of 
 Vice, and would by no means assist to d(?liver 
 the one into the hands of the other. Those 
 who cannot be persuaded to draw a veil over 
 the foibles of ideal characters, may be suspect-
 
 ON SHAKSPEARE AND BEN JONSON. 61 
 
 ed of wearing a mask over their own ! Again, 
 in point of understanding and attainments, Shallow 
 sinks low enough ; and yet his cousin Silence is a 
 foil to him ; he is the shadow of a shade, glim- 
 mers on the very verge of downright imbecility, 
 and totters on the brink of nothing. " He has 
 been merry twice or once ere now," and is hardly 
 persuaded to break his silence in a song. Shallow 
 has " heard the chimes at midnight," and roared 
 out glees and catches at taverns and inns of court, 
 when he was young. So, at least, he tells his 
 cousin Silence, and FalstafF encourages the lofti- 
 ness of his pretensions. Shallow would be thought 
 a great man among his dependents and followers ; 
 Silence is nobody not even in his own opinion : 
 yet he sits in the orchard, and eats his carraways 
 and pippins among the rest. Shakspeare takes up 
 the meanest subjects with the same tenderness 
 that we do an insect's wing, and would not kill a 
 fly. To give a more particular instance of what I 
 mean, I will take the inimitable and affecting, 
 though most absurd and ludicrous dialogue, be- 
 tween Shallow and Silence, on the death of old 
 Double. 
 
 " Shallow. Come on^ come on, come on ; give me your 
 hf\n(l. Sir 3 give nic your hand. Sir; an early stirrer, by the 
 rood. And how doth my good cousin Silence ? 
 
 Silence. Good morrow, jjood cou.in Slmllow.
 
 G2 ON SHAKSPEARE AND BEN JONSON. 
 
 Shallow. And how doth my cousin, your bedfellow? and 
 your fairest daughter, and mine, my god-daughter Ellen ? 
 
 Silence. Alas, a black ouzel, cousin Shallow. 
 
 Shallow. By yea and nay. Sir j I dare say, my cousin Wil- 
 liam is become a good scholar : he is at Oxford still, is he 
 not? 
 
 Silence. Indeed, Sir, to my cost. 
 
 Shallow. He must then to the Inns of Court shortly. 1 
 was once of Clement's-Inn j where, I think, they will talk of 
 mad Shallow yet. 
 
 Silence. You were called lusty Shallow then, cousin. 
 
 Shallow. 1 was called any thing, and 1 would have done 
 any thing indeed, and roundly too. There was I, and 
 little John Poit of Staffordshire, and black George Bare, and 
 Francis Pickbone, and Will Squele a Cotswold man, you 
 had not four such swinge-bucklers in all the Inns of Court 
 again) and, I may say to you, we knew where the bona- 
 robas were, and had the best of them all at commandment. 
 Then was Jack Falstaff (now Sir John, a boy,) and page 
 to Thomas Mowbray, Duke of Norfolk. 
 
 Silence. This Sir John, cousin, that comes hither anon 
 about soldiers ? 
 
 Shallow. The same Sir John, the very same : I saw him 
 break Schoggan's head at the court-gate, when he was a 
 crack, not thus high ; and the very same day did I fight with 
 one Sampson Stockfish, a fruiterer, behind Gray's-Inn. O, 
 the mad days that I have spent ! and to see how many of 
 mine (jld acquaintance are dead ! 
 
 Silence. We shall all follow, cousin. 
 
 Shallow. Certain, 'tis certain, very sure, very sure : death 
 (as the i'.-ahiiist sailli) is certain to all, all shall die. How a 
 good yoke uf bullocks at Stamford fair ? 
 
 Silence. Truly, cousin, I was not there. 
 
 ShdUovo. Deatli \~, rertain Is old Double of your town 
 livint' vtc ?
 
 ON SHAKSPEARE AND BEN JONSON. 63 
 
 Silence. Dead, Sir. 
 
 Shallow. Dead ! see, see ! he drew a good bow: and dead ? 
 he shot a fine shoot. John of Gaunt loved him well, and 
 betted much money on his head. Dead! he would have 
 clapped i'th' clout at twelve score j and carried you a fore- 
 hand shaft a fourteen and fourteen and a half, that it would 
 have done a man's heart good to see. How a score of ewes 
 now ? 
 
 Silence. Thereafter as they be : a score of good ewes may 
 be worth ten pounds. 
 
 Shallow. And is old Double dead ?" 
 
 There is not any thing more characteristic than 
 this in all Shakspeare. A finer sermon on mor- 
 tality was never preached. We see the frail con- 
 dition of human life, and the weakness of the 
 human understanding in Shallow's reflections on 
 it ; who, while the past is sliding from beneath 
 liis feet, still clings to the present. The meanest 
 circumstances are shewn through an atmosphere 
 of abstraction that dignifies them : their very in- 
 significance makes them more affecting, for they 
 instantly put a check on our aspiring thoughts, 
 and remind us that, seen through that dim 
 perspective, the difference between the great and 
 little, the wise and foolish, is not much. " One 
 touch of nature makes the whole world kin:" and 
 old Double, though his exploits had been greater, 
 could hut have had his day. There is a pathetic 
 uaivdl mixed up with Shallow's c<mmon-place
 
 64 ON SHAKSPEARE AND BEN JONSON. 
 
 reflections and impertinent digressions. The reader 
 laughs (as well he may) in reading the passage, 
 but he lays down the book to think. The wit, 
 however diverting, is social and humane. But 
 this is not the distinguishing characteristic of wit, 
 which is generally provoked by folly, and spends 
 its venom upon vice. 
 
 The fault, then, of Shakspeare's comic Muse is, 
 in my opinion, that it is too good-natured and 
 magnanimous. It mounts above its quarry. It is 
 " apprehensive, quick, forgetive, full of nimble, 
 fiery, and delectable shapes :" but it does not take 
 the highest pleasure in making human nature 
 look as mean, as ridiculous, and contemptible as 
 possible. It is in this respect, chiefly, that it 
 difl'ers from the comedy of a later, and (what is 
 called) a more refined period. Genteel comedy is 
 the comedy of fashionable life, and of artificial 
 character and manners. The most pungent ridi- 
 cule, is that which is directed to mortify vanity, 
 and to expose affectation ; but vanity and affecta- 
 tion, in their most exorbitant and studied ex- 
 cesses, are the ruling principles of society, only 
 in a highly advanced state of civibzation and 
 manners. Man can hardly be said to be a truly 
 contemptible animal, till, from the facilities of 
 general intercourse, and the progress of example
 
 ON SHAKSPEARE AND BEN JONSON. 65 
 
 <ind opinion, he becomes the ape of the extrava- 
 gances of other men. The keenest edge of satire 
 is required to distinguish between the true and 
 false pretensions to taste and elegance ; its lash is 
 laid on with the utmost severity, to drive before it 
 the common herd of knaves and fools, not to 
 lacerate and terrify the single stragglers. In a 
 word, it is when folly is epidemic, and vice worn 
 as a mark of distinction, that all the malice of wit 
 and humour is called out and justified to detect 
 the imposture, and prevent the contagion from 
 spreading. The fools in Wycherley and Congreve 
 are of their own, or one another's making, and 
 deserve to be well scourged into common sense 
 and decency: the fools in Shakspeare are of his 
 own or nature's making ; and it would be unfair 
 to probe to the quick, or hold up to unqualified 
 derision, the faults which are involuntary and in- 
 corrigible, or those which vou yourself encourage 
 and exaggerate, from the pleasure you take in 
 witnessing them. Our later comic writers repre- 
 sent a state of manners, in which to be a man of 
 wit and pleasure about town was become the 
 fashion, and in which the swarms of egregious 
 pretenders in both kinds openly kept one another 
 in countenance, and were become a pubHc nui- 
 sance. Shakspeare, Hving in a state of greater rude- 
 ness and simplicity, chiefly gave c(*rtain characters
 
 66 ON SHAKSPEARE AND BEN JONSON. 
 
 which were a kind of grotesques, or solitary ex- 
 crescences growing up out of their native soil 
 without affectation, and which he undertook kindly 
 to pamper for the public entertainment. For 
 instance, Sir Andrew Aguecheek is evidently a 
 creature of the poet's own fancy. The author 
 lends occasion to his absurdity to shew itself as 
 much as he pleases, devises antics for him which 
 would not enter into his own head, makes him 
 " go to church in a galliard, and return home in a 
 coranto ;" adds fuel to his folly, or throws cold 
 water on his courage; makes his puny extrava- 
 gances venture out or slink into corners without 
 asking his leave ; encourages them into indiscreet 
 luxuriance, or checks them in the bud, just as it 
 suits him for the jest's sake. The gratification of 
 the fancy, " and furnishing matter for innocent 
 mirth," are, therefore, the chief object of this and 
 other characters like it, rather than reforming the 
 moral sense, or indulging our personal spleen. 
 But Tattle and Sparkish, who are fops cast not in 
 the mould of fancy, but of fashion, who have a tribe 
 of forerunners and followers, who catch certain dis- 
 eases of the mind on purpose to communicate the 
 infection, and are screened in their preposterous ec- 
 centricities by their own cor'^eit and by the world's 
 opinion, are entitled to no quarter, and receive 
 none. They think themselves objects of envy and
 
 ON SHAKSPEARE AND BEN JONSON. 67 
 
 admiration, and on that account are doubly objects 
 of our contempt and ridicule. We find that the 
 scenes of Shakspeare's comedies are mostly laid in 
 the country, or are transferable there at pleasure. 
 The genteel comedy exists only in towns, and 
 crowds of borrowed characters, who copy others 
 as the satirist copies them, and who are only seen 
 to be despised. " All beyond Hyde Park is a 
 desart to it:" while there the pastoral and poetic 
 comedy begins to vegetate and flourish, unpruned, 
 idle, and fantastic. It is hard to " lay waste a 
 country gentleman" in a state of nature, whose 
 humours may have run a little wild or to seed, or 
 to lay violent hands on a young booby 'squire, 
 whose absurdities have not yet arrived at years 
 of discretion : but my Lord Foppington, who is 
 '" the prince of coxcombs," and " proud of being 
 at the head of so prevailing a party," deserves his 
 tate. I am not for going so far as to pronounce 
 Shakspeare's " manners damnable, because he had 
 not seen the court ;" but I think that comedy does 
 not find its richest harvest till individual infirmi- 
 ties have passed into general manners, and it is 
 the example of courts, chiefly, that stamps folly 
 with credit and currency, or glosses over vice with 
 meretricious lustre. I conceive, therefore, that 
 the golden period of our comedy was just after 
 the age of Charles II. when the town first became
 
 69 ON SHAKSPEARE AND BEN JONSON. 
 
 tainted with the affectation of the manners and 
 conversation of fashionable hfe, and before the 
 distinction between rusticity and elegance, art and 
 nature, was lost (as it afterwards was) in a general 
 diffusion of knowledge, and the reciprocal advan- 
 tages of civil intercourse. It is to be remarked, 
 that the union of the three gradations of artificial 
 elegance and courtly accomplishments in one class, 
 of the affectation of them in another, and of abso- 
 lute rusticity in a third, forms the highest point oi' 
 perfection of the comedies of this period, as we 
 may see in Vanbnigh's Lord Foppington, Sir Tun- 
 belly Clumsy, and Miss Hoyden; Lady Townlv, 
 Count Basset, and John Moody ; in Congreve's 
 Millamant, Lady Wishfort, Witwoud, Sir Wilftil 
 Witwoud, and the rest. 
 
 In another point of view, or with respect 
 to that part of comedy which relates to gal- 
 lantry and intrigue, the difference between Shak- 
 speare's comic heroines and those of a later period 
 may be referred to the same distinction be- 
 tween natural and artificial life, between the 
 world of fancy and the world of fashion. The 
 refinements of romantic passion arise out of the 
 imagination brooding over " airy nothing," or 
 over a favourite object, where " love's golden 
 shaft hath killed the flock of all affections else:"
 
 ON SHAKSPEARE AND BEN JONSON. 69 
 
 vvhereas the refinements of this passion in genteel 
 comedy, or in every-day life, may be said to arise 
 out of repeated observation and experience, divert- 
 ing and frittering away the first impressions of 
 things by a multiplicity of objects, and producing, 
 not enthusiasm, but fastidiousness or giddy dissi- 
 pation. For the one a comparatively rude age and 
 strong feelings are best fitted ; for " there the 
 mind must minister to itself:" to the other, the 
 progress of society and a knowledge of the world 
 are essential ; for here the effect does not depend 
 on leaving the mind concentred in itself, but on 
 the wear and tear of the heart, amidst the complex 
 and rapid movements of the artificial machinery 
 of society, and on the arbitrary subjection of the 
 natural course of the affections to every the 
 slightest fluctuation of fashion, caprice, or opinion. 
 Thus Olivia, in Twelfth Night, has but one ad- 
 mirer of equal rank with herself, and but one 
 love, to whom she innocently plights her hand 
 and heart ; or if she had a thousand lovers, she 
 would be the sole object of their adoration and 
 burning vows, without a rival. The heroine of 
 romance and poetry sits secluded in the bowers of 
 fancy, sole queen and arbitress of all hearts ; and 
 as the character is one of imagination, " of soli- 
 tude and melancholy musing born," so it may be 
 best drawn from the imagination. Millamant, in
 
 70 ON SHAKSPEARE AND BEN JONSON. 
 
 the Way of the World, on the contrary, who is 
 the fine lady or heroine of comedy, has so many 
 lovers, that she surfeits on admiration, till it be- 
 comes indifferent to her ; so many riv'^als, that she 
 is forced to put on a thousand airs of languid 
 affectation to mortify and vex them more ; so 
 many offers, that she at last gives her hand to the 
 man of her heart, rather to escape the persecution 
 of their addresses, and out of levity and disdain, 
 than from any serious choice of her own. This is 
 a comic character ; its essence consists in making 
 light of things from familiarity and use, and as it 
 is formed by habit and outward circumstances, so 
 it requires actual observation, and an acquaintance 
 with the modes of artificial life, to describe it with 
 the utmost possible grace and precision. Con- 
 greve, who had every other opportunity, was but 
 a young man when he wrote this character ; and 
 that makes the miracle the greater. 
 
 I do not, in short, consider comedy as exactly 
 an affair of the heart or the imagination ; and it 
 is for this reason only that I think Shakspeare's 
 comedies deficient. I do not, however, wish to 
 -^ive a preference of any comedies over his ; but I 
 do perceive a difference between his comedies and 
 some others that arc, notwithstanding, excellent 
 in their way, and I have endeavonred to point out
 
 ON SHAKSPEARE AND BEN JONSON. 71 
 
 in what this difference consists, as well as I could. 
 Finally, I will not say that he had not as great a 
 natural genius for comedy as any one ; but I may 
 venture to say, that he had not the same artificial 
 models and regulated mass of fashionable ab- 
 surdity or elegance to work upon. 
 
 The superiority of Shakspeare's natural genius 
 for comedy cannot be better shewn than by a com- 
 parison between his comic characters and those of 
 Ben Jonson. The matter is the same : but how 
 different is the manner! The one gives fair-play 
 to nature and his own genius, while the other 
 trusts almost entirely to imitation and custom. 
 Shakspeare takes his groundwork in individual 
 character and the manners of his age, and raises 
 from them a fantastical and delightful superstruc- 
 ture of his own : the other takes the same ground- 
 work in matter-of-fact, but hardly ever rises above 
 it ; and the more he strives, is but the more en- 
 veloped " in the crust of formality " and the crude 
 circumstantials of his subject. His genius (not 
 to profane an old and still venerable name, but 
 merely to make myself understood) resembles the 
 grub more than the butterfly, plods and grovels 
 on, wants wings to wanton in the idle summer's 
 air, and catch the golden light of poetry. Ben 
 Jonson is a great borrower from the works of 
 others, and a plagiarist even from nature; so little 
 Ireedom is there in his imitations of her, and he
 
 72 ON SHAKSPEARE AND BEN JONSON. 
 
 appears to receive her bounty like an alms. His 
 works read like translations, from a certain cramp 
 manner, and want of adaptation. Shakspeare, 
 even when he takes whole passages from books, 
 does it with a spirit, felicity, and mastery over 
 his subject, that instantly makes them his own ; 
 and shews more independence of mind and original 
 thinking in what he plunders without scruple, than 
 Ben Johnson often did in his most studied pas- 
 sages, forced from the sweat and labour of his 
 brain. His style is as dry, as literal, and meagre, 
 as Shakspeare's is exuberant, liberal, and unre- 
 strained. The one labours hard, lashes himself 
 up, and produces little pleasure with all his fidelity 
 and tenaciousness of purpose : the other, without 
 putting himself to any trouble, or thinking about 
 his success, performs wonders, 
 
 " Does mad and fantastic execution. 
 Engaging and redeeming of himself. 
 With such a careless force and forceless* care. 
 As if that luck, in very spite of cunning. 
 Bad him win all." 
 
 There are people who cannot taste olives and I 
 cannot much relish Ben Jonson, though I have taken 
 some pains to do it, and went to the task with every 
 =,ort of good will. I do not deny his power or his 
 
 * Unforced.
 
 ON SHAKSPEARE AND BEN JONSON. 73 
 
 merit ; far from it : but it is to me of a repulsive 
 and unamiable kind. He was a great man in him- 
 self, but one cannot readily sympathize with him. 
 His works, as the characteristic productions of an 
 individual mind, or as records of the manners of a 
 particular age, cannot be valued too highly ; but 
 they have little charm for the mere general reader* 
 Schlegel observes, that whereas Shakspeare gives 
 the springs of human nature, which are always 
 the same, or sufficiently so to be interesting and 
 intelligible ; Jonson chiefly gives the humours of 
 men, as connected with certain arbitrary or con- 
 ventional modes of dress, action, and expression, 
 which are intelligible only while they last, and 
 not very interesting at any time. Shakspeare's 
 characters are men ; Ben Jonson's are more like 
 machines, governed by mere routine, or by the 
 convenience of the poet, whose property they are. 
 In reading the one, we are let into the minds of 
 his characters, we see the play of their thoughts, 
 how their humours flow and work : the author 
 takes a range over nature, and has an eye to every 
 object or occasion that presents itself to set off 
 and heighten the ludicrous character he is de- 
 scribing. His humour (so to speak) bubbles, spar- 
 kles, and finds its way in all directions, like a 
 natural spring. In Ben Jonson it is, as it were, 
 confined in a leaden cistern, where it stagnates
 
 74 ON SHAKSPEARE AND BEN JONSON. 
 
 and corrupts ; or directed only through certain arti- 
 ficial pipes and conduits, to answer a given purpose. 
 The comedy of this author is far from being 
 "lively, audible, and full of vent:" it is for the 
 most part obtuse, obscure, forced, and tedious. 
 He wears out a jest to the last shred and coarsest 
 grain. His imagination fastens instinctively on 
 some one mark or sign by which he designates the 
 individual, and never lets it go, for fear of not 
 meeting with any other means to express himself 
 by. A cant phrase, an odd gesture, an old- 
 fashioned regimental uniform, a wooden leg, a 
 tobacco-box, or a hacked sword, are the standing 
 topics by which he embodies his characters to the 
 imagination. They are cut and dried comedy; 
 the letter, not the spirit of wit and humour. Each 
 of his characters has a particular cue, a profes- 
 sional badge which he wears and is known by, 
 and by nothing else. Thus there is no end of 
 Captain Otter, his Bull, his Bear, and his Horse, 
 which are no joke at first, and do not become so 
 by being repeated twenty times. It is a mere mat- 
 ter of fact, that some landlord of his acquaintance 
 called his drinking cups by these ridiculous names ; 
 but why need we be told so more than once, or 
 indeed at all ? There is almost a total want of 
 variety, fancy, relief, and of those delightful tran- 
 bitions which abound, for instance, in Shakspeare's
 
 ON SHAKSPEARE AND BEN JONSON. 75 
 
 tragi-comedy. In Ben Jonson, we find ourselves 
 generally in low company, and we see no hope of 
 getting out of it. He is like a person who fastens 
 upon a disagreeable suhject, and cannot be per- 
 suaded to leave it. His comedy, in a word, has 
 not what Shakspeare somewhere calls " bless'd 
 conditions." It is cross-grained, mean, and me- 
 chanical. It is handicraft wit. Squalid poverty, 
 sheer ignorance, bare-faced impudence, or idiot im- 
 becility, are his dramatic common-places things 
 that provoke pity or disgust, instead of laughter. 
 His portraits are caricatures by dint of their very 
 likeness, being extravagant tautologies of them- 
 selves ; as his plots are improbable by an excess 
 of consistency ; for he goes thorough-stitch with 
 whatever he takes in hand, makes one contrivance 
 answer all purposes, and every obstacle give way 
 to a predetermined theory. For instance, nothing 
 can be more incredible than the mercenary con- 
 duct of Corvino, in delivering up his wife to the 
 palsied embraces of Volpone ; and yet the poet does 
 not seem in the least to boggle at the incongruity of 
 it : but the more it is in keeping with the absurdity 
 of the rest of the fable, and the more it advances 
 it to an incredible catastrophe, the more he seems 
 to dwell upon it witli complacency and a sort of 
 wilful exaggeration, as if it were a logical dis- 
 covery or corollarv from vvell-known premises.
 
 76 ON SHAKSPEARE AND BEN JONSON. 
 
 He would no more be baffled in the working ont 
 a plot, than some people will be baffled in an 
 argument. " If to be wise were to be obstinate," 
 our author might have laid signal claim to this 
 title. Old Ben was of a scholastic turn, and had 
 dealt a little in the occult sciences and contro- 
 versial divinity. He was a man of strong crabbed 
 sense, retentive memory, acute observation, great 
 fidelity of description and keeping in charactei, a 
 power of working out an idea so as to make it 
 painfully true and oppressive, and with great ho- 
 nesty and manliness of feeling, as well as directness 
 of understanding: but with all this, he wanted, to 
 my thinking, that genial spirit of enjoyment and 
 finer fancy, which constitute the essence of poetry 
 and of wit. The sense of reality exercised a de- 
 spotic sway over his mind, and equally weighed 
 down and clogged his perception of the beautiful 
 or the ridiculous. He had a keen sense of what 
 was true and false, but not of the difference be- 
 tween the agreeable and disagreeable ; or if he 
 had, it was by his understanding rather than his 
 imagination, by rule and method, not by sympa- 
 thy, or intuitive perception of "the gayest, happiest 
 attitude of things." There was nothing sponta- 
 neous, no impulse or ease about his genius : it was 
 all forced, up-hill vt^ork, making a toil of a plea- 
 sure. And hence his overweening admiration of
 
 ON SHAKSPEARE AND BEN JONSON. 77 
 
 his own works, from the effort they had cost him, 
 and the apprehension that they were not propor- 
 tionably admired by others, who knew nothing of 
 the pangs and throes of his Muse in child-bearing. 
 In his satirical descriptions he seldom stops short 
 of the lowest and most offensive point of meanness; 
 and in his serious poetry he seems to repose with 
 complacency only on the pedantic and far-fetched, 
 the ultima Thule of his knowledge. He has a 
 conscience of letting nothing escape the reader 
 that he knows. Aliquando suffiaminandus ei^at, is 
 as true of him as it was of Shakspeare, but in a 
 quite different sense. He is doggedly bent upon 
 fatiguing you with a favourite idea ; whereas, 
 Shakspeare overpowers and distracts attention by 
 the throng and indiscriminate variety of his. His 
 Sad Shepherd is a beautiful fragment. It was a 
 favourite with the late Mr. Home Tooke : indeed 
 it is no wonder, for there was a sort of sympathy 
 between the two men. Ben was like the modern 
 wit and philosopher, a grammarian and a hard- 
 headed thinker. There is an amusing account of 
 Ben Jonson's private manners in Howel's Letters, 
 which is not generally known, and which I shall 
 here extract. 
 
 " From James Howel, Esq. to Sir Thomas Hawk, Kt. 
 
 " Sir, fVestminster, 5th April, 10'30'. 
 
 ''' I was invited yesternight to a solemn supper by B. J.
 
 78 ON SHAKSPEARE AND BEN JONSON. 
 
 where you were deeply remembered j there was good com- 
 pany, excellent cheer, choice wines, and jovial welcome: one 
 thing intervened, which almost spoiled the relish of the rest, 
 that B. began to engross all the discourse, to vapour ex- 
 tremely of himself, and, by vilifying others, to magnify his 
 own Muse. T. Ca. (Tom Carew) buzzed me in the ear, that 
 though Ben had barrelled up a great deal of knowledge, yet 
 it seems he had not read the ethics, which, among other 
 precepts of morality, forbid self-commendation, declaring it 
 to be an ill-favoured solecism in good manners. It made 
 me think upon the lady (not very young) who having a good 
 while given her guests neat entertainment, a capon being 
 brought u{)on the table, instead of a spoon, she took a 
 mouthful of claret, and spouted into the hollow bird : such 
 an accident liappened in this entertainment : you know 
 Propria laus sordet in ore : he a man's breath ever so sweet, 
 yet it makes one's praise stink, if he makes his own mouth 
 the conduit-pipe of it. But for my part I am content to dis- 
 pense with the Roman infirmity of Ben, now that time hath 
 snowed upon his pericranium. You know Ovid and (your) 
 Horace were subject to this humour, the first bursting out 
 into 
 
 Jarnque opus exegi, quod nee Jovis ira nee ignis, &c. 
 The other into 
 
 Exegi monumentum (Ere perennius, &c. 
 
 As also Cicero, while he forced himself into tliis hexameter : 
 Ofortunatani natam, me consuls Romam! There is another 
 reason that excuseth B. which is, that if one be allowed to 
 love the natural issue of his body, why not that of the brain, 
 which is of a spiritual and more noble extraction ?" 
 
 The concurring testimony of all his contemporaries
 
 ON SHAKSPEARE AND BEN JONSON. 79 
 
 agrees with his own candid avowal, as to Ben Jon- 
 son's personal character. He begins, for instance, 
 an epistle to Drayton in these words 
 
 " Michael, by some 'tis doubted if I be 
 A friend at all ; or if a friend, to thee." 
 
 Of Shakspeare's comedies I have already given 
 a detailed account, which is before the public, 
 and which I shall not repeat of course : but I 
 shall give a cursory sketch of the principal of 
 Ben Jonson's. ^The Silent Woraan is built upon 
 the supposition of an old citizen disliking noise, 
 who takes to wife Epicene (a supposed young 
 lady) for the reputation of her silence, and with a 
 view to disinherit his nephew, who has laughed 
 at his infirmity; when the ceremony is no sooner 
 over than the bride turns out a very shrew, his 
 house becomes a very Babel of noises, and he 
 offers his nephew his own terms to unloose the 
 matrimonial knot, which is done by proving that 
 Epicene is no woman. There is some humour in the 
 leading character, but too much is made out of it, 
 not in the way of Moliere's exaggerations, which, 
 though extravagant, are fantastical and ludicrous, 
 but of serious, plodding, minute prolixity. The 
 first meeting between Morose and Epicene is well 
 managed, and does not " o'erstep the modesty ot 
 nature," from the very restraint imposed by the
 
 80 ON i>HAKbPEARE AND BEN JONSON. 
 
 situation of the parties by the affected tacitur- 
 nity of the one, and the other s singular disHke of 
 noise. The whole story, from the beginning to the 
 end, is a gratuitous assumption, and the height 
 of improbability. The author, in sustaining the 
 weight of his plot, seems Hke a balance-master 
 who supports a number of people, piled one upon 
 another, on his hands, his knees, his shoulders, 
 but with a great eflFort on his own part, and with 
 a painful effect to the beholders. The scene be- 
 tween Sir Amorous La Foole and Sir John Daw, 
 in which they are frightened by a feigned report of 
 each other's courage, into a submission to all 
 sorts of indignities, which they construe into 
 flattering civilities, is the same device as that in 
 Twelfth Night between Sir Andrew Aguecheek 
 and Viola, carried to a paradoxical and revolting 
 excess. Ben Jonson had no idea of decorum in 
 his dramatic fictions, which Milton says is the 
 principal thing, but went on caricaturing himself 
 and others till he could go no farther in extrava- 
 gance, and sink no lower in meanness. The titles 
 of his dramatis persoiicr, such as Sir Amorous 
 La Foole, Truewit, Sir John Daw, Sir Politic 
 Wouldbe, &c. &c. which are significant and know- 
 ing, shew his determination to overdo every thing 
 by thus letting you into their characters before- 
 hand, and afterwards proving their pretensions by
 
 ON SHAKSPEARE AND BEN JONSON. 81 
 
 by their names. Thus Peregrine, in Volpone, says, 
 " Your name, Sir ? Politick. My name is Politick 
 Would-be." To which Peregrine replies, " Oh, that 
 speaks him." How it should, if it was his real name, 
 and not a nick-name given him on purpose by the 
 author, is hard to conceive. This play w'as Dry- 
 den's favourite. It is indeed full of sharp, biting 
 sentences against the women, of which he Avas 
 fond. The following may serve as a specimen. 
 Truewit says, " Did I not tell thee, Dauphine? 
 Why, all their actions are governed by crude opi- 
 nion, without reason or cause : they know not 
 why they do any thing ; but, as they are informed, 
 believe, judge, praise, condemn, love, hate, and in 
 emulation one of another, do all these things alike. 
 Only they have a natural inclination sways 'em 
 generally to the worst, when they are left to them- 
 selves. ' This is a cynical sentence ; and we may 
 say of the rest of his opinions, that " even though 
 we should hold them to be true, yet is it slantlcr 
 to have them so set down." The women in this 
 play indeed justify the author's severity ; they are 
 altogether abominable. They have an utter want 
 of principle and d<K'cncy, and are e(|ually without 
 a sense of |)leasure, taste, or t-legance. Madame 
 Haughty, Madame Centaur, and Madame Mavis, 
 form the College, as it is here pedantically called, 
 riuy are a sort of candidates for being upon iW 
 
 (r
 
 82 ON SHAKSPEARE AND BEN JONSON. 
 
 town, but cannot find seducers, and a sort of blue- 
 stockings, before the invention of letters. Mis- 
 tress Epicene, the silent gentlewoman, turns out 
 not to be a woman at all ; which is not a very 
 pleasant denouement of the plot, and is itself an 
 incident apparently taken from the blundering 
 blindman's-buff conclusion of the Merry Wives of 
 Windsor. What Shakspeare might introduce by 
 an accident, and as a mere passing jest, Ben Jon- 
 son would set about building a whole play upon. 
 The directions for making love given by Truewit, 
 the author's favourite, discover great knowledge 
 and shrewdness of observation, mixed with the 
 acuteness of malice, and approach to the best 
 style of comic dialogue. But I must refer to the 
 play itself for them. 
 
 The Fox, or Volpone, is his best play. It is 
 prolix and improbable, but intense and powerful. 
 It is written con amore. It is made up of cheats 
 and dupes, and the author is at home among them. 
 He shews his hatred of the one and contempt for 
 the other, and makes them set one another oft' 
 to great advantage. There are several striking 
 dramatic contrasts in this play, where the Fox 
 lies perdue to watch his prey, where Mosca is 
 the dextrous go-between, outwitting his gulls, 
 his employer, and himself, and where each of the
 
 ON SHAKSPEARE AND BEN JONSGN. 83 
 
 gaping legacy-hunters, the lawyer, the merchant, 
 and the miser, eagerly occupied with the ridi- 
 culousness of the other's pretensions, is blind only 
 to the absurdity of his own : but the whole is 
 worked up too mechanically, and our credulity 
 overstretched at last revolts into scepticism, and 
 our attention overtasked flags into drowsiness. 
 This play seems formed on the model of Plautus, 
 in unity of plot and interest ; and old Ben, in 
 emulating his classic model, appears to have done 
 his best. There is the same caustic unsparing 
 severity in it as in his other works. His patience 
 is tried to the utmost. His words drop gall. 
 
 " Hood an ass with reverend purple. 
 So you can hide his too ambitious ears, 
 And he shall pass for a cathedral doctor." 
 
 The scene between Volpone, Mosca, Voltore, 
 Corvino, and Corbaccio, at the outset, will shew 
 the dramatic power in the conduct of this ])lay, 
 and will be my justification in what I have said 
 of the literal tenaciousness (to a degree that is re- 
 pulsive) of the author s imaginary descriptions. 
 
 Every Man in his Humour, is a play well- 
 known to tlie public. This play acts better than 
 it reads. The pathos in the principal character.
 
 84 ON SHAKSPEARE AND BEN JONSON. 
 
 Kitely, is " as dry as the remainder biscuit after 
 a voyage." There is, however, a certain good 
 Sense, discrimination, or logic of passion in the part, 
 which affords excellent hints for an able actor, 
 and which, if properly pointed, gives it considerable 
 force on the stage. Bobadil is the only actually 
 striking character in the play, and the real hero 
 of the piece. His well-known proposal for the 
 pacification of Europe, by killing some twenty of 
 them, each his man a day, is as good as any other 
 that has been suggested up to the present moment. 
 His extravagant affectation, his blustering and 
 cowardice, are an entertaining medley ; and his final 
 defeat and exposure, though exceedingly humor- 
 ous, are the most affecting part of the story. Brain- 
 worm is a particularly dry and abstruse character. 
 We neither know his business nor his motives : his 
 plots are as intricate as they are useless, and as the 
 ignorance of those lie imposes upon is wonderful. 
 This is the impression in reading it. Yet from 
 the bustle and activity of this character on the 
 stage, the changes of dress, the variety of affected 
 tones and gipsy jargon, and tlie limping affected 
 gestures, it is a very amusing theatrical exhibition. 
 The rest, Master Matthew, Master Stephen, Cob 
 and Cob's wife, were living in the sixteenth century. 
 That is all we all know of them. But from the 
 very oddity of their aj)pearance and behaviour.
 
 ON SHAKSPEARE AND BEN JONSON. 85 
 
 they have a very droll and even picturesque effect 
 when acted. It seems a revival of the dead. We 
 believe in their existence when we see them. As 
 an example of the power of the stage in giving 
 reality and interest to what otherwise would be 
 without it, I might mention the scene in which 
 Brainworm praises Master Stephen's leg. The 
 folly here is insipid from its being seemingly 
 carried to an excess, till we see it ; and then we 
 laugh the more at it, the more incredible we 
 thought it before. 
 
 Bartholomew Fair is chiefly remarkable for the 
 exhibition of odd humours and tumbler's tricks, 
 and is on that account amusing to read once. 
 The Alchymist is the most famous of this author's 
 comedies, thong:h I think it does not deserve its re- 
 putation. It contains all that is quaint, dreary, 
 obsolete, and hopeless in this once-famed art, but 
 not the golden dreams and splendid disappoint- 
 ments. Wc have the mere circumstantials of the 
 sublime science, pots and kettles, aprons and bel- 
 lows, crncii)les and diagrams, all the refuse and 
 rubbish, not the essence, the true elixir vita. 
 There is, however, one glorious scene b(>tween 
 Surly and Sir Epicure Mammon, which is the 
 finest example I know of dramatic sophistry, or 
 of an attempt to prove the existence of a thing by
 
 86 ON SFIAKSPEARE AND BEN JONSON. 
 
 an imposing description of its effects ; bnt com- 
 pared with this, the rest of the play is a caput mor- 
 tuum. The scene I allude to is the following : 
 
 " Mammon. Come on, Sir. Nowj you set your foot on 
 shore. 
 In Novo Orbe ; here's the rich Peru : 
 And there within. Sir, are the golden mines. 
 Great Sokimon's Ophir ! He was sailing to 't 
 Three years, but we have reached it in ten months. 
 This is the day wherein, to all my friends, 
 I will pronounce the happy word. Be rich j ' 
 
 This day you shall be Spectatissimi. 
 You shall no more deal with the liollow dye. 
 Or the frail card. ******** 
 
 You shall start up young viceroys, 
 And have your punks and punketees, my Surly, 
 And unto thee, I speak it first. Be rich. 
 Where is my Subtle, there? Within, ho ! 
 
 Face, [within'] Sir, he'll come to you, by and by. 
 
 Mam. That is his Firedrake, 
 His Lungs, his Zephyrus, he that puffs his coals. 
 Till he firk nature up in her own centre. 
 You are not faithful. Sir. This night I'll change 
 .'^ll that is metal in my house to gold : 
 And early in the morning, will 1 send 
 To all the plumbets aiul the pevvterers 
 And buy their tin and lead up; and to Lothbury, 
 For all the copper. 
 
 Surly. What, and turn that too ? 
 
 Mam. Yes, and I'll purchase Devonsliire and Cornwall, 
 .'Vnd make them perfect Indies ! You admire now 1 
 
 Surly. No, faith.
 
 ON SHAKSPEARE AND BEN JONSON. 87 
 
 MMm. But when you see th' eflFects of the great medicine. 
 Of which one part projected on a hundred 
 Of Mercury, or Venus, or the Moon, 
 Shall turn it to as many of the Sun j 
 Nay, to a thousand, so ad infinitum; 
 You will believe me. 
 
 Surly. Yes, when I see't, 1 will 
 
 Mam. Ha ! why ? 
 Do you think I fable with you ? I assure you. 
 He that has once the flower of the Sun, 
 The perfect ruby, which we call Elixir, 
 Not only can do that, but, by its virtue. 
 Can confer honour, love, respect, long lifej 
 Give safety, valour, yea, and victory. 
 To whom he will. In eight and twenty days, 
 I'll make an old man of fourscore, a child. 
 
 Surly. No doubt ; he's that already. 
 
 Mam. Nay, I mean. 
 Restore his years, renew him, like an eagle. 
 To the fifth age j make him get sons and daughters. 
 Young giants ; as our philosophers have done. 
 The ancient patriarchs, afore the flood. 
 But taking, once a week, on a knife's point. 
 The quantity of a grain of mustard of it j 
 Become stout Marses, and beget young Cupids, 
 
 You are incredulous. 
 
 Surly. Faith, I have a humour, 
 I would not willingly be guU'd. Your stone 
 Cannot transmute me. 
 
 Mam. Pertinax Surly, 
 Will you believe antiquity ? records ? 
 I'll shew you a book where Moses and his sister.
 
 88 ON SHAKSPEARE AND BEN JONSON. 
 
 And Solomon have written of the art ; 
 Ay, and a treatise penn'd by Adam 
 
 Surly. How ! 
 
 Mam. Of the philosopher's stone, and in High Dutch. 
 
 Surly. Did Adam write. Sir, in High Dutch? 
 
 Mam. He did j 
 Which proves it was the primitive tongue, 
 
 lEnter Face, as a servant. 
 How now ! 
 Do we succeed ? Is our day come, and holds it ? 
 
 Face. The evening will set red upon you. Sir : 
 You have colour for it, crimson ; the red ferment 
 Has done his office : three hours hence prepare you 
 To see projection. 
 
 Mam. Pertinax, my Surly, 
 Again I say to thee, aloud. Be rich. 
 This day thou shalt have ingots j and to-morrow 
 Give lords the affront, * * * * Where's thy master ; 
 
 Face. At his prayers. Sir, hej 
 Good man, he's doing his devotions 
 For the success. 
 
 Mam. Lungs, I will set a period 
 To all thy labours j thou shalt be the master 
 Of my seraglio .... 
 For I do mean 
 
 To have a list of wives and concubines 
 Equal with Solomon : * * * 
 I will have all my beds blown up, not stuft : 
 Down is too hard 3 and then, mine oval room 
 Fill'd with such pictures as Tiberius took 
 From Elephantis, and ilull Aretine 
 But coldly imitated. Then, my glasses
 
 ON SHAKSPEARE AND BEN JONSON. S9 
 
 Cut in more subtle angles, to disperse 
 
 And multiply the figures, as 1 walk. * * My mists 
 
 I'll have of perfume, vapoured about the room 
 
 To lose ourselves in j and my baths, like pits 
 
 To fall into : from whence we will come forth. 
 
 And roll us dry in gossamer and roses. 
 
 Is it arriv'd at ruby ? Where I spy 
 
 A wealthy citizen, or a rich lawyer, 
 
 Have a sublimed pure wife, unto that fellow 
 
 I'll send a thousand pound to be my cuckold. 
 
 Face. And I shall carry it ? 
 
 Mam. No. I'll have no bawds. 
 But fathers and mothers. They will do it best. 
 Best of all others. And my flatterers 
 Shall be the pure and gravest of divines 
 That I can get for money. 
 
 We will be brave, Puffe, now we have the medicine. 
 My meat shall all come in, in Indian shells. 
 Dishes of agat set in gold, and studded 
 With emeralds, sapphires, hyacinths, and rubies. 
 The tongues of carps, dormice, and camel's heels 
 Boil'd in the spirit of Sol, and dissolv'd pearl, 
 Apicius' diet, 'gainst the epilepsy; 
 And I will eat these broths with spoons of amber. 
 Headed with diamond and carbuncle. 
 My footboys shall eat pheasants, calver'd salmons. 
 Knots, godwits, lampreys ; I myself will have 
 The beards of barbels serv'd instead of salads ; 
 Oil'd mushrooms 3 and the swelling unctuous paps 
 Of a fat pregnant sow, newly cut off, 
 Drest with an exquisite and poignant sauce j 
 For which I'll say unto my cook. There's gold, 
 (to forth, and be a knight.
 
 90 ON SHAKSPEARE AND BEN JONSON. 
 
 Face. Sir, I'll go look 
 A little, how it heightens. 
 
 Mam. Do. My shirts 
 I'll have of taffeta-sarsnet, soft and light, 
 As cobwebs ; and for all my other raiment. 
 It shall be such as might provoke the Persian, 
 Were he to teach the world riot anew. 
 My gloves of fishes and birds' skins, perfum'd 
 With gums of Paradise and eastern air. 
 
 Surly. And do you think to have the stone with this ? 
 
 Mam. No, I do think t' have all this with the stone. 
 
 Surly. Why, I have heard, he must be homofrugi, 
 A pious, holy, and religious man. 
 One free from mortal sin, a very virgin. 
 
 Mam. That makes it. Sir, he is so j but I buy it. 
 My venture brings it me. He, honest wretch, 
 A notable, superstitious, good soul. 
 Has worn his knees bare, and his slippers bald. 
 With prayer and fasting for it, and. Sir, let iiim 
 Do it alone, for me, stilly here he comes j 
 Not a profane word afore him : 'tis poison." 
 
 Jet ii, scene I. 
 
 I have only to add a few words on Beaumont 
 and Fletcher. Rule a Wife and Have a Wife, the 
 Chances, and the Wild Goose Chase, the original of 
 the Inconstant, are superior in style and execution 
 to any thing of Ben Jonson's. They are, indeed, 
 some of the best comedies on the stage ; and one 
 proof that they are so, is, that they still hold pos- 
 session of it. They shew the utmost alacrity of 
 invention in contriving ludicrous distresses, and
 
 ON SHAKSPEARE AND BEN JONSON. 91 
 
 the utmost spirit in bearing up against, or impa- 
 tience and irritation under them. Don John, in 
 the Chances, is the heroic in comedy. Leon, in 
 Rule a Wife and Have a Wife, is a fine exhibition 
 of the born gentleman and natural fool: the 
 Copper Captain is sterling to this hour : his mis- 
 tress, Estifania, only died the other day with 
 Mrs. Jordan : and the two grotesque females, in 
 the same play, act better than the Witches in 
 Macbeth.
 
 LECTURE III. 
 
 ON COWLEY, BUTLER, SUCKLING, ETHEREGE, &c. 
 
 The metaphysical poets or wits of the age of 
 James and Charles I. Avhose style was adopted 
 and carried to a more dazzling and fantastic ex- 
 cess by Cowley in the following reign, after which 
 it declined, and gave place almost entirely to the 
 poetry of observation and reasoning, are thus 
 happily characterised by Dr. Johnson. 
 
 " The metaphysical poets were men of learn- 
 ing, and to show their learning was their whole 
 endeavour: but unluckily resolving to show it in 
 rhyme, instead of writing poetry, they only wrote 
 verses, and very often such verses as stood the 
 trial of tiie finger better than of the car ; for the 
 modulation was so imperfect, that they were only 
 found to be verses by counting the syllables. 
 
 " If the father of criticism has rightly de- 
 nominated poetry rt^vij /xi|,^rtx^, an imitative arty
 
 ON COWLEY, BUTLER, &c. 93 
 
 these writers will, without great wrong, lose their 
 right to the name of poets, for they cannot be said 
 to have imitated any thing; they neither copied 
 nature nor life ; neither painted the forms of mat- 
 ter, nor represented the operations of intellect." 
 
 The whole of the account is well worth read- 
 ing : it was a subject for which Dr. Johnson's 
 powers both of thought and expression were better 
 fitted than any other man's. If he had had the 
 same capacity for following the flights of a truly 
 poetic imagination, or for feeling the finer touches 
 of nature, that he had felicity and force in detect- 
 ing and exposing the aberrations from the broad 
 and beaten path of propriety and common sense, he 
 would have amply deserved the reputation he has 
 acquired as a philosophical critic. 
 
 The writers here referred to (such as Donne, 
 Davies, Crashaw, and others) not merely mistook 
 learning* for poetry they thought any thing was 
 poetry that differed from ordinary prose and the 
 natural impression of things, by being intricate, 
 far-tetched, and improbable. Their style was not 
 so properly learned as metaphysical ; that is to 
 say, whenever, by any violeTice done to their ideas, 
 they could make out an abstract likeness or pos- 
 sible ground of comparison, they forced the image,
 
 94 ON COWLEY, BUTLER, &c. 
 
 whether learned or vulgar, into the service of the 
 Muses. Any thing would do to " hitch into a 
 rhyme," no matter whether striking or agreeable, 
 or not, so that it would puzzle the reader to dis- 
 cover the meaning, and if there was the most 
 remote circumstance, however trifling or vague, 
 for the pretended comparison to hinge upon. They 
 brought ideas together not the most, but the least 
 like ; and of which the collision produced not 
 light, but obscurity served not to strengthen, but 
 to confound. Their mystical verses read like 
 riddles or an allegory. They neither belong to 
 the class of lively or severe poetry. Tliey have 
 not the force of the one, nor the gaiety of the 
 other ; but are an ill-assorted, unprofitable union 
 of the two together, applying to serious subjects 
 that quaint and partial style of allusion which fits 
 only what is light and ludicrous, and building the 
 most laboured conclusions on the most fantastical 
 and slender premises. The object of the poetry of 
 imagination is to raise or adorn one idea by another 
 more striking or more beautiful : the object of 
 these writers was to match any one idea with any 
 other idea, for better fur worse, as we say, and 
 whether any thing was gained by the change of 
 condition or not. The object of the poetry of the 
 passions again is to illustrate any strong feeling, 
 by shewing the same feeling as connected with
 
 ON COWLEY, BUTLER, &c. 95 
 
 objects or circumstances more palpable and touch- 
 ing ; but here the object was to strain and distort 
 the immediate feeling into some barely possible 
 consequence or recondite analogy, in which it re- 
 quired the utmost stretch of misapplied ingenuity 
 to trace the smallest connection with the original 
 impression. In short, the poetry of this period 
 was strictly the poetry not of ideas, but of defini- 
 tions : it proceeded in mode and figure, by genus 
 and specific difference ; and was the logic of the 
 schools, or an oblique and forced construction of 
 dry, literal matter-of-fact, decked out in a robe of 
 glittering conceits, and clogged with the halting 
 shackles of verse. The imagination of the writers, 
 instead of being conversant with the face of nature, 
 or the secrets of the heart, was lost in the labyrinths 
 of intellectual abstraction, or entangled in the 
 technical quibbles and impertinent intricacies of 
 language. The complaint so often made, and here 
 repeated, is not of the want of power in these men, 
 but of the waste of it ; not of the absence of 
 genius, but the abuse of it. They had (many of 
 them) great talents committed to their trust, rich- 
 ness of thought, and depth of feeling ; but they 
 chose to hide them (as much as they possibly 
 could) under a false shew of learning and unmean- 
 ing subtlety. From the style which they hud 
 systematically adopted, they thought nothing done
 
 96 ON COWLEY, BUTLER, &c. 
 
 till they had perverted simplicity into affectation, 
 and spoiled nature by art. They seemed to think 
 there was an irreconcileable opposition between 
 genius, as well as grace, and nature ; tried to do 
 without, or else constantly to thwart her ; left 
 nothing to her outward " impress," or spontaneous 
 impulses, but made a point of twisting and tor- 
 turing almost every subject they took in hand, till 
 they had fitted it to the mould of their self-opinion 
 and the previous fabrications of their own fancy, 
 like those who pen acrostics in the shape of pyra- 
 mids, and cut out trees into the shape of peacocks. 
 Their chief aim is to make you wonder at the 
 writer, not to interest you in the subject ; and by 
 an incessant craving after admiration, they have 
 lost what they might have gained with less ex- 
 travagance and affectation. So Cowper, who was 
 of a quite opposite school, speaks feelingly of the 
 misapplication of Cowley's poetical genius. 
 
 " And though reclaim'd by modern lights 
 From an erroneous taste, 
 I cannot but lament thy splendid wit 
 Entangled in the cobwebs of the schools." 
 
 Donne, Avho was considerably before Cowley, is 
 without his fancy, but was more recondite in his 
 logic, and rigid in bis descriptions. He is hence 
 led, particularly in his satires, to tell disagreeable
 
 ON COWLEY, BUTLER, &c. 97 
 
 truths in as disagreeable a way as possible, or to 
 convey a pleasing and affecting thought (of which 
 there are many to be found in his other writings) 
 by the harshest moans, and with the most painful 
 effort. His Muse suffers continual pangs and throes. 
 His thoughts are delivered by the Caesarean opera- 
 tion. The sentiments, profound and tender as they 
 often are, are stifled in the expression ; and " heaved 
 pantingly forth," are '* buried quick again" under 
 the ruins and rubbish of analytical distinctions. It 
 is like poetry waking from a trance : with an eye 
 bent idly on the outward world, and half-forgotten 
 feelings crowding about the heart ; with vivid im- 
 pressions, dim notions, and disjointed words. The 
 following may serve as instances of beautiful or 
 impassioned reflections losing themselves in obscure 
 and difficult applications. He has some lines to a 
 Blossom, which begin thus : 
 
 Little think'st thou, poor flow'r. 
 Whom I have watched six or seven days. 
 And seen thy birth, and seen what every hour 
 GaA'e to thy growth, thee to this height to raise, 
 And now dost laugh and triumph on this bough. 
 
 Little think'st tliou 
 'i'hat it will freeze anon, and that I shall 
 To-inorro'.v find thee fall'n, or not at all." 
 
 This simple and delicate description is only intro- 
 
 H
 
 98 ON COWLEY, BOILER, &c. 
 
 duced as a foundation for an elaborate metaphysical 
 conceit as a parallel to it, in the next stanza. 
 
 " Little tbink'st thou (poor heart 
 
 That labour'st yet to nestle thee. 
 
 And think'st by hovering here to get a part 
 
 In a forbidden or forbidding tree. 
 
 And hop'st her stiflfness by long siege to bow :) 
 
 Little think'st thou. 
 That thou to-morrow, ere the sun doth wake. 
 Must with this sun and me a journey take," 
 
 This is but a lame and impotent conclusion from 
 so delightful a beginning. He thus notices the 
 circumstance of his wearing his late wife's hair 
 about his arm, in a little poem which is called the 
 Funeral : 
 
 " Whoever comes to shroud me, do not harm 
 
 Nor question niuch 
 That subtle wreath of hair, about mine arm ; 
 The mystery, the sign you must not touch." 
 
 The scholastic reason he gives quite dissolves the 
 charm of tender and touching grace in the senti- 
 ment itself 
 
 " For 'tis my outward soul. 
 Viceroy to that, which unto heaven being gone. 
 
 Will leave this to control. 
 And keep these limbs, her provinces, from dissolution."
 
 ON COWLEY, BUTLER, &c. 99 
 
 Again, the following lines, the title of which is 
 Love's Deity, are highly characteristic of this 
 author's manner, in which the thoughts are inlaid 
 in a costly but imperfect mosaic-work. 
 
 " I long to talk with some old lover's ghost, 
 IVho died before the God of Love was born : 
 I cannot think that he, who then lov'd most. 
 Sunk so low, as to love one which did scorn. 
 But since this God produc'd a destiny. 
 And that vice-nature, custom, lets it be; 
 I must love her that loves not me," 
 
 Tiie stanza in the Epithalamion on a Count Pala- 
 tine of the Rhine, has been often quoted against 
 him, and is an almost irresistible illustration of the 
 extravagances to which this kind of writing, which 
 tarns upon a pivot of words and possible allusions, 
 is liable. Speaking of the bride and bridegroom 
 he says, by way of serious compliment 
 
 " Here lies a she-Sun, and a he-Moon there, 
 She gives tlie best lia^ht to his sphere; 
 Or each is both and all, and so 
 They unto one another nothing owe." 
 
 His love-verses and epistles to his friends give 
 the most favourable idea of Donne, His satires 
 are too clerical. He shews, if I may so speak, too 
 much disgust, and, at the same time, too much 
 contempt for vice. His dogmatical invectives
 
 100 ON COWLEY, BUTLER, ice. 
 
 hardly redeem the nauseousness of his descrip- 
 tions, and compromise the imagination of his 
 readers more than they assist their reason. The 
 satirist does not write with the same authority as 
 the divine, and should use his poetical privileges 
 more sparingly. " To the pure all things are 
 pure," is a maxim which a man like Dr. Donne 
 may be justified in applying to himself; but he 
 might have recollected that it could not be con- 
 strued to extend to the generality of his readers, 
 xvithout benefit of clergy. 
 
 Bishop Hall's Satires are coarse railing in 
 verse, and hardly that. Pope has, however, con- 
 trived to avail himself of them in some of his 
 imitations. 
 
 Sir John Davies is the author of a poem on 
 the Soui, and of one on Dancing. In both he 
 shews great ingenuity, and sometimes terseness 
 and vigour. In the last of these two poems his 
 fancy pirouettes in a very lively and agreeable man- 
 ner, but something too much in the style of a 
 French opera-dancer, with sharp angular turns, 
 and repeated deviations from the faultless line of 
 simplicity and nature. 
 
 Crashav/ was a writer of the same ambitious 
 stamp, whose imagination uas reiulcrcd atill more
 
 ON COWLEY, BUTLER, &c. 101 
 
 inflammable by the fervors of fanaticism, and 
 who having been converted from Protestantism 
 to Popery (a weakness to which the " seething 
 brains" of the poets of this period were prone) 
 by some visionary appearance of the Virgin Mary, 
 poured out his devout raptures and zealous 
 enthusiasm in a torrent of poetical hyperboles. 
 The celebrated Latin Epigram on the miracle of 
 our Saviour, " The water blushed into wine," is 
 in his usual hectic manner. His translation of 
 the contest between the Musician and the Nightin- 
 gale is the best specimen of his powers. 
 
 Davenant's Gondibert is a tissue of stanzas, all 
 aiming to be wise and witty, each containing 
 something in itself, and the whole together 
 amounting to nothing. The thoughts separately 
 require so much attention to understand them, 
 and arise so little out of the narrative, that they 
 with difficulty sink into the mind, and have no 
 common feeling of interest to rccal or link them 
 together afterwards. The general style may be 
 judged of by these two memorable lines in the 
 description of the skeleton-chamber. 
 
 " Yet on that wall hangs he too, who so thought. 
 And she dried by him whom that he obeyed." 
 
 Mr. Hobbes, in a prefatory discourse, has thrown
 
 102 ON COWLEY, BUTLER, &c. 
 
 away a good deal of powerful logic and criticism 
 in recommendation of the plan of his friend's 
 poem. Davenant, who was poet-laureate to 
 Charles II. wrote several masques and plays which 
 were well received in his time, but have not come 
 down with equal applause to us. 
 
 Marvel (on whom I have aheady bestowed 
 such praise as I could, for elegance and tender- 
 ness in his descriptive poems) in his satires and 
 witty pieces was addicted to the affected and in- 
 volved style here reprobated, as in his Flecknoe 
 (the origin of Dryden's Macflecknoe) and in his 
 satire on the Dutch. As an instance of this 
 forced, far-fetched method of treating his subject, 
 he says, in ridicule of the Hollanders, that when 
 their dykes overflowed, the fish used to come to 
 table with them, 
 
 " And sat not as a meat, but as a guest." 
 
 There is a poem of Marvel's on ihe death of 
 King Charles I. which I have not seen, but which 
 I have heard praised by one whose praise is never 
 high but of the highest things, for the beauty and 
 pathos, as well as generous frankness of the senti- 
 ments, coming, as they did, from a determined and 
 incorruptible political foe.
 
 ON COWLEY, BUTLER, &c. lOS 
 
 Shadwell was a successful and voluminous 
 dramatic writer of much the same period. His 
 Libertine (taken from the celebrated Spanish 
 story) is full of spirit ; but it is the spirit of 
 licentiousness and impiety. At no time do there 
 appear to have been such extreme speculations 
 afloat on the subject of religion and morality, as 
 there were shortly after the Reformation, and 
 afterwards under the Stuarts, the differences being 
 widened by political irritation ; and the Puritans 
 often over-acting one extreme out of grimace and 
 hypocrisy, as the king's party did the other out of 
 bravado. 
 
 Carew is excluded from his pretensions to the 
 laureateship in Suckling's Sessions of the Poets, on 
 account of his slowness. His verses are delicate 
 and pleasing, with a certain feebleness, but with 
 very little tincture of the affectation of this period. 
 His masque (called Ccdlum Britannicum) in cele- 
 bration of a marriage at court, has not much wit 
 nor fancy, but the accompanying prose directions 
 and commentary on the mythological story, are 
 written with wonderful facility and elegance, in a 
 style of familiar dramatic dialogue approaching 
 nearer the writers of Queen Anne's reign than 
 those of Queen Elizabeth's. 
 
 Milton's name is included by Dr. Johnson in
 
 104 ON COWLEY, BUTLER, &c. 
 
 the list of metaphysical poets on no better au- 
 thority than his lines on Hobson the Cambridge 
 Carrier, which he acknowledges were the only 
 ones Milton wrote on this model. Indeed, he is 
 the great contrast to that style of poetry, being 
 remarkable for breadth and massiness, or what Dr. 
 Johnson calls " aggregation of ideas," beyond al- 
 most any other poet. He has in this respect been 
 compared to Michael Angelo, but not with much 
 reason : his verses are 
 
 " inimitable on earth 
 
 By model, or by shading pencil drawn." 
 
 Suckling is also ranked, without sufficient 
 warrant, among the metaphysical poets. Sir John 
 was of " the court, courtly ;" and his style almost 
 entirely free from the charge of pedantry and 
 affectation. There are a fi^w blemishes of this 
 kind in his works, but they are but ^e\\. His 
 compositions are almost all of them short and 
 lively effusions of wit and gallantry, written in a 
 familiar but spirited style, without much design or 
 effort. His shrewd and taunting address to a 
 desponding lover will sufficiently vouch for the 
 truth of this account of the general cast of his 
 best pieces. 
 
 " Why so pale and wan, fond lover? 
 
 Pr'ythee wliy so pale ? 
 Will, when looking well can't move her.
 
 ON COWLEY, BUTLER, &c. 105 
 
 Looking ill prevail ? 
 Pr'ythee why so pale ? 
 
 Why so dull and mute, young sinner ? 
 
 Pr'ythee why so mute ? 
 Will, when speaking well, can't win her. 
 
 Saying nothing do't ? 
 
 Pr'ythee why so mute? 
 
 Quit, quit for shame, this will not move. 
 
 This cannot take her j 
 If of herself she will not love. 
 
 Nothing can make her 3 
 
 The Devil take her." 
 
 Tlie two short poems against Fruition, that be- 
 ginning, " There never yet was woman made, nor 
 shall, hut to be curst," the song, " I pr'ythee, 
 spare me, gentle boy, press me no more for that 
 slight toy, that foolish trifle of a heart," an- 
 other, " 'Tis now, since I sat down before, that 
 foolish fort, a heart," Liitea Alanson the set of 
 similes, '^ Hast thou seen the down in the air, 
 when wanton w^inds have tost it," and his 
 " Dream," which is of a more tender and romantic 
 cast, are all exquisite in their way. They arc the 
 origin of the style of Prior and Gay in their 
 short fugitive verses, and of the songs in the 
 Beggar's Opera. His Ballad on a Wedding is his 
 masterpiece, and is indeed unrivalled in that class 
 f'i^' composition, for the voluptuous delicacy of the
 
 106 ON COWLEY BUTLER, &c. 
 
 sentiments, and the luxuriant richness of the 
 images. I wish I could repeat the whole, but 
 that, from the change of manners, is impossible. 
 The description of the bride is (half of it) as 
 follows : the story is supposed to be told by one 
 countryman to another : 
 
 Her finger was so small, the ring 
 
 Would not stay on, which they did bring -, 
 
 It was too wide a peck : 
 And to say truth (for out it must) 
 It look'd like the great collar (just) 
 
 About our young colt's neck. 
 
 Her feet beneath her petticoat. 
 Like little mice, stole in and out. 
 
 As if they fear'd the light : 
 But oh ! she dances such a way ! 
 No sun upon an Easter-day 
 
 Is half so fine a sight. 
 
 Her cheeks so rare a white was on. 
 No daisy makes comparison, 
 
 (Who sees them is undone) 
 For streaks of red were mingled there. 
 Such as are on a Cath'rine pear, 
 (The side that's next the sun.) 
 
 llcT lips were red j and one wa;i thin,. 
 Conipar'd to that was next her chin ; 
 (Some bee had stung it newly)
 
 ON COWLEY, BUTLER, &c. 107 
 
 But (Dick) her eyes so guard her face, 
 I durst no more upon them gaze. 
 Than on the sun in July. 
 
 Her mouth so small, when she does speak, 
 Thoud'st swear her teeth her words did break. 
 
 That they might passage get ; 
 But she so handled still the matter. 
 They came as good as ours, or better. 
 
 And are not spent a whit." 
 
 There is to me in the whole of this deh'ghtful 
 performance a freshness and purity hke the first 
 breath of morning. Its sportive irony never tres- 
 passes on modesty, though it sometimes (laughing) 
 threatens to do so ! Suckling's Letters are full of 
 habitual gaiety and good sense. His Discourse 
 on Reason in Religion is well enough meant. 
 Though he excelled in the conversational style of 
 poetry, writing verse with the freedom and readi- 
 ness, vivacity and unconcern, with which he would 
 have talked on the most familiar and sprightly 
 topics, his peculiar powers deserted him in at- 
 tempting di'amatic dialogue. His comedy of the 
 Goblins is ec[ually defective in plot, wit, and na- 
 ture ; it is a wretched list of exits and entrances, 
 and the whole business of the scene is taken up 
 in the unaccountable seizure, and equally unac- 
 countable escapes, of a number of persons from 
 a band of robbers in the shape of goblins, who
 
 108 ON COWLEY, BUTLER, &c. 
 
 turn out to be noblemen and gentlemen in disguise. 
 Suckling was not a Grub-street autbor; or it 
 might be said, that this play is like what he might 
 have written after dreaming all night of duns and 
 a spunging-house. His tragedies are no better : 
 their titles are the most interesting part of them, 
 Aglaura, Brennoralt, and the Sad One. 
 
 Cowley had more brilliancy of fancy and in- 
 genuity of thought than Donne, with less pathos 
 and sentiment. His mode of illustrating his ideas 
 differs also from Donne's in this : that whereas 
 Donne is contented to analyse an image into its 
 component elements, and resolve it into its most 
 abstracted species ; Cowley first does this, indeed, 
 but does not stop till he has fixed upon some 
 other prominent example of the same general 
 class of ideas, and forced them into a metaphorical 
 union, by the medium of the generic definition. 
 Thus he says 
 
 " The Phoenix Pindar is a vast species alone." 
 
 He means to say that he stands by himself: he is 
 then " a vast species alone:" then by applying to 
 this generality the pr'mcipiiim indhiduationis, he 
 becomes a Phoenix, because the Phoenix is the 
 only example of a species contained in an indivi- 
 dual. Yet this is only a literal or metaphysical
 
 ON COWLEY, BUTLER, &c. 109 
 
 coincidence: and literally and metaphysically speak- 
 ing, Pindar was not a species by himself, but only 
 seemed so by pre-eminence or excellence ; that is, 
 from qualities of mind appealing to and absorbing 
 the imagination, and which, therefore, ought to 
 be represented in poetical language, by some other 
 obvious and palpable image exhibiting the same 
 kind or degree of excellence in other things, as 
 when Gray compares him to the Theban eagle, 
 
 " Sailing with supreme dominion 
 Through tlie azure deep of air." 
 
 Again, he talks in the Motto, or Invocation to 
 his Muse, of " marching the Muse's Hannibal " 
 into undiscovered regions. That is, he thinks 
 first of being a leader in poetry, and then he 
 immediately, by virtue of this abstraction, becomes 
 a Hannibal ; though no two things can really be 
 more imlike in all the associations belonging to 
 them, than a leader of armies and a leader of the 
 tuneful Nine. In like manner, he compares 
 Bacon to Moses ; for in his verses extremes are 
 sure to meet. The Hymn to Light, which forms 
 a perfect contrast to Mihon's Invocation to Light, 
 in the commencement of tlu^ tliird hook of Para- 
 dise Lost, begins in the following manner: 
 
 " First-born oF (^liaos, who so fair didst come 
 From the old negro's darksome uomb!
 
 no ON COWLEY, BUTLER, &c. 
 
 Which, when it saw the lovely child. 
 The melancholy mass put on kind looks, and smil'd. 
 
 And soon after 
 
 " 'Tis, I believe, this archery to show 
 
 That so much cost in colours thou. 
 
 And skill in painting, dost bestow. 
 Upon thy ancient arms, the gaudy heav'nly bow. 
 
 Swift as light thoughts their empty career run. 
 
 Thy race is finish'd when begun ; 
 
 Let a post-angel start with thee. 
 And thou the goal of earth shalt reach as soon as he." 
 
 The conceits here arc neither wit nor poetry ; 
 but a burlesque upon both, made up of a singular 
 metaphorical jargon, verbal generalities, and phy- 
 sical analogies. Thus his calling Chaos, or Dark- 
 ness, " the old negro," would do for abuse or 
 jest, but is too remote and degrading for serious 
 poetry, and yet it is meant for such. The 
 " old negro " is at best a nickname, and the 
 smile on its face loses its beauty in such com- 
 pany. The making out the rainbow to be a 
 species of heraldic painting, and converting an 
 angel into a post-boy, shew the same rage for 
 comparison ; but such comparisons are as odious 
 ;is they are unjust. Dr. Johnson has multiplied
 
 ON COWLEY, BUTLER, &c. Ill 
 
 instances of the same false style, in its various di- 
 visions and subdivisions.* Of Cowley's serious 
 poems, the Complaint is the one I like the best ; 
 and some of his translations in the Essays, as those 
 on Liberty and Retirement, are exceedingly good. 
 The Odes to Vandyke, to the Royal Society, to 
 Hobbes, and to the latter Brutus, beginning " Ex- 
 cellent Brutus," are all full of ingenious and high 
 thoughts, impaired by a load of ornament and 
 quaint disguises. The Chronicle, or list of his 
 Mistresses, is the best of his original lighter 
 pieces : but the best of his poems are the trans- 
 lations from Anacreon, which remain, and are 
 likely to remain unrivalled. The spirit of wine 
 and joy circulates in them ; and though they are 
 lengthened out beyond the originals, it is by fresh 
 impulses of an eager and inexhaustible feeling of 
 delight. Here are some of them : 
 
 DRINKING. 
 
 " The thirsty earth soaks up the rain. 
 And drinks, and gapes for drink again. 
 The plants suck in the earth, and are 
 With constant drinking fresh and fair. 
 The sea itself, which one would think 
 Should have but little need of drink. 
 
 * See his Lives of the British PoetS; \(<{. I
 
 112 ON COWLEY, BUTLER, &c. 
 
 Drinks twice ten thousand rivers up. 
 So fiird that they o'erflow the cup. 
 The busy sun (and one would guess 
 By 's drunken fiery face no less) 
 Drinks up the sea, and, when he 'as done. 
 The moon and stars' drink up the sun. 
 They drink and dance by their own li^ht. 
 They drink and revel all the night. 
 Nothing in nature 's sober found. 
 But an eternal health goes round. 
 Fill up the bowl then, fill it high. 
 Fill all the glasses there; for why 
 Should every creature drink but I; 
 Why, man of morals, tell me why?" 
 
 This is a classical intoxication ; and the poet's 
 imagination, giddy with fancied joys, communi- 
 cates its spirit and its motion to inanimate things, 
 and makes all nature reel round with it. It is 
 not easy to decide between these choice pieces, 
 which may be reckoned among the delights of 
 human kind; but that to the Grasshopper is one 
 of the happiest as well as most serious : 
 
 Hap])y insect, what can be 
 in happiness couipar'd to thee? 
 Fed with nouiishnieiit divine, 
 'J'he dewy morning's gentle wine ! 
 Nature waits upon thee still. 
 And thy verdant cup does fill; 
 'T is fill'd wherever thou dust tread. 
 Nature's self thy Ganymede.
 
 ON COWLEY, BUTLER, &c. 118. 
 
 Thou dost drink, and dance, and sing ; 
 
 Happier than the happiest king! 
 
 All the fields which thou dost see. 
 
 All the plants, belong to thee ; 
 
 All that summer-hours produce. 
 
 Fertile made with early juice. 
 
 Man for thee does sow and plough. 
 
 Farmer he, and landlord thou ! 
 
 Thou dost innocently joy; 
 
 Nor does thy luxury destroy ; 
 
 The shepherd gladly heareth thee. 
 
 More harmonious than he. 
 
 Thee country hinds with gladness hear. 
 
 Prophet of the ripen'd year! 
 
 Thee Phoebus loves, and does inspire; 
 
 PhcBbus is himself thy sire. 
 
 To thee, of all things upon earth. 
 
 Life is no longer thun thy mirth. 
 
 Happy insect, ha))py thou ! 
 
 Dost neither age nor winter know; 
 
 But, when thou'st drunk, and danc'd, and sung 
 
 Thy fill, the flowery leaves among, 
 
 (Voluptuous and wise withal. 
 
 Epicurean animal!) 
 
 Sated with thy summer feast. 
 
 Thou retir'st to endless rest." 
 
 Cowley's Essays are among the most agree- 
 iblc pr()S('-c()uij)ositions in our language, being 
 equally rcco.unKMulecl by sense, wit, learning, and 
 interesting pirsonal history, and written in a style 
 (jnite free from the faults of his poetry. It is a 
 
 I
 
 114 ON COWLEY, BUTLER, &c. 
 
 pity that he did not cultivate his talent for prose 
 more, and write less in verse, for he was clearly a 
 man of more reflection than imagination. The 
 Essays on Agricnlture, on Liberty, on Solitude, 
 and on Greatness, are all of them delightful. 
 From the last I may give his account of Senecio 
 as an addition to the instances of the ludicrous, 
 which I have attempted to enumerate in the 
 introductory Lecture ; whose ridiculous affec- 
 tation of grandeur Seneca the elder (he tells us) 
 describes to this effect : " Senecio was a man of a 
 turbid and confused wit, who could not endure to 
 speak any but mighty words and sentences, till this 
 humour grew at last into so notorious a habit, or 
 rather disease, as became the sport of the whole 
 tov/n : he would have no servants, but huge, 
 massy fellows ; no plate or household-stuff, but 
 thrice as big as the fashion : you may believe me, 
 for I speak it without raillery, his extravagancy 
 came at last into such a madness, that he would 
 not put on a pair of shoes, each of which was not 
 big enough for both his feet : he would eat nothing 
 but what was great, nor touch any fruit but horse- 
 plums and pound-pears : he kept a mistress that 
 was a very giantess, and made her wulk too 
 always in chio})ins, till, at last, he got the surname 
 of Senecio Grandio." This was certainly the most 
 absurd person we read of in antiquity. Cowley's
 
 ON COWLEY, BUTLER, &c, 115 
 
 clianicter of Oliver Cromwell, which is intended 
 as a satire, (though it certainly produces a very 
 different impression on the mind), may vie for 
 truth of outline and force of colouring with the 
 masterpieces of the Greek and Latin historians. It 
 may serve as a contrast to the last extract. " What 
 can be more extraordinary, than that a person of 
 mean birth, no fortune, no eminent qualities of 
 body, which have sometimes, or of mind, which 
 have often, raised men to the highest dignities, 
 should have the courage to attempt, and the 
 happiness to succeed in, so improbable a design, 
 as the destruction of one of the most ancient 
 and most solidly-founded n)onarchies upon the 
 earth ? That he should have the power or bold- 
 ness to put his prince and master to an open and 
 infamous death ; to banish that numerous and 
 strongly-allied family ; to do all this under the 
 name and wages of a Parliament ; to trample 
 upon them too as he pleased, and spurn them out 
 of doors when he grew weary of them ; to raise 
 up a new and nnlicard-of monster out of their 
 ashes ; to stifle that in the very infancy, and set np 
 himself above all things that ever were called 
 sovereign in England ; to oppress all his enemies 
 by arms, and all his friends aftenvards by artitiee : 
 to serve all parties patiently for a while, and to 
 command them victorionslv at last : to ovrr-nm
 
 116 ON COWLEY, BUTLEH, &c. 
 
 each corner of the three nations, and overcome 
 with equal facility both the riches of the south 
 and the poverty of the north ; to be feared and 
 courted by all foreign princes, and adopted a 
 brother to the gods of the earth ; to call together 
 Parliaments with a word of his pen, and scatter 
 them again with the breath of his mouth ; to be 
 humbly and daily petitioned that he would please 
 to be hired, at the rate of two millions a-year, to 
 be the master of those who had hired him before 
 to be their servant ; to have the estates and lives 
 of three kingdoms as much at his disposal, as was 
 the little inheritance of his father, and to be as 
 noble and liberal in the spending of them ; and 
 lastly, (for there is no end of all the particulars of 
 his glory) to bequeath all this with one word to 
 his posterity ; to die with peace at home, and 
 triumph abroad ; to be buried among kings, and 
 with more than regal solemnity ; and to leave a 
 name behind him, not to be extinguished, but with 
 the whole world ; which as it is now too little for 
 his praises, so might have been too for his con- 
 quests, if the short line of his human life could 
 have been stretched out to the extent of his \in- 
 mortal designs !" 
 
 Cowley hii? left one comedy, called Cutter ol 
 Co-enian Street, which met with an unfavourable
 
 ON COWLEY, BUTLER, &c. 117 
 
 reception at the time, and is now (not unde- 
 servedly) forgotten. It contains, however, one 
 good scene, vvliich is ricli both in fancy and 
 humour, that between the puritanical bride, 
 Tabitha, and her ranting royalist husband. It 
 is said that this play was originally composed, 
 and afterwards revived, as a satire upon the Pres- 
 byterian party ; yet it was resented by the court 
 party as a satire upon itself. A man must, indeed, 
 be sufficiently blind with party-prejudice, to have 
 considered this as a compliment to his own side 
 of the question. " Call you this backing of your 
 friends ?" The cavaliers are in this piece repre- 
 sented as reduced to the lowest shifts in point of 
 fortune, and sunk still lower in point of principle. 
 
 The greatest single production of wit of this 
 period, I might say of this country, is Butler's 
 Fludibras. It contains specimens of every variety of 
 drollery and satire, and those specimens crowded 
 together into almost every page. The proof of 
 this is, that nearly one half of his lines are got by 
 heart, and quoted for mottos. In giving in- 
 stances of difft^rent sorts of wit, or trying to 
 recollect good things of this kind, they are the first 
 which stand ready in the memory ; and they are 
 those which furnish the best tests and most strik- 
 Mig illustrations of what we want. Dr. Campbell,
 
 118 ON COWLEY BUTLER, &c. 
 
 in his Philosophy of Rhetoric, when treating of 
 the subject of wit, which he has done very neatly 
 and sensibly, has constant recourse to two authors. 
 Pope and Butler, the one for ornament, the other 
 more for use. Butler is equally in the hands of the 
 learned and the vulgar ; for the sense is generally 
 as solid, as the images are amusing and grotesque. 
 Whigs and Tories join in his praise. He could 
 not, in spite of himself, 
 
 '' narrow his mind. 
 
 " And to party give up what was meant for mankind." 
 
 Though his subject was local and temporary, his 
 fame was not circumscribed within his own age. 
 He was admired by Charles II. and has been 
 rewarded by posterity. It is the poet's fate ! It 
 is not, perhaps, to be wondered at, that arbitrary 
 and worthless monarchs like Charles II. should 
 neglect those who pay court to them. The idol 
 (if it had sense) would despise its worshippers. 
 Indeed, Butler hardly merited any thing on tlie 
 score of loyalty to the house of Stuart. True 
 wit is not a parasite plant. The strokes which 
 it aims at folly and knavery on one side ol a 
 question, tell equally home on the other. Di*. 
 Zachary Grey, who added notes to tlie poem, and 
 abused the leaders of Cromwell's partv by name,
 
 ON COWLEY, BUTLER, &c. 119 
 
 would be more likely to have gained a pension 
 for his services thrfn Butler, who was above such 
 petty work. A poem like Hudibras could not 
 be made to order of a court. Charles might very 
 well have reproached the author with wanting to 
 shew his own wit and sense rather than to favour 
 a tottering cause ; and he has even been suspected, 
 in parts of liis poem, of glancing at majesty itself. 
 He in general ridicules not persons, but things, 
 not a party, but tlieir principles, which may belong, 
 as time and occasion serve, to one set of solemn 
 pretenders or another. This he has done most 
 effectually, in every possible way, and from every 
 possible source, learned or unlearned. He has 
 exhausted the moods and figures of satire and 
 sophistiy *. It would be possible to deduce the 
 different forms of syllogism in Aristotle, from the 
 different violations or mock-imitations of them in 
 Butler. He fulfils every one of Barrow's con- 
 ditions of wit, which I have enumerated in the 
 first Lecture. He makes you laugh or smile by 
 
 ^ " And have not two taints power to use 
 
 :\ greater privilege; than three Jews r" 
 
 ******** 
 
 '' Her voice, the music of tlie spheres, 
 So loud it deafens mortals' ears, 
 \s wise philosophers have tliought, 
 \nd that's the caue we hear it not,'"
 
 120 ON COWLEY, BUTLER, &c. 
 
 comparing the high to the low*, or by pretending 
 to raise the low to the 1ofty-|~ ; he succeeds equally 
 in the familiarity of his illustrations;|:, or their in- 
 credible extravagance II, by comparing things that 
 are alike or not alike. He surprises equally by 
 
 * "No Indian prince has to his palace 
 
 More followers than a thief to the gallows." 
 
 f " And in 'is nose, like Indian king. 
 He (Bruin) wore for ornament a ring." 
 
 X " Whose noi^e whets valour sharp, like beer 
 By thunder turned to vinegar." 
 
 il " Replete with strange hermetic powder. 
 That wounds nine miles point-blank would solder."' 
 ******** 
 " His tawny beard was th' equal grace 
 Both of his wisdom and his face ; 
 In cut and die so like a tile, 
 A sudden view it would beguile : 
 The upper part thereof was whey. 
 The nether orange mixed with grey. 
 This hairy meteor did denounce 
 The fall of sceptres and of crowns j 
 With grisly type did represent 
 Declining age of government; 
 And tell with hieroglyphic spade 
 
 Its own grave and the state's were made." 
 
 *** 
 
 " This sword a dagger had his page. 
 
 That was but little for his age ; 
 
 And therefore waited on him so. 
 
 As dwarfs upon knight errants do."
 
 ON COWLEY, BUTLER, &c. 121 
 
 his coincidences or contradictions, by spinning out 
 a long-winded flimsy excuse, or by turning short 
 upon you with the point-blank truth. His rhymes 
 are as witty as his reasons, equally remote from 
 what common custom would suggest*; and he 
 startles you sometimes by an empty sound like a 
 blow upon a drum-head -f-, by a pun upon one 
 wordij!, and by splitting another in two at the end 
 of a verse, with the same alertness and power 
 over the odd and unaccountable in the combi- 
 nations of sounds as of images ||. 
 
 There are as many shrewd aphorisms in his 
 w^orks, clenched by as many quaint and individual 
 allusions, as perhaps in any author whatever. He 
 makes none but palpable hits, that may be said to 
 
 * " And straight another with his Hanibeau, 
 
 Gave Ralpho o'er the eyes a damn'd blow." 
 
 * * * * * * 
 
 " That deals in destiny's dark counsels. 
 And sage opinions of the moon sells." 
 
 t " The mighty Tottipottiruoy 
 Sent to onr elders an envoy." 
 
 X " For Hebrew roots, although they're found 
 To flourish niost in barren ground." 
 
 il Those wholesale critics that in coffee- 
 Houses cry down all philosophy."
 
 122 ON COWLEY, BUTLER, &c. 
 
 give one's understanding a rap on the knuckles*. 
 He is, indeed, sometimes too prolific, and spins 
 his antithetical sentences out, one after another, 
 till the reader, not the author, is wearied. He is, 
 however, very seldom guilty of repetitions or 
 wordy paraphrases of himself; but he sometimes 
 comes rather too near it ; and interrupts the thread 
 of his argument (for narrative he has none) by a 
 tissue of epigrams, and the tagging of points and 
 conundrums without end. The fault, or original 
 sin of his genius, is, that from too much leaven it 
 ferments and runs over ; and there is, unfortunately, 
 nothing in his subject to restrain and keep it 
 within compass. He has no story good for any 
 thing ; and his characters are good for very little. 
 They are too low and mechanical, or too much 
 one thing, personifications, as it were, of nicknames, 
 and bugbears of popular prejudice and vulgar cant, 
 unredeemed by any virtue, or difference or variety 
 of disposition. There is no relaxation or shifting 
 of the parts ; and the impression in some degree 
 fails of its effect, and becomes questionable from 
 its being always the same. The satire looks. 
 
 " This we among ourselves may speak. 
 But to the wicked or the weak 
 We must be cautious to declare 
 Perfection-truths, such as these are, "
 
 ON COWLEY, BUTLER, &c. 123 
 
 at length, almost like special-pleading: it has 
 nothing to confirm it in the apparent good hu- 
 mour or impartiality of the writer. It is some- 
 thing revolting to see an author persecute his 
 characters, the cherished offspring of his brain, 
 in this manner, without mercy. Hudibras and 
 Raipho have immortalised Butler; and what has 
 he done for them in return, but set them up to be 
 "pilloried on infamy's high and lasting stage?" 
 This is ungrateful ! 
 
 The rest of the characters have, in general, 
 little more than their names and professions to dis- 
 tin2:uish them. We scarcely know one from an- 
 other, Cerdon, or Orsin, or Crowdero, and are often 
 (jbliged to turn back, to connect their several ad- 
 ventures together. In fact, Butler drives only at 
 a set of obnoxious opinions, and runs into general 
 declamations. His poem in its essence is a satire, 
 or didactic poem. It is not virtually dramatic, or 
 narrative. It is composed of digressions by the 
 author. He instantly breaks off in the middle of 
 a story, or incident, to comment upon and turn it 
 into ridicule. He does not give characters but 
 topics, wliicli would do just as well in his own 
 mouth without agents, or machinery of any kind. 
 The long digression in Part III. in which no men- 
 tion is made of the hero, is just as good and as
 
 124 ON COWLEY, BUTLER, &c. 
 
 much an integrant part of the poem as the rest- 
 The conclusion is lame and impotent, but that is 
 saying nothing; the beginning and middle are 
 equally so as to historical merit. There is no 
 keeping in his characters, as in Don Quixote; nor 
 any enjoyment of the ludicrousness of their situa- 
 tions, as in Hogarth. Indeed, it requires a consi- 
 derable degree of sympathy to enter into and 
 describe to the life even the ludicrous eccentricities 
 of others, and there is no appearance of sympathy 
 or liking to his subject in Butler. His humour is 
 to his wit, " as one grain of wheat in a bushel of 
 chaff: you shall search all day, and when you find 
 it, it is not worth the trouble." Yet there are ex- 
 ceptions. The most decisive is, I think, the 
 description of the battle between Bruin and his 
 foes. Part I. Canto iii., and again of the triumphal 
 procession in Part II. Canto ii. of which the prin- 
 cipal features are copied in Hogarth's election print, 
 the Chairing of the successful candidate. The 
 account of Sidrophel and Whackum is another 
 instance, and there are some few others, but rarely 
 sprinkled up and down*. 
 
 * The following are nearly all I can reniember, 
 
 " Thus stopp'd their fury and the basting 
 Which towards Hudibras was hastin^r '"
 
 ON COWLEY, BUTLER, &c. 125 
 
 The widow, the termagant heroine of the 
 poem, is still more disagreeable than her lover; and 
 her sarcastic account of the passion of love, as 
 
 It is said of the bear, in the fight with the dogs 
 
 " And setting his right foot before. 
 He raised himself to shew how tall 
 His person was above them all." 
 ******** 
 " At this tlie knight grew high in chafe. 
 And staring furiously on Ralph, 
 He trembled and look'd pale with ire. 
 Like ashes first, then red as fire." 
 ****** 
 " 'J'he knight himself did after ride, 
 Leading Crowdero by his side, 
 And tow'd him if he lagged behind. 
 Like boat against the tide and wind." 
 ******** 
 " And raisM upon his desperate foot, 
 On stirruji-side he gazed about." 
 ******** 
 " And lludibras, who used to ponder 
 On sucii sights with judicious wonder." 
 
 The beginning of the account of the procession in Part 
 n. is as follows ; 
 
 " Both thought it was the wisest course 
 To wave the fight and mount to horse, 
 And to secure by swift retreating. 
 Themselves from danger of worse beating. 
 Yet neither of them wouid di.^parai^c 
 By uttering of his mind his courage,
 
 126 ON COWLEY, BUTLER, &c. 
 
 consisting entirely in an attachment to land and 
 houses, goods and chattels, which is enforced with 
 all the rhetoric the author is master of, and hunted 
 down through endless similes, is evidently false. The 
 vulgarity and meanness of sentiment which Butler 
 complains of in the Presbyterians, seems at last from 
 long familiarity and close contemplation to have 
 tainted his own mind. Their worst vices appear 
 to have taken root in his imagination. Nothing 
 but what was selfish and groveling sunk into his 
 memory, in the depression of a menial situation 
 under his supposed hero. He has, indeed, carried his 
 private grudge too far into his general speculations. 
 He even makes out the rebels to be cowards and 
 well beaten, which does not accord with the history 
 of the times. In an excess of zeal for church and 
 state, he is too much disposed to treat religion as 
 a cheat, and liberty as a farce. It w^as the cant 
 of that day (from which he is not free) to cry 
 down sanctity and sobriety as marks of disaffection, 
 
 'Which made 'em stoutly keep their ground. 
 With horror and disdain wind-hound. 
 And now the cause of all tiieir fear 
 By slow degrees apjiroach'd so near. 
 They might distinguish different noise 
 Of horns and pans, and dogs and boys, 
 And kettle-drun).s, wiiose sullen dub 
 Sounds like the hooping of a tub."
 
 ON COWLEY, BUTLER, &c. 127 
 
 as it is the cant of this, to hold them up as proofs 
 of loyalty and staunch monarchical principles. 
 Religion and morality are, in either case, equally 
 made suhservient to the spirit of party, and a stalk- 
 ing-horse to the love of power. Finally, there is 
 a want of pathos and humour, but no want of 
 interest in Hudibras. It is difficult to lay it down. 
 One thought is inserted into another ; the links in 
 the chain of reasoning are so closely rivetted, that 
 the attention seldom flags, but is kept alive 
 (without any other assistance) by the mere force of 
 writing. There are occasional indications of poeti- 
 cal fancy, and an eye for natural beauty ; but these 
 are kept under or soon discarded, judiciously 
 enough, but it should seem, not for lack of power, 
 for they are certainly as masterly as they are rare. 
 Such are the burlesque description of the stocks, or 
 allegorical prison, in which first Crowdero, and then 
 Hudibras, is confined : tlie })assage beginning 
 
 " As when an owl that's in a barn, 
 ^Jees a mouse creeping in the corn. 
 Sits still and shuts his round blue eyes, 
 As if he slept," &c. 
 
 And the description of the moon going down in 
 the early morning, which is as pure, original, and 
 picturesque as possible: 
 
 " The queen of nighty whose large command 
 lUilfs all tJ!" "^."a nnd half the jand,
 
 158 ON COWLEY, BUTLER, &c. 
 
 And over moist and crazy brains 
 
 In high spring-ticies at midnight reigns. 
 
 Was now di?clining to the wes t. 
 
 To go to bed and take her rest." 
 
 Butler is sometimes scholastic, but he makes 
 his learning tell to good account ; and for the pur- 
 poses of burlesque, nothing can be better fitted than 
 the scholastic style. 
 
 Butler's Remains are nearly as good and full of 
 sterling genius as his principal poem. Take the 
 following ridicule of the plan of the Greek tra- 
 gedies as an instance. 
 
 " Reduce all tragedy, by rules of art. 
 
 Back to its ancient theatre, a cart. 
 
 And make them henceforth keep the beaten roads 
 
 Of reverend choruses and episodes ; 
 
 Reform and regulate a puppet-play. 
 
 According to the true and ancient way; 
 
 That not an actor shall presume to squeak. 
 
 Unless he have a licinse for't in Greek : 
 
 Nor devil in tie ])U[)pet-play be allowed 
 
 To roar and spit fire, but to fright the crowd, 
 
 Unless some god or demon cliance to have piques 
 
 Against an ancient fan ily of Greeks ; 
 
 That other men may tremble and take warning. 
 
 Hov/ such a fatal ) rogeny they're born inj 
 
 For none but such for tragedy are fitted. 
 
 That have been ruined only to be pitied : 
 
 And only those held proper to deter. 
 
 Who have th' ill luck against their wills to err;
 
 ON COWLEY, BUTLER, &c. 121) 
 
 Whence only such as are of middling sizes. 
 Betwixt morality and venial vices. 
 Arc (jualified to be destroyed by fate. 
 For other mortals to take v^arning at." 
 
 Upon Critics. 
 
 His ridicule of Milton's Latin style is equally 
 severe, but not so well founded. 
 
 I have only to add a few words respecting the 
 dramatic writers about this time, before we arrive 
 at the golden period of our comedy. Those of 
 Etherege* are good for nothing, except The Man 
 of Mode, or Sir Fopling Flutter, which is, I think, 
 a more exquisite and airy picture of the manners 
 of that age than any other extant. Sir Fopling 
 himself is an inimitable coxcomb, but pleasant 
 withal. He is a suit of clothes personified. Dori- 
 mant (sujjposed to be Lord Rochester) is the 
 genius of grace, gallantry, and gaiety. The 
 women in this courtly play have very much the 
 look and air (but something more demure and 
 significant) of Sir Peter Lely's ])eauties. Harriet, 
 the mistress of Dorimant, who " tames his wild 
 heart to her loving hand," is the flower of the 
 ])iece. Her natural, untutored grace and spirit, 
 her meeting with Dorimant in the Park, bowing 
 and mimiekiiig him, and the luxuriant description 
 
 Lovo ill :i Till), and Slie Would if She Could.
 
 130 ON COWLEY, BUTLER, &c. 
 
 which is given of her fine person, altogether form 
 one of the chef-d^oeuvres of dramatic painting. I 
 should think this comedy would bear reviving; 
 and if Mr. Liston were to play Sir Fopling, 
 the part would shine out with double lustre, 
 " like the morn risen on mid-noon." Dryden s 
 comedies have all the point that there is in ribaldry, 
 and all the humour that there is in extravagance. 
 I am sorry I can say nothing better of them. He 
 was not at home in this kind of writing, of which 
 he was himself conscious. His play was horse- 
 play. His wit (what there is of it) is ingenious 
 and scholar-like, rather than natural and dramatic. 
 Thus Burr, in the Wild Gallant, says to Failer, 
 " She shall sooner cut an atom than part us." His 
 plots are pure "voluntaries in absurdity, that bend 
 and shift to his purpose without any previous 
 notice or reason, and are governed by final causes. 
 Sir Martin Mar-all, which was taken from the 
 Duchess of Newcastle, is the best of his plays, 
 and the origin of the Busy Body. Otway's 
 comedies do no sort of credit to him : on the 
 contrary, they are as desperate as his fortunes. 
 The Duke of Buckingham's famous Rehearsal, 
 which has made, and deservedly, so much noise in 
 the world, is in a great measure taken from Beau- 
 mont and Fletcher's Knight of the Burning Pestle, 
 wliich was written in ridicule of the London ap
 
 ON COWLEY, BUTLER, &c. 131 
 
 prentices in the reign of Elizabeth, who had a great 
 hand in the critical decisions of that age. lliere 
 were other dramatic writers of this period, noble 
 and plebeian. I shall only mention one other 
 piece, the Committee, I believe by Sir Robert 
 Howard, which has of late been cut down into 
 the farce called Honest Thieves, and which I re- 
 member reading with a great deal of pleasure many 
 years ago. 
 
 One cause of the difference between the im- 
 inediate reception and lasting success of dramatic 
 works at this period may be, that after the court 
 took the play-houses under its particular protection, 
 every thing became very much an affair of private 
 patronage. If an author could get a learned lord 
 or a countess-dowager to bespeak a box at his 
 play, and applaud the doubtful passages, he con- 
 sidered liis business as done. On the other hand, 
 there was a reciprocity between men of letters and 
 their patrons ; critics were " mitigated into cour- 
 tiers, and submitted," as Mr. Burke has it, " to the 
 soft collar ot social esteem," in pronouncing sentence 
 on the works of lords and ladies. How ridiculous 
 tliis seems now? Wliat a hubbub it would create, 
 if it were known that a particular person of fashion 
 and title had taken a front-box in order to decide 
 on lh(^ \\\\c (){' a first }lay! How the newspaper
 
 132 ON COWLEY, BUTLER, &c. 
 
 critics would laugh in their sleeves ! How the 
 public would sneer! But at this time there was 
 no public. I will not say, therefore, that these 
 times are better than those; but they are better, 
 I think, in this respect. An author now-a-days no 
 longer hangs dangling on the frown of a lord, or 
 the smile of a lady of quality, (the one governed 
 perhaps by his valet, and the other by her waiting- 
 maid), but throws himself boldly, making a lover's 
 leap of it, into the broad lap of public opinion, on 
 which he falls like a feather-bed ; and which, like 
 the great bed of Ware, is wide enough to hold us 
 all very comfortably !
 
 LECTURE IV. 
 
 ON WYCHERLEY, CONGREVE, VANBRUGH, AND 
 FARQUHAR. 
 
 Comedy is a " graceful ornament to the civil 
 order ; the Corinthian capital of polished society." 
 Like the mirrors which have been added to the 
 sides of one of our theatres, it reflects the images 
 of grace, of gaiety, and pleasure double, and com- 
 pletes the perspective of human life. To read a 
 good comedy is to keep the best company in the 
 world, where the best things are said, and the 
 most amusing happen. The wittiest remarks are 
 always ready on the tongue, and the luckiest oc- 
 casions are always at hand to give birth to the 
 happiest conceptions. Sense makes strange havoc 
 of nonsense. Refinement acts as a foil to affecta- 
 tion, and affectation to ignorance. Sentence after 
 sentence tells. We don't know which to admire 
 most, the observation, or the answer to it. We 
 would give our fingers to be able to talk so our- 
 selves, or to hear others talk so. In turning over 
 the pages of the best comedies, we are almost
 
 134 ON WYCHERLEY, CONGREVE, &c. 
 
 transported to another world, and escape from this 
 dull age to one that was all life, and whim, and 
 mirth, and humour. The curtain rises, and a 
 gayer scene presents itself, as on the canvass of 
 Watteau. We are admitted behind the scenes 
 like spectators at court, on a levee or birth-day ; 
 but it is the court, the gala day of wit and plea- 
 sure, of gallantry and Charles II ! What an air 
 breathes from the name! what a rustling of 
 silks and waving of plumes ! what a sparkling 
 of diamond ear-rings and shoe-buckles ! What 
 bright eyes, (ah, those were Waller's Sacharissa's 
 as she passed !) what killing looks and graceful 
 motions ! How the faces of the whole ring are 
 dressed in smiles ! how the repartee goes round ! 
 how wit and folly, elegance and awkward imita- 
 tion of it, set one another off! Happy, thought- 
 less age, when kings and nobles led purely orna- 
 mental lives ; when the utmost stretch of a 
 morning's study went no farther than the choice of 
 a sword-knot, or the adjustment of a side-curl ; 
 when the soul spoke out in all the pleasing elo- 
 (juence of dress ; and beaux and belles, enamoured 
 of themselves in one another's follies, fluttered like 
 gilded butterflies, in giddy mazes, through the 
 walks of St. James's Park ! 
 
 The four principal writers of this style of
 
 ON WYCHERLEY, CONGREVE, &c. 135 
 
 comedy (which I thiiik the best) are undoubtedly 
 Wycherley, Congreve, Vanbrugh, and Farquhar. 
 The dawn was in Etherege, as its latest close was 
 in Sheridan. It is hard to say which of these four 
 is best, or in what each of them excels, they had 
 so many and such great excellences. 
 
 Congreve is the most distinct from the others, 
 and the most easily defined, both from what he 
 possessed, and from what he wanted. He had by 
 far the most wit and elegance, with less of other 
 things, of humour, character, incident, &c. His 
 style is inimitable, nay perfect. It is the highest 
 model of comic dialogue. Every sentence is replete 
 with sense and satire, conveyed in the most po- 
 lished and pointed terms. Every page presents a 
 shower of brilliant conceits, is a tissue of epigrams 
 in prose, is a new triumph of wit, a new conquest 
 over dulness. The fire of artful raillery is no- 
 where else so well kept up. This style, which he 
 was almost the first to introduce, and which he 
 carried to the utmost pitch of classical refinement, 
 reminds one exactly of CoUins's description of wit 
 as opposed to humour, 
 
 " Whose jewels in his crisped hair 
 Are placed each other's light to share." 
 
 Sheridan will not bear a comparison with him in the
 
 136 ON WYCHERLEY, CONGllEVE, &c. 
 
 regular antithetical construction of his sentences, 
 and in the mechanical artifices of his style, though 
 so much later, and though style in general has heen 
 so much studied, and in the mechanical part so 
 much improved since then. It hears every mark 
 of being what he himself in the dedication of one 
 of his plays tells us that it was, a spirited copy 
 taken off and carefully revised from the most select 
 society of his time, exhibiting all the sprightli- 
 ness, case, and animation of familiar conversation, 
 with the cori'^ctness and delicacy of the most 
 finished composition. His works are a singular 
 treat to those who have cultivated a taste for the 
 niceties of English style : there is a peculiar flavour 
 in the very words, which is to be found in hardly 
 any other writer. To the mere reader his writings 
 would be an irreparable loss : to the stage they are 
 ulieady become a dead letter, with the exception of 
 one of tliciii, Love for Love. This play is as hill 
 of charactei', incident, aiul stage-eflect, as almost 
 any of those of his contem])oraries, and fuller of 
 wit than any of his own, except perhaps the Way 
 of the World. It still acts, and is still acted well. 
 The elleet oi it is prodigious on the well-intormed 
 spectator. In particular, Munden's Foresight, if 
 it is not just the thing, is a wonderfully rich and 
 powerful piece of coniie acting. His look is 
 ])laner-sti uek ; his dress ami appearance like one
 
 ON \V YCHERLEY, CONGREVE, &c. 137 
 
 of the signs of the Zodiac taken down. Nothing 
 can be more bewildered ; and it only wants a little 
 more helplessness, a little more of the doating 
 querulous garrulity of age, to be all that one con- 
 ceives of the superannuated, star-gazing original. 
 The gay, unconcerned opening of tliis play, and 
 the romantic generosity of the conclusion, where 
 Valentine, when about to resign his mistress, de- 
 clares " I never valued fortune, but as it was 
 subservient to my pleasure ; and my only pleasure 
 was to please this lady," are alike admirable. 
 The peremptory bluntness and exaggerated descrip- 
 tions of Sir Sampson Legend are in a vein truly 
 oriental, with a Shakespearian cast of language? 
 and form a striking contrast to the quaint credu- 
 lity and senseless superstitions of Foresight. The 
 remonstrance of his son to him, " to divest him, 
 uloDg with his inheritance, of his reason, thoughts, 
 passions, inclinations, affections, appetites, senses, 
 and the huge train of attendants which he brought 
 into the world with him," with his valet's accom- 
 panying comments, is one of the most eloquent 
 and s))irited sj)cciniens of wit, pathos, and morality, 
 that is to be found. The short scene with Traj)- 
 land, the money-broker, i-, of the first water. What 
 <i ])icture is here drawn of Tattle! " More mis- 
 fortunes, Sir!" says Jeremy. Valentine. "What, 
 another (hm r Jercini/, " No, Sir, but Mr. Tattle
 
 138 WYCHERLEY, CONGREVE, &c. 
 
 is come to wait upon you." What an introduction 
 to give of an honest gentleman in the shape of a 
 misfortune ! The scenes between him, Miss Prue, 
 and Ben, are of a highly coloured description. 
 Mrs. Frail and Mrs. Foresight are " sisters every 
 way;" and the bodkin which Mrs. Foresight 
 brings as a proof of her sister's levity of conduct, 
 and which is so convincingly turned against her 
 as a demonstration of her own " Nay, if you 
 come to that, where did you find that bodkin?" 
 is one of the trophies of the moral justice of the 
 comic drama. The Old Bachelor and Double 
 Dealer are inferior to Love for Love, but one is 
 never tired of reading them. The fault of the last 
 is, that Lady Touchwood approaches, in the tur- 
 bulent impetuosity of her character, and measured 
 tone of her declamation, too near to the tragedy- 
 queen ; and that Maskwell's plots puzzle the brain 
 by their intricacy, as they stagger our belief by 
 their gratuitous villainy. Sir Paul and Lady Pliant, 
 and my Lord and Lady Froth, are also scarcely 
 credible in the extravagant insipidity and romantic 
 vein of their follies, in which they are notably 
 seconded by the lively Mr. Brisk and " dying Ned 
 Careless." 
 
 The Way of the World was the author s last 
 and most carefully finished performance. It is an
 
 ON WYCHERLEY, CONGREVE, &c. 139 
 
 essence almost too fine ; and the sense of pleasure 
 evaporates in an aspiration after something that 
 seems too exquisite ever to have been realised. 
 After inhaling the spirit of Congreve's wit, and 
 tasting " love's thrice reputed nectar" in his 
 works, the head grows giddy in turning from the 
 highest point of rapture to the ordinary business 
 of life ; and we can with difficulty recal the truant 
 Fancy to those objects which we are fain to take 
 up with here, for better, for worse. What can be 
 more enchanting than Millamant and her morning 
 thoughts, her doux sommeils? What more pro- 
 voking than her reproach to her lover, who pro- 
 poses to rise early, "Ah! idle creature!" The 
 meeting of these two lovers after the abrupt dis- 
 missal of Sir Wilful, is the height of careless and 
 voluptuous elegance, as if they moved in air, and 
 drank a finer spirit of humanity. 
 
 " Millamant. Like Phoebus sung the no less annorous boy. 
 Mirabell. Like Daphne she, as lovely and as coy." 
 
 Millamant is the perfect model of the accom- 
 plished fine lady : 
 
 " Come, then, the colours and the grounil prepare. 
 Dip in the rainbow, trick her off in airj 
 Choose a firm cloud, before it falls, and injt 
 Catch ere she change, the Cynthia of a minute." 
 
 >hi' is the ideal heroine of the comedy ol high
 
 140 ON WYCHERLEY, CONGREVE, &c. 
 
 life, who arrives at the height of indifference to 
 every thing from the height of satisfaction; to 
 whom pleasure is as familiar as the air she draws ; 
 elegance worn as a part of her dress ; wit the 
 habitual language which she hears and speaks ; 
 lov^e, a matter of course ; and who has nothing to 
 hope or to fear, her own caprice being the only 
 law to herself, and rule to those about her. Her 
 words seem composed of amorous sighs her 
 looks are glanced at prostrate admirers or envious 
 rivals. 
 
 " If there's delight in love, 'tis when I see 
 That heart that others bleed for, bleed for me." 
 
 She refines on her pleasures to satiety ; and is 
 almost stifled in the incense that is offered to her 
 person, her wit, her beauty, and her fortune. 
 Secure of triumph, her slaves tremble at her 
 frown : her charms are so irresistible, that her 
 conquests give her neither surprise nor concern. 
 "Beauty the lover's gift?" she exclaims, in an- 
 swer to Mirabell " Dear me, what is a lover 
 that it can give ? Why one makes lovers as fast 
 as one pleases, and they live as long as one 
 pleases, and they die as soon as one pleases ; and 
 then if one pleases, one makes more." We are 
 not sorry to see her tamed down at last, from her 
 pride of lovo atul beauty, into a wife. She is
 
 ON WYCHERLEY, CONGREVE, &c. 141 
 
 good-natured and generous, with all her tempta- 
 tions to the contrary ; and her behaviour to Mira- 
 bell reconciles us to her treatment of Witwoud 
 and Petulant, and of her country admirer, Sir 
 Wilful. 
 
 Congreve has described all this in his character 
 of Millamant, but he has done no more ; and if he 
 had, he would have done wrong. He has given us 
 the finest idea of an artificial character of this kind ; 
 but it is still the reflection of an artificial character. 
 The springs of nature, passion, or imagination 
 are but feebly touched. The impressions appealed 
 to, and with masterly address, are habitual, exter- 
 nal, and conventional advantages : the ideas of 
 birth, of fortune, of connexions, of dress, accom- 
 plishment, fashion, the opinion of the world, of 
 crowds of admirers, continually come into play, 
 flatter our vanity, bribe our interest, soothe our 
 indolence, fall in with our prejudices ; it is these 
 that support the goddess of our idolatry, with 
 which she is every thing, and without which she 
 would be nothing. The mere fine lady of comedy, 
 compared with the heroine of romance or poetry, 
 when stripped of her adventitious ornaments and 
 advantages, is too much like the doll stripped of 
 its finery. In thinking of Millamant, \vc think 
 ilmost as much of her dress as of her person : it
 
 14^ ON WYCHERLEY, CONGREVE, &c. 
 
 is not so with respect to Rosalind or Perdita. 
 The poet has painted them differently ; in colours 
 which " nature's own sweet and cunning hand 
 laid on," with health, with innocence, with gaiety, 
 " wild wit, invention ever new ;" with pure red and 
 white, like the wilding's blossoms ; with warbled 
 wood-notes, like the feathered choir's ; with 
 thoughts fluttering on the wings of imagination, 
 and hearts panting and breathless with eager 
 delight. The interest we feel is in themselves; 
 the admiration they excite is for themselves. 
 They do not depend upon the drapery of cir- 
 cumstances. It is nature that " blazons herself" 
 in them. Imogen is the same in a lonely cave 
 as in a court ; nay more, for she there seems 
 something heavenly a spirit or a vision ; and, as 
 it were, shames her destiny, brighter for the foil 
 of circumstances. Millamant is nothing but a 
 fine lady ; and all her airs and affectation would 
 be blown away with the first breath of misfortune. 
 Enviable in^drawing-rooms, adorable at her toilette, 
 fashion, like a witch, has thrown its spell around 
 her ; but if that spell were broken, her power of 
 fascination would be gone. For that reason I think 
 the character better adapted for the stage : it is 
 more artificial, more theatrical, more meretricious. 
 I would rather have seen Mrs. Abington's Milla- 
 mant, than anv Rosalind that cvvv app(NUT<] on llie
 
 ON WYCHERLEY, CONGREVE, &c. 143 
 
 stage. Some how, this sort of acquired elegance 
 is more a thing of costume, of air and manner ; 
 and in comedy, or on the comic stage, the light 
 and familiar, the trifling, superficial, and agreeable, 
 bears, perhaps, rightful sway over that which 
 touches the affections, or exhausts the fancy. 
 There is a callousness in the worst characters in 
 the Way of the World, in Fainall, and his wife and 
 Mrs. Marwood, not very pleasant ; and a grossness 
 in the absurd ones, such as Lady Wishfort and 
 Sir Wilfiil, which is not a little amusing. Wit- 
 woud wishes to disclaim, as far as he can, his 
 relationship to this last character, and says, " he's 
 but his half brother ;" to which Mirabell makes an- 
 swer " Then, perhaps, he's but half a fool." Peg 
 is an admirable caricature of rustic awkwardness 
 and simjilicity, which is carried to excess without 
 any offence, from a sense of contrast to the re- 
 finement of the chief characters in the play. The 
 description of Lady Wishfort's face is a perfect 
 piece of jminting. The force of style in this 
 author at times amounts to poetry. Waitwell, 
 who personates Sir Rowland, and Foible, his 
 accomplice in the matrimonial scheme upon her 
 mistress, hang as a dead weight upon the plot. 
 They are mere tools in the hands of Mirabell, 
 and want life and interest. Congreve's cha- 
 rattens tail ;ill of tliciii spt^ak well, they are mere
 
 144 ON WyCHERLEY, CONGREVE, &c. 
 
 machines when they come to act. Our author's 
 superiority deserted him almost entirely with his 
 wit. His serious and tragic poetry is frigid and 
 jejune to an unaccountable degree. His forte 
 was the description of actual manners, whether 
 elegant or absurd ; and when he could not deride 
 the one or embellish the other, his attempts at 
 romantic passion or imaginary enthusiasm are 
 forced, abortive, and ridiculous, or common-place. 
 The description of the ruins of a temple in the 
 beginning of the Mourning Bride, was a great 
 stretch of his poetic genius. It has, however, 
 been over-rated, particularly by Dr. Johnson, who 
 could have done nearly as well himself for a single 
 passage in the same style of moralising and sen- 
 timental description. To justify this general cen- 
 sure, and to shew how the lightest and most 
 graceful wit degenerates into the heaviest and most 
 bombastic poetry, I will give one description out 
 of his tragedy, which will be enough. It is the 
 speech which Gonsalez addresses to Almeria : 
 
 " Be every day of your long life like this. 
 
 The sun, bright conquest, and your brighter eyes 
 
 Have all cons[)ired to blaze promiscuous light, 
 
 And bless this day with most unequal lustre. 
 
 Your royal father, my victorious lord, 
 
 Loaden with spoils, and ever-living laiuol. 
 
 !s entering: now. in ujiutial pomp, tlie palace
 
 ON WYCHERLEY, CONGREVE, &c. 145 
 
 Five hundred mules precede his solemn march, 
 
 "Which groan beneath the weight of Moorish wealth. 
 
 Chariots of war, adorn'd with glittering gems. 
 
 Succeed; and next, a hundred neighing steeds. 
 
 White as the fleecy rain on Alpine hills 5 
 
 That bound, and foam, and champ the golden bit, 
 
 As they disdain'd the victory they grace. 
 
 Prisoners of war in shining fetters follow ; 
 
 And captains of the noblest blood of Afric 
 
 Sweat by his chariot-wheels, and lick and grind. 
 
 With gnashing teeth, the dust his triumphs raise. 
 
 The swarming populace spread every wall. 
 
 And cling, as if with claws they did enforce 
 
 Their hold, through clifted stones stretching and staring 
 
 As if they were all eyes, and every limb 
 
 Would feed its faculty of admiration. 
 
 While you alone retire, and shun this sight ; 
 
 This sight, which is indeed not seen (though twice 
 
 The multitude should gaze) in absence of your eyes," 
 
 This passage seems, in part, an imitation of Boling- 
 broke's entry into London. The style is as diffe- 
 rent from Shakspcare, as it is from that of Wit- 
 woud and Petulant. It is plain that the imagina- 
 tion of the author could not raise itself above the 
 burlesque. His Mask of Semelc, Judgment of 
 Paris, and other occasional poems, are even worse. 
 I would not advise any one to read theuj, or if I 
 did, they would not. 
 
 Wycherley was before Congreve ; and his 
 Country Wife will last longer than any thing 
 ')\ Coiifircvcs u'^ a popular acting plav. It i^ only 
 
 L
 
 146 ON WYCHERLEY, CONGREVE, &c. 
 
 a pity that it is not entirely his own ; but it is 
 enough so to do him never-ceasing honour, for the 
 best things are his own. His humour is, in 
 general, broader, his characters more natural, and 
 his incidents more striking than Congreve's. It 
 may be said of Congreve, that the workmanship 
 overlays the materials : in Wycherley, the casting 
 of the parts and the fable are alone sufficient to 
 ensure success. We forget Congreve's characters^ 
 and only remember what they say : we remember 
 Wycherley's characters, and the incidents they 
 meet with, just as if they were real, and forget 
 what they say, comparatively speaking. Miss 
 Peggy (or Mrs. Margery Pinchwife) is a cha- 
 racter that will last for ever, I should hope ; and 
 even when the original is no more, if that should 
 ever be, while self-will, curiosity, art, and igno- 
 rance are to be found in the same person, it will be 
 just as good and as intelligible as ever in the de- 
 scription, because it is built on first principles, 
 and brought out in the fullest and broadest 
 manner. Agnes, in Molierc's play, has a great 
 deal of the same unconscious impulse and heedless 
 ndiveth, but hers is sentimentalised and varnished 
 over (in the French fashion) witli long-winded 
 apologies and analytical distinctions. It wants 
 the same simple force and home truth. It is not 
 hO direct and downright. Miss Peggy is i5ot
 
 ox WVCHERLEY, CONGREVE. &c. ViT 
 
 even a novice in casuistry: she blurts out her 
 meaning before she knows what she is saying, 
 and she speaks her mind by her actions oftener 
 than by her words. The outh'ne of the plot is the 
 same ; but the point-blank hits and master-strokes, 
 the sudden thoughts and delightful expedients, such 
 as her changing the letters, the meeting her hus- 
 band plump in the Park, as she is running away 
 from him as fast as her heels can carry her, her 
 being turned out of doors by her jealous booby 
 of a husband, and sent by him to her lover 
 disguised as Alicia, her sister-in-law occur first 
 in the modern play. There are scarcely any in- 
 cidents or situations on the stage, which tell like 
 these for pantomimic effect, which give such a 
 tingling to the blood, or so completely take away 
 the breath with expectation and surprise. Miss 
 Prue, in Love for Love, is a lively reflection of 
 Miss Peggy, but without the bottom and weight 
 of metal. Hoyden is a match for her in con- 
 stitution and complete effect, as Corinna, in the 
 Confederacy, is in mischief, but without the wit. 
 Mrs. Jordan used to play all these characters; 
 and as she ])layed them, it was hard to know 
 which was best. Pinchwife, or Moody, (as he is 
 at present called) is, like others of Wycherley's 
 moral characters, too rustic, abrupt, and cynical - 
 He is a more disac:rceable5 but less tedious < lii-
 
 148 ON WYCHERLEY, CONGREVE, &c. 
 
 racter than the hushand of Agnes, and both seem, 
 by all accounts, to have been rightly served. 
 The character of Sparkish is quite new, and ad- 
 mirably hit off. He is an exquisite and suffo- 
 cating coxcomb; a pretender to wit and letters, 
 without common understanding, or the use of his 
 senses. The class of character is thoroughly 
 exposed and understood ; but he persists in his 
 absurd conduct so far, that it becomes extravagant 
 and disgusting, if not incredible, from mere 
 weakness and foppery. Yet there is something 
 in him that we are inclined to tolerate at first, as 
 his professing that " with him a wit is the first 
 title to respect ;"' and we regard his unwillingness 
 to be pushed out of the room, and coming back, 
 in spite of their teeth, to keep the company of wits 
 and raillers, as a favourable omen. But he utterly 
 disgraces his pretensions before he has done. 
 With all his faults and absurdities, he is, however, 
 a much less offensive character than Tattle. 
 Horner is a stretch of ])robability in the first 
 concoction of that ambiguous character, (for he 
 does not appear at present on the stage as Wy- 
 cherley made him) but notwithstanding the in- 
 decency and indirectness of the means he employs 
 to carry his plans into effect, he deserves every 
 sort of consideration and forgiveness, both for the 
 display of his own ingenuity, and the deep insight
 
 ON VVYCHERLEY, CONGREVE, &c. 149 
 
 he discovers into human nature such as it was in 
 the time of Wycherley. The author has com- 
 mented on this character, and the double meaning 
 of the name in his Plain Dealer, borrowing the 
 remarks, and almost the very words of Moliere, who 
 has brought forward and defended his own work 
 against the objections of the precise part of his 
 audience, in his Critique de fEcole deslhnmes. There 
 is no great harm in these occasional plagiarisms, 
 except that they make one uncomfortable at other 
 times, and distrustful of the originality of the 
 whole. The Plain Dealer is Wycherley's next best 
 work ; and is a most severe and poignant moral 
 satire. There is a heaviness about it, indeed, an 
 extravagance, an overdoing both in the style, the 
 plot, and characters, but the truth of feeling and 
 the force of interest prevail over every objection. 
 The character of Manly, the Plain Dealer, is violent, 
 repulsive, and uncouth, which is a fault, though 
 one that seems to have been intended for the sake 
 of contrast; for the portrait of consummate, artful 
 hypocrisy in Olivia, is, perhaps, rendered more 
 striking by it. The indignation excited against 
 this odious and pernicious quality by the masterly 
 exposure to which it is here subjected, is " a 
 discipline of humanity." No one can read this 
 play attentively without being the better for it as 
 long as he lives. It penetrates to the core; it
 
 150 ON WYCHERLEY, CONGREVE, &c. 
 
 shews the immorality and hateful effects of duplicity, 
 by shewing it fixing its harpy fangs in the heart of 
 an honest and worthy man. It is worth ten 
 volumes of sermons. The scenes between Manly 
 after his return, Olivia, Plausible, and Novel, are 
 instructive examples of unblushing impudence, of 
 shallow pretensions to principle, and of the most 
 mortifying reflections on his own situation, and 
 bitter sense of female injustice and ingratitude, on 
 the part of Manly. The devil of hypocrisy and 
 hardened assurance seems worked up to the 
 highest pitch of conceivable effrontery in Olivia, 
 when, after confiding to her cousin the story of her 
 infamy, she, in a moment, turns round upon her 
 for some sudden purpose, and affecting not to 
 know the meaning of the other's allusions to what 
 she has just told her, reproaches her with forging 
 insinuations to the prejudice of her character, and 
 in violation of their friendship. " Go ! you're a 
 censorious ill woman." This is more trying to 
 the patience than any thing in the Tartuffe. The 
 name of this heroine, and her overtures to Fidelia, 
 as the page, seem to have been suggested by 
 Twelfth Night. It is curious to see how the 
 baine subject is treated by two such different authors 
 as Shakspeare and Wycherley. The widow Black- 
 acre and her son are like her lawsuit everlasting. 
 A more lively, palpable, bustling, ridiculous pic-
 
 ON WYCHERLEY, CONGREVE, &r. 151 
 
 ture cannot be drawn. Jerry is a hopeful lad, 
 though undutiful, and gets out of bad hands into 
 worse. Goldsmith evidently had an eye to these 
 two precious characters, in She Stoops to Conquer. 
 Tony Lumpkin and his mother are of the same 
 family, and the incident of the theft of the casket 
 of jewels, and the bag of parchments, is nearly the 
 same in both authors. Wychcrley's other plays 
 are not so good. The Gentleman Dancing Master 
 is a long, foolish farce, in the exaggerated manner 
 of Moliere, but without his spirit or whimsical 
 invention. Love in a Wood, though not what 
 one would wish it to be for the author s sake or 
 our own, is much better, and abounds in several 
 rich and highly-coloured scenes, particularly those 
 in which Miss Lucy, her mother Crossbite, Dap- 
 perwit, and Alderman Gripe are concerned. Some 
 of the subordinate characters and intrigues in this 
 comedy are grievously spun out. Wycherley, 
 when he got hold of a good thing, or sometimes 
 even of a bad one, was determined to make the 
 most of it ; and might have said with Dogberry, truly 
 '.Miough, " Had I the tediousness of a king, I could 
 hud in my heart to bestow it all upon your wor- 
 ships." In reading this author's best works, those 
 which one reads most frequently over, and knows 
 almost by heart, one cannot help thinking of the 
 treatment he received from Pope about his verses.
 
 15-2 ON WYCHERLEY, CONGREVE, &c. 
 
 It was hardly excusable in a boy of sixteen to an 
 old man of seventy. 
 
 Vanbiiigh comes next, and holds his own 
 fully with the best. He is no writer at all, as to 
 mere authorship ; but he makes up for it by a 
 prodigious fund of comic invention and ludicrous 
 description, bordering somewhat on caricature. 
 Though he did not borrow from him, he was 
 much more like Moliere in genius than Wycherley 
 was, who professedly imitated him. He has none 
 of Congreve's graceful refinement, and as little of 
 Wycherley's serious manner and studied insight 
 into the springs of character; but his exhibition of 
 it in dramatic contrast and unlooked-for situa- 
 tions, where the different parties play upon one 
 another's failings, and into one another's hands, 
 keeping up the jest like a game at battledore and 
 shuttlecock, and urging it to the utmost verge of 
 breathless extravagance, in the mere eagerness of 
 the fray, is beyond that of any other of our 
 writers. His fable is not so })rofoundly laid, nor 
 his characters so well digested as Wychcrlcys 
 (who, in these respects, bore some resemblance to 
 Fielding). Vanbrugh does not lay the same de- 
 liberate train from the outset to the conclusion, 
 so that the whole may hang together, and tend 
 inevitably from the combination of different agentb
 
 ON WYCHERLEY, CONGREVE, &c. 153 
 
 and circumstances to the same decisive point : 
 but he works out scene after scene, on the spur of 
 the occasion, and from the immediate hold they 
 take of his imagination at the moment, without 
 any previous bias or ultimate purpose, much more 
 powerfully, with more verve, and in a richer vein 
 of original invention. His fancy warms and bur- 
 nishes out as if he were engaged in the real scene 
 of action, and felt all his faculties suddenly called 
 forth to meet the emergency. He has more nature 
 than art : what he docs best, he does because he 
 cannot help it. He has a masterly eye to the ad- 
 vantages which certain accidental situations of cha- 
 racter present to him on the spot, and he executes 
 the most difficult and rapid theatrical movements 
 at a moment's warning. Of this kind are the 
 inimitable scenes in the Provoked Wife, between 
 Razor and Mademoiselle, where they repeat and 
 act over again the rencontre in the Mulberry-walk 
 l)ctvveen Constant and his mistress, than which 
 nothing was ever more happily conceived, or done 
 to more absolute perfection ; that again in the 
 Relapse, where Loveless pushes Berinthia into the 
 closet ; the sudden meeting in the Confederacy 
 between Dick and Mrs. Amlct ; the altercation 
 about the letter between Flippanta and Corinna, 
 in the sanjo play, and that again where Brass, at 
 the bouse of (iripe the nionev-scriveucr, thieateus
 
 1S4 ON WYCHERLEY, CONGREVE, &c, 
 
 to discover his friend and accomplice, and by 
 talking louder and louder to him, as he tries to 
 evade his demands, extorts a grudging submission 
 from him. This last scene is as follows : 
 
 " Dick. I wish my old hobbling mother han't been blab- 
 bing something here she should not do. 
 
 Brass. Fear nothing, all's safe on that side yet. But how 
 speaks young mistress's epistle? soft and tender? 
 
 Dick. As pen can write. 
 
 Brass. So you think all goes well there ? 
 
 Dick. As my heart can wish. 
 
 Brass. You are sure on't ? 
 
 Dick. Sure on't ! 
 
 Brass. Why then, ceremony aside IPutting on his hat] 
 you and I must have a little talk, Mr. Amlet. 
 
 Dick. Ah, Brass, what art thou going to do ? wo't ruin 
 me? 
 
 Brass. Look you, Dick, few words ; you are in a smooth 
 way of making your fortune 3 I hope all will roll on. But 
 how do you intend matters shall pass 'twixt you and me in 
 this business > 
 
 Dick. Death and furies ! What a time dost take to talk 
 on't? 
 
 Brass. Good words, or I betray you ; they have already 
 heard of one Mr. Amlet in the house. 
 
 Dick. Here's a son of a whore. \_Asiile. 
 
 Brass. In short, look smooth, and be a good prince. 1 
 am your valet, 'tis true : your footman, sometimes, which I'm 
 enraged at; but you have always had the ascendant I con- 
 fess : when we were schoolfellows, you made me carry your 
 books, make your exercise, own your rogueries, and sonic- 
 times take a whipping for you. ^Vhcn we were fellow-
 
 ON WYCHERLEY, CONGREVE, &c. 155 
 
 'prentices, though I was your senior, you made mc open the 
 shop, clean my master's shoes, cut last at dinner, and eat all 
 the crust. In our sins too, I must own you still kept me 
 iinder J you soar'd up to adultery with the mistress, while I 
 was at humble fornicat4on with the maid. Nay, in our 
 punishments you still made good your post j for when once 
 upon a time I was sentenced but to be whipp'd, I cannot 
 deny but you were condemn'd to be hang'd. So that in all 
 times, I must confess, your inclinations have been greater 
 and nobler than mine; however, I cannot consent that you 
 should at once fix fortune for life, and I dwell in my humili- 
 ties for the rest of my days. 
 
 Dick. Hark thee. Brass, if I do not most nobly by thee, 
 I'm a dog. 
 
 Brass. And when ? 
 
 Dick. As soon as ever I am married. 
 
 Brass. Ay, the plague take thee. 
 
 Dick. Then you mistrust me ? 
 
 Brass. I do, by my faith. Look you. Sir, some folks we 
 mistrust, because we don't know them: others we mistrust, 
 because we do know them : and for one of these reasons I 
 desire there may be a bargain beforehand : if not [raising 
 his voice"] look ye, Dick Amlet 
 
 Dick. Soft, my dear friend and companion. The dog 
 will ruin me [^Jside]. Say, what is't will content thee? 
 
 Brass. O ho ! 
 
 Dick. But how canst thou be suCh a barbarian ? 
 
 Brass. I learnt it at Algiers. 
 
 Dick. Come, make thy Turkish demand then. 
 
 Brass. You know you gave me a bank-bill this morning 
 to receive for you. 
 
 Dick. I did so, of fifty pounds ; 'tis thine. So, now thou 
 art satisfied ; all is fixed. 
 
 Brass. It is not indeed. There's a diamond necklace you 
 robb'd vour motlier of e'en now.
 
 166 ON WYCHERLEY, CONGREVE, &c. 
 
 Dick. Ah, you Jew ! 
 
 Brass. No words. 
 
 Dick. My dear Brass ! 
 
 Brass. 1 insist. 
 
 Dick. My old friend ! 
 
 Brass. Dick Amlet [raising his voice] 1 insist. 
 
 Dick. Ah, the cormorant [Aside']. Well, 'tis thine: 
 thou'lt never thrive with it. 
 
 Brass. When I find it begins to do me mischief, I'll give 
 it you again. But 1 must have a wedding suit. 
 
 Dick. Well. 
 
 Brass. A stock of linen. 
 
 Dick. Enough. 
 
 Brass. Not yet a silver-hilted sword, 
 
 Dick. Well, thou shalt have that too. Now thou hast 
 every thing. 
 
 Brass. Heav'n forgive me, I forgot a ring of remem- 
 brance. I would not forget all these favours for the world : 
 a sparkling diamond will be always playing in my eye, and 
 put me in mind of them. 
 
 Dick. This unconscionable rogue ! [Jside] Well, I'll 
 bespeak one for thee. 
 
 Brass. Brilliant. 
 
 Dick. It shall. But if the thing don't succeed after all 
 
 Brass. I am a man of honour and restore : and so, the 
 treaty being finish'd, I strike my flag of defiance, and fall 
 into my respects again." [Takes off his hat. 
 
 The Confederacy is a comedy of infinite con- 
 trivance and intrigue, with a matchless spirit of 
 impudence. It is a fine careless expose of heartless 
 want of principle ; for there is no anger or severity 
 against vice expressed in it, as in Wycherley. The 
 author's morality in all cases (except his Provoked
 
 ON WYCHERLEY, CONGREVE, &c. 157 
 
 Wife, which was undertaken as a penance for 
 past peccadillos) sits very loose upon him. It 
 is a little upon the turn ; " it does somewhat 
 smack." Old Palmer, as Dick Amlet, asking 
 his mother's blessing on his knee, was the very 
 idea of a graceless son. His sweetheart Co- 
 rinna is a Miss Prue, but nature works in her 
 more powerfully. Lord Foppington, in the Re- 
 lapse, is a most splendid caricature : he is a per- 
 sonification of the foppery and folly of dress and 
 external appearance in full feather. He blazes out 
 and dazzles sober reason with ridiculous ostenta- 
 tion. Still I think this character is a copy from 
 Etherege's Sir Fopling Flutter, and upon the 
 whole, perhaps. Sir Fopling is the more natural 
 grotesque of the two. His soul is more in his 
 dress ; he is a more disinterested coxcomb. The 
 lord is an ostentatious, strutting, vain-glorious 
 blockhead ; the knight is an unaifected, self-com- 
 placent, serious admirer of his equipage and per- 
 son. For instance, what they severally say on the 
 subject of contemplating themselves in the glass, 
 is a proof of this. Sir Fopling thinks a looking- 
 glass in the room " the best company in the 
 world;" it is another self to him : Lord Fopping- 
 ton merely considers it us necessary to adjust his 
 appearance, that he may make a figure in (oni])any. 
 The finery of the one has an iin])osing air ot
 
 158 ON WYCFIERLEY, CONGREVE, &c. 
 
 grandeur about it, and is studied for effect: the 
 other is really in love with a laced suit, and is 
 hand and glove with the newest-cut fashion. He 
 really thinks his tailor or peruke-maker the 
 greatest man in the world, while his lordship 
 treats them familiarly as necessary appendages of 
 his person. Still this coxcomb-nobleman's effe- 
 minacy and mock-heroic vanity are admirably 
 depicted, and held up to unrivalled ridicule; and 
 his courtship of Miss Hoyden is excellent in all its 
 stages, and ends oracularly. 
 
 Lord Fopp'uigton. " Now, for my part, I think 
 the wisest thing a man can do with an aching heart, 
 is to put on a serene countenance ; for a philoso- 
 phical air is the most becoming thing in the world 
 to the face of a person of quality : I will therefore 
 bear my disgrace like a great man, and let the 
 people sec I am above an affront, [then turnmg to' 
 his bfothei''] DearTam, since things are thus fallen 
 out, pr'ythee give me leave to wish thee joy, I do 
 it de hon cceur, strike me dumb: you have married 
 a. woman beautiful in her person, charming in her 
 airs, prudent in her conduct, constant in her in- 
 clinations, and of a nice morality stap my vitals'' 
 
 Poor Hoyden fares ill in his lordship's descrip- 
 tioij ol" her. though bhc could expect im better at
 
 ON WYCHERLEY, CONGREVE, &c. 159 
 
 his hands for her desertion of him. She wants sen- 
 timent, to be sure, but she has other qualifications 
 she is a fine bouncing piece of flesh and blood. 
 Her first announcement is decisive " Let loose 
 the greyhound, and lock up Hoyden." Her de- 
 claration, " It's well they've got me a husband, or 
 ecod, I'd marry the baker," comes from her mouth 
 like a shot from a culverin, and leaves no doubt, 
 by its effect upon the ear, that she would have 
 made it good in the sequel, if she had not been 
 provided for. Her indifference to the man she is 
 to marry, and her attachment to the finery and the 
 title, are justified by an attentive observation of 
 nature in its simplest guise. There is, however, 
 no harm in Hoyden ; she merely wishes to consult 
 her own inclination : she is by no means like 
 Corinna in the Confederacy, " a devilish girl at 
 the bottom," nor is it her great delight to plague 
 other people. Sir Tunbelly Clumsy is the right 
 worshipful and worthy father of so delicate an off- 
 spring. He is a coarse, substantial contrast to the 
 flippant and flimsy Lord Foppington. If the one 
 is not without reason " proud to be at the head ot 
 so prevailing a partv"' as that of coxcombs, thf: 
 other may look big and console himself (under 
 some affronts) with being a very competent re- 
 presentative, a kiiight of the shire, of the once 
 formidable, thouizh now obsolete class of count rv
 
 160 ON WYCHERLEY, CONGREVE, &c. 
 
 squires, wlio had no idea beyond the boundaries 
 of their own estates, or the circumference of their 
 own persons. His unwieldy dulness gives, by the 
 rule of contraries, a lively sense of lightness and 
 grace: his stupidity answers all the purposes of 
 wit. His portly paunch repels a jest like a wool- 
 sack: a sarcasm rebounds from him like a ball. 
 His presence is a cure for gravity; and he is a 
 standing satire upon himself and the class in natu- 
 ral history to which he belonged. Sir John Brute, 
 in the Provoked Wife, is an animal of the same 
 English growth, but of a cross-grained breed. He 
 has a spice of the demon mixed up with the brute ; 
 is mischievous as well as stupid ; has improved 
 his natural parts by a town education and example ; 
 opposes the fine-lady airs and graces of his wife 
 by brawling oaths, impenetrable surliness, and 
 pot-house valour ; overpowers any tendency she 
 might have to vapours or hysterics, by the fumes 
 of tobacco and strong beer ; and thinks to be 
 master in his own house by roaring in taverns, 
 reeling home drunk every night, breaking lamps, 
 and beating the watch. He does not, however, 
 find this lordly method answer. He turns out to 
 be a coward as well as a bully, and dares not 
 resent the injuries he has provoked by his un- 
 manly behaviour. This was Garrick's favourite 
 ])art; and I have heard that his acting in the
 
 ON WYCHERLEY, CONGREVE, &c. 161 
 
 drunken scene, in which he was disguised not as 
 a clergyman, but as a woman of the town, which 
 was an alteration of his own to suit the deli- 
 cacy of the times, was irresistible. The ironical 
 conversations in this play between Belinda and 
 Lady Brute, as well as those in the Relapse be- 
 tween Amanda and her cousin Berinthia, will do 
 to compare with Congreve in the way of wit and 
 studied raillery, but they will not stand the 
 comparison. Araminta and Clarissa keep up the 
 ball between them with more spirit, for their con- 
 versation is very like that of kept-mistresses ; and 
 the mixture of fashionable slang and professed 
 want of principle gives a sort of zest and high 
 seasoning to their confidential communications, 
 which Vanbrugh could supply as well as any body. 
 But he could not do without the taint of grossness 
 and licentiousness. Lady Townly is not the really 
 vicious character, nor quite the fine lady, which 
 the author would have her to be. Lady Grace is 
 so far better ; she is what she pretends to be, 
 merely sober and insipid. ^ Vanbrugh's forte was 
 not the sentimental or didactic ; his genius flags 
 and grows dull when it is not put into action, and 
 wants the stimulus of sudden emergency, or the 
 fortuitous collision of different motives, to call out 
 all its force and vivacitv. His antitheses are
 
 162 ON WYCHERLEY, CONGREVE, &c. 
 
 happy and brilliant contrasts of character; his 
 double entendres equivocal situations ; his best jokes 
 are practical devices, not epigrammatic conceits. 
 His wit is that which is emphatically called 
 mother-wit. It brings those who possess it, or to 
 whom he lends it, into scrapes by its restlessness, 
 and brings them out of them by its alacrity. 
 Several of his favourite characters are knavish, 
 adroit adventurers, who have all the gipsy jargon, 
 the cunning impudence, cool presence of mind, 
 selfishness, and indefatigable industry; all the ex- 
 cuses, lying, dexterity, the intellectual juggling 
 and legerdemain tricks, necessary to fit them for 
 this sort of predatory warfare on the simplicity, 
 follies, or vices of mankind. He discovers the 
 utmost dramatic generalship in bringing off his 
 characters at a pinch, and by an instantaneous 
 i^use de guerre, when the case seems hopeless in 
 any other hands. The train of his associations, 
 to express the same thing in metaphysical lan- 
 guage, lies in following the suggestions of his 
 fancy into every possible connexion of cause and 
 effect, rather than into every possible combination 
 of likeness or difference. His ablest characters 
 shew that they are so by displaying their ingenuity, 
 address, and presence of mind in critical junctures, 
 and in their own aflairs, rather than their wisdom
 
 ON WYCHERLEY, CONGREVE, &c. J 63 
 
 or their wit " in intellectual gladiatorship," or in 
 speculating on the affairs and characters of other 
 people. 
 
 Farquhar's chief characters are also adven- 
 turers ; but they are adventurers of a romantic, 
 not a knavish stamp, and succeed no less by 
 their honesty than their boldness. They conquer 
 their difficulties, and effect their " hair-breadth 
 'scapes" by the impulse of natural enthusiasm and 
 the confidence of high principles of gallantry and 
 honour, as much as by their dexterity and readi- 
 ness at expedients. They are real gentlemen, and 
 only pretended impostors. Vanbrugh's upstart 
 heroes are without " any relish of salvation," with- 
 out generosity, virtue, or any pretensions to it. 
 Vv'^e rave little sympathy for them, and no respect 
 at all. But we have every sort of good-will to- 
 wards Farquhar's heroes, who have as many pec- 
 cadillos to answer for, and play as many rogue's 
 tricks, l)ut are honest fellows at bottom. I know 
 little other difference between these two capital 
 writers and copyists of nature, than that Far- 
 (juhivrs nature is the better nature of the two. 
 Wq seem to like both the author and his favourites. 
 lie has humour, character, and invention, in com- 
 mon with the otlier, with a more unaffected aairty 
 -uul spirit of eiijoynient, whieli (voif1(ws and
 
 164 ON WYCHERLEY, CONGREVE, Ac. 
 
 sparkles in all he does. He makes us laugh from 
 pleasure oftener than from malice. He some- 
 where prides himself in having introduced on the 
 stage the class of comic heroes here spoken of, 
 which has since become a standard character, and 
 which represents the warm-hearted, rattle-brained, 
 thoughtless, high-spirited young fellow, who floats 
 on the back of his misfortunes without repining, 
 who forfeits appearances, but saves his honour 
 and he gives us to understand that it was his own. 
 He did not need to be ashamed of it. Indeed 
 there is internal evidence that this sort of character 
 is his own, for it pervades his works generally, 
 and is the moving spirit that informs them. His 
 comedies have on this account probably a greater 
 appearance of truth and nature than almost any 
 others. His incidents succeed one another with 
 rapidity, but without premeditation ; his wit is 
 easy and spontaneous ; his style animated, un- 
 embarrassed, and flowing ; his characters full of 
 life and spirit, and never overstrained so as to 
 " o'erstep the modesty of nature," though they 
 sometimes, from haste and carelessness, seem left 
 in a crude, unfinished state. There is a constant 
 ebullition of gay, laughing invention, cordial good 
 humour, and fine animal spirits, in his writings. 
 
 Of the four writers here classed together, we
 
 ON WYCHERLEY, CONGREVE, 4c. 165 
 
 should perhaps have courted Congreve's acquaint- 
 ance mostj for his wit and the elegance of his 
 manners ; Wycherley's, for his sense and observa- 
 tion on human nature ; Vanbrugh's, for his power 
 of farcical description and telling a story ; Far- 
 quhar'sj for the pleasure of his society, and the 
 love of good fellowship. His fine gentlemen are 
 not gentlemen of fortune and fashion, like those 
 in Congreve ; but are rather " God Almighty's 
 gentlemen." His valets are good fellows : even 
 his chambermaids are some of them disinterested 
 and sincere. But his fine ladies, it must be 
 allowed, are not so amiable, so witty, or accom- 
 plished, as those in Congreve. Perhaps they both 
 described women in high-life as they found them : 
 Congreve took their conversation, Farquhar their 
 conduct. In the way of fasliionable vice and petri- 
 fying affectation, there is nothing to come up to 
 his Lady Lurewell, in the Trip to the Jubilee. 
 She by no means makes good Mr. Burke's courtly 
 and chivalrous observation, that the evil of vice 
 consists principally in its want of refinement ; and 
 one benefit of the dramatic exhibition of such cha- 
 racters is, that they overturn false maxims of mo- 
 rality, and settle accounts fairly and satisfactorily 
 between theory and practice. Her lover, Colone] 
 Standard, is indeed an awkward incumbrance upon 
 so fine a lady : it was a character that the poet
 
 166 ON WYCHERLEY, CONGREVE, &c. 
 
 did not like ; and he has merely sketched him in, 
 leaving him to answer for himself as well as he 
 conld, which is but badly. We have no suspi- 
 cion, either from his conduct, or from any hint 
 dropped by accident, that he is the first seducer 
 and the possessor of the virgin affections of Lady 
 Lurewell. The double transformation of this vi- 
 rago from vice to virtue, and from virtue to vice 
 again, her plausible pretensions and artful wiles, 
 her violent temper and dissolute passions, shew 
 a thorough knowledge of the effects both of nature 
 and habit in making up human character. Far- 
 quhar's own heedless turn for gallantry would be 
 likely to throw him upon such a character; and 
 his goodness of heart and sincerity of disposition 
 would teach him to expose its wanton duplicity 
 and gilded rottenness. Lurewell is almost as aban- 
 doned a character as Olivia, in the Plain Dealer ; 
 but the indignation excited against her is of a less 
 serious and tragic cast. Her peevish disgust and 
 affected horror at every thing that comes near her, 
 form a very edifying picture. Her dissatisfaction 
 and ennui are not mere airs and graces worn for 
 fashion's sake ; but are real and tormenting in- 
 mates of lier breast, arising from a surfeit of plea- 
 sure and the consciousness of guilt. All that is 
 hateful in the caprice, ill humour, spite, iiautau\ 
 folly, impudence, and affectation of the complete
 
 ON VVYCHERLEY, CONGREVE, &c 167 
 
 woman of quality, is contained in the scene be- 
 tween her and her servants in the first act. The 
 depravity would be intolerable, even in imagina- 
 tion, if the weakness were not ludicrous in the 
 extreme. It shews, in the highest degree, the 
 power of circumstances and example to pervert 
 the understanding, the imagination, and even the 
 senses. The manner in which the character of 
 the gay, wild, free-hearted, but not altogether pro- 
 fligate or unfeeling Sir Harry Wildair, is played off 
 against the designing, vindictive, imperious, un- 
 controlable, and unreasonable humours of Lure- 
 well, in the scene where she tries to convince him 
 of his wife's infidelity, while he stops his ears to 
 her pretended proofs, is not surpassed in modern 
 comedy. I shall give it here : 
 
 " Wildair. Now, dear madam, I have secur'd my brother, 
 you have dispos'd of the colonel, and we'll rail at love till 
 we ha'n't a word more to say. 
 
 Lurewell. Ay, Sir Harry, Please to sit a little, Sir, You 
 must know I'm in a strange humour of asking you some 
 questions. How did you like your lady, pray. Sir ? 
 
 Wild. Like her ! Ha, ha, ha. So very well, faith, that 
 for her very sake I'm in love with every woman I meet. 
 
 Lure. And did matrimony please you extremely? 
 
 Wild. So very much, that if polygamy were allow'd, 1 
 would have a new wife every day. 
 
 Lure. Oh, Sir Harry ! this is raillery. But your serious 
 thoughts uj)on the matter, pray.
 
 168 ON WYCHERLEY, CONGREVE, &c. 
 
 fVild. Why then. Madam, to give you my true senti- 
 ments of wedlock : I had a lady that I married by chance, 
 she was virtuous by chance, and I lov'd her by great chance. 
 Nature gave her beauty, education an air; and fortune 
 threw a young fellow of five-and-twenty in her lap. I courted 
 her all day, lov'd her all night; she was my mistress one 
 day, and my wife another : I found in one the variety of a 
 thousand, and the very confinement of marriage gave me the 
 pleasure of change. 
 
 Lure. And she was very virtuous. 
 
 Wild. Look ye. Madam, you know she was beautiful. 
 She had good nature about her mouth, the smile of beauty 
 in her cheeks, sparkling wit in her forehead, and sprightly 
 love in her eyes. 
 
 Lwe. Pshaw ! I knew her very well ; the woman wa 
 well enough. But you don't answer my question. Sir. 
 
 Wild. So, Madam, as I told you before, she was young 
 and beautiful, I was rich and vigorous ; my estate gave a 
 lustre to my love, and a swing to our enjoyment ; round, 
 like the ring that made us one, our golden pleasures circled 
 without end. 
 
 Lure. Golden pleasures ! Golden fioldlesticks. What d'ye 
 tell me of your canting stuff? Was she virtuous, I say ? 
 
 Wild. Ready to burst with envy ; but I will torment thee 
 a little. [^Aside.'] So, Madam, I ptrvvder'd to please her, she 
 dress'd to engage me; we toy'd away tl.e mornin;^ in amor- 
 ous nonsense, loU'd away tlie evening in the Park or the 
 playhouse, and all the night hem ! 
 
 Lure. Look ye. Sir, answer my question, or I shall take 
 it ill 
 
 fl'ild. 'Iheii, jMiuhun, there was never such a pattern of 
 unity. Her wants were btill {.revented Ijy my supplies; luy 
 own hffut whisper'd me her desires, 'canr^e slie herself was
 
 ON WYCHERLEY, CONGREVE, &c. l(Ju 
 
 there ; no contention ever rose, but the dear strife of who 
 should most oblige : no noise about authority j for neither 
 would stoop to command, 'cause both thought it glory to 
 obey. 
 
 Lure. StuflF! stuff! stuff! I won't believe a word on't. 
 
 Wild. Ha, ha, ha. Then, Madam, we never felt the 
 yoke of matrimony, because our inclinations made us one ; 
 a power superior to the forms of wedlock. The marriage 
 torch had lost its weaker light in the bright flame of mutual 
 love that join'd our hearts before j then 
 
 Lure. Hold, hold. Sir ; I cannot bear it j Sir Harry, I'm 
 affronted. 
 
 Wild. Ha, ha, ha. Affronted ! 
 
 Lure. Yes, Sir ; 'tis an affront to any woman to hear an- 
 other commended ; and 1 will resent it. In short. Sir Harry, 
 your wife was a 
 
 Wild. Buz, Madam no detraction. I'll tell you what 
 she was. So much an angel in her conduct, that though I saw 
 another in her arms, 1 should have thought the devil had 
 rais'd the phantom, and my more conscious reason had given 
 my eyes the lie. 
 
 Lure. Very well ! Then I a'n't to be believ'd, it seems. 
 But, d'ye hear, Sir? 
 
 Wild. Nay, Madam, do you hear ! 1 tell you, 'tis not in 
 the power of malice to cast a blot upon her fame ; and 
 though the vanity of our sex, and the envy of yours, con- 
 spir'd both against her honour, I would not hear a syllable, 
 
 \_Stopping his ears. 
 
 Lure. Why then, as I hope to breathe, you shall hear it. 
 
 The picture ! the picture ! the picture ! \_Bawling aloud. 
 
 Wild. Ran, tan, tan. A pistol-bullet from ear to ear. 
 
 Lure. That picture which you had just now from the 
 French marquis for a thousand pound ; that very picture
 
 170 ON WYCHERLEY, CONGREVE, &c. 
 
 did your very virtuous wife send to the marquis as a pledge 
 of her very virtuous and dying aflfection. So that you are 
 both robb'd of your honour^ and cheated of your money! 
 
 [^Aloud. 
 Wild. Louder, louder. Madam. 
 
 Lure. I tell you. Sir, your wife was a jiltj I know it, 
 I'll swear it. She virtuous ! she was a devil ! 
 Wild. ISings.] Tal, al, deral. 
 
 Lure. Was ever the like seen ! He won't hear me. I 
 burst with malice, and now he won't mind me ! Won't you 
 hear me yet ? 
 
 Wild. No, no. Madam. 
 
 Lure. Nay, then I can't bear it. [Bursts out a crying.'] 
 Sir, I must say that you're an unworthy person, to use a 
 woman of quality at this rate, when she has her heart full 
 of malice; I don't know but it may make me miscarry. 
 Sir, I say again and again, that she was no better than one 
 of us, and I know itj I have seen it with my eyes, so I 
 have. 
 
 Wild. Good heav'ns deliver me, I beseech thee. How 
 shall 1 'scape ! 
 
 Lure. Will you hear me yet ? Dear Sir Harry, do but 
 hear me ; I'm longing to speak. 
 
 Wild. Oh ! I have it. Hush, hush, hush. 
 Lure. Eh ! what's the matter ? 
 Wild. A mouse ! a mouse ! a mouse ! 
 Lure. Where ? where ? where ? 
 
 Wild. Your petticoats, your petticoats. Madam. [Lurewell 
 shrieks and runs.'} O my head ! I was never worsted by a 
 woman before. But I have heard so much to know the 
 marquis to be a villain. IKjwcking.'] Nay, then, I must run 
 for't. {_Ru7is out, and returiis.} The entry is stopt by a chair 
 coming in ; and something there is in that chair that I will
 
 ON VVYCHERLEY, CONGREVE, &c. 17I 
 
 discoYer, if I can find a place to hide myself. [Goes to the 
 closet door.'] Fast ! I have keys about me for most locks 
 about St. James's. Let me see. [^Tries one key.'] No, noj 
 this opens my Lady Planthorn's back-door. ^Tries another.] 
 Nor this ; this is the key to my Lady Stakeall's garden. {Tries 
 a ihird^ Ay, ay, this does it, faith. {Goes into the closet.]" 
 
 The dialogue between Cherry and Archer, in 
 the Beaux Stratagem, in which she repeats her 
 well conned love-catechism, is as good as this, 
 but not so fit to be repeated any where but on 
 the stage. The Beaux' Stratagem is the best of 
 his plays, as a whole ; infinitely lively, bustling, 
 and full of point and interest. The assumed dis- 
 guise of the two principal characters. Archer and 
 Aimwoll, is a perpetual amusement to the mind. 
 Scrub is an indispensable appendage to a country 
 gentleman's kitchen, and an exquisite confidant 
 for the secrets of young ladies. The Recruiting 
 Officer is not one of Farquhar's best comedies, 
 though it is light and entertaining. It contains 
 chiefly sketches and hints of characters ; and the 
 conclusion of the plot is rather lame. He informs 
 us, in the dedication to the published play, that it 
 was founded on some local and personal circum- 
 stances that happened in Shropshire, whore he 
 was himself a recruiting officer; and it seems not 
 unlikely, tliat most of the scenes actually took 
 l)lace at the foot of the Wrekin. The Iiieoiistaut
 
 17 ON WYCHERLEY, CONGREVE, &c. 
 
 is much superior to it. The romantic interest and 
 impressive catastrophe of this play I thought had 
 been borrowed from the more poetical and tra- 
 gedy-practised muse of Beaumont and Fletcher ; 
 but I find they are taken from an actual circum- 
 stance which took place in the author's know- 
 ledge, at Paris. His other pieces, Love and a 
 Bottle, and the Twin Rivals, are not on a par with 
 these; and are no longer in possession of the 
 stage. The public are, after all, not the worst 
 judges. Farquhar s Letters, prefixed to the col- 
 lection of his plays, are lively, good humoured, 
 and sensible; and contain, among other things, 
 an admirable exposition of the futility of the dra- 
 matic unities of time and place. This criticism 
 preceded Dennis's remarks on that subject, in his 
 Strictures on Mr. Addison's Cato ; and completely 
 anticipates all that Dr. Johnson has urged so 
 unanswerably on the subject, in his preface to 
 Shakspeare. 
 
 We may date the decline of English comedy 
 from the time of Farquhar. For this several 
 causes might be assigned in the political and 
 moral changes of the times ; but among other 
 minor ones, Jeremy Collier, in his View of the 
 English Stage, frightened the poets, and did all 
 he could to spoil tlie stage, by pretending to re-
 
 ON WYCHERLEY, CONGREVE, &c. 17S 
 
 form it; that is, by making it an echo of the 
 pulpit, instead of a reflection of the manners of 
 the world. He complains bitterly of the profane- 
 ness of the stage ; and is for fining the actors for 
 every oath they utter, to put an end to the prac- 
 tice ; as if common swearing had been an inven- 
 tion of the poets and stage-players. He cannot 
 endure that the fine gentlemen drink, and the fine 
 ladies intrigue, in the scenes of Congreve and 
 Wycherley, when things so contrary to law and 
 gospel happened nowhere else. He is vehement 
 against duelling, as a barbarous custom, of which 
 the example is suffered with impunity nowhere 
 but on the stage. He is shocked at the number 
 of fortunes that are irreparably ruined by the vice 
 of gaming on the boards of the theatres. He 
 seems to think that every breach of the ten com- 
 mandments begins and ends there. He complains 
 that the tame husbands of his time are laughed at on 
 the stage, and that the successful gallants triumph, 
 which was without precedent either in the city or 
 the court. He does not think it enough that the 
 stage " shews vice its own image, scorn its own 
 feature," unless they are damned at the same in- 
 stant, and carried off (like Don Juan) by real 
 devils to the infernal regions, before the faces of 
 the spectators. It seems that the author would 
 have been contented to he present nt a romedy or
 
 174 ON WYCHERLEY, CONGREVE, &c. 
 
 a farce, like a Father Inquisitor, if there was to he 
 an auto da fk at the end, to burn both the actors 
 and the poet. This sour, nonjuring critic has a 
 great horror and repugnance at poor human na- 
 ture, in nearly all its shapes ; of the existence of 
 which he appears only to be aware through the 
 stage : and this he considers as the only exception 
 to the practice of piety, and the performance of 
 the whole duty of man ; and seems fully con- 
 vinced, that if this nuisance were abated, the 
 whole world would be regulated according to the 
 creed and the catechism. This is a strange blind- 
 ness and infatuation ! He forgets, in his over- 
 heated zeal, two things : First, That the stage must 
 be copied from real life, that the manners repre- 
 sented there must exist elsewhere, and " denote 
 a foregone conclusion," to satisfy common sense. 
 Secondly, That the stage cannot shock common de- 
 cency, according to the notions that prevail of it in 
 any age or country, because the exhibition is public. 
 If the pulpit, for instance, had banished all vice and 
 imperfection from the world, as our critic would 
 suj)pose, we should not have seen the offensive 
 reflection of them on the stage, which he resents 
 as an affront to the cloth, and an outrage on reli- 
 gion. On the contrary, with such a sweeping- 
 reformation as this theory implies, the ofifice of 
 the preacher, as well as of the player, would bo
 
 ON VVYCHERLEY, CONGREVE, &c. 175 
 
 gone; and if the common peccadillos of lying, 
 swearing, intriguing, fighting, drinking, gaming, 
 and other such obnoxious dramatic common-places, 
 were once fairly got rid of in reality, neither the 
 comic poet would be able to laugh at them on 
 the stage, nor our good-natured author to consign 
 them over to damnation elsewhere. The work 
 is, however, written with ability, and did much 
 mischief: it produced those do-me-good, lack-a-dai- 
 sical, whining, make-believe comedies in the next 
 age, (such as Steele's Conscious Lovers, and 
 others,) which are enough to set one to sleep, and 
 where the author tries in vain to be merry and 
 wise in the same breath ; in which the utmost 
 stretch of licentionsness goes no farther than the 
 gallant's being suspected of keeping a mistress, 
 and the highest proof of courage is given in his 
 refusing to accept a challenge. 
 
 In looking into the old editions of the come- 
 dies of the last age, I find the names of the best 
 actors of those times, of whom scarcely any record 
 is left but in CoUey Gibber's Life, and the monu- 
 ment to Mrs. Oldfield, in Westminster Abbey ; 
 which Voltaire reckons among the proofs of the 
 liberality, wisdom, and politeness of the English 
 nation :
 
 175 ON WYCHERLEY, CONGREVE, &c. 
 
 " Let no rude hand deface it. 
 And its forlorn hicjacet." 
 
 Authors after their deaths live in their works ; 
 players only in their epitaphs and the breath of 
 common tradition. They " die and leave the 
 world no copy." Their uncertain popularity is as 
 short-lived as it is dazzling; and in a few years 
 nothing is known of them but that they were.
 
 LECTURE V. 
 
 ON THE PERIODICAL ESSAYISTS. 
 
 TUB PROPER STUDY OF MANKIND IS MAN." 
 
 I NOW come to speak of that sort of writing which 
 has been so successfully cultivated in this country 
 by our periodical Essayists, and which consists in 
 applying the talents and resources of the mind to 
 all that mixed mass of human affairs, which, 
 though not included under the head of any regular 
 art, science, or profession, falls under the cog- 
 nizance of the writer, and " comes home to the 
 business and bosoms of men." Qulcquid agunt 
 homines nostri farrago llhclli, is the general motto 
 of this department of literature. It does not treat 
 of minerals or fossils, of the virtues of plants, or 
 the influence of planets ; it does not meddle with 
 forms of belief, or systems of philosophy, nor
 
 17S ON THE PERIODICAL ESSAYISTS. 
 
 launch into the world of spiritual existences ; 
 but it makes familiar with the world of men 
 and women, records their actions, assigns their 
 motives, exhibits their whims, characterises their 
 pursuits in all their singular and endless va- 
 riety, ridicules their absurdities, exposes their 
 inconsistencies, " holds the mirror up to nature, 
 and shews the very age and body of the time 
 its form and pressure;" takes minutes of our 
 dress, air, looks, words, thoughts, and actions ; 
 shews us what we are, and what we are not ; 
 plays the whole game of human life over before 
 us, and by making us enlightened spectators of its 
 many-coloured scenes, enables us (if possible) to 
 become tolerably reasonable agents in the one in 
 which we have to perform a part, " The act and 
 practic part of life is thus made the mistress of 
 our theorique." It is the best and most natural 
 course of study. It is in morals and manners 
 what the experimental is in natural philosophy, as 
 opposed to the dogmatical method. It does not 
 deal in sweeping clauses of proscription and ana- 
 thema, but in nice distinctions and liberal con- 
 structions. It makes up its general accounts from 
 details, its few theories from many facts. It does 
 not try to ])rove all black or all white as it wishes, 
 but lays on the intermediate colours, (and most of 
 them not iiiipleasing ones,) as it finds them blended
 
 ON THE PERIODICAL ESSAYISTS. I79 
 
 with " the web of onr life, which is of a mingled 
 yarn, good and ill together." It inquires wliut 
 human life is and has been, to shew what it ought 
 to be. It follows it into courts and camps, into 
 town and country, into rustic sports or learned 
 disputations, into the various shades of prejudice 
 or ignorance, of refinement or barbarism, into its 
 private haunts or public pageants, into its weak- 
 nesses and littlenesses, its professions and its prac- 
 tices before it pretends to distinguish right from 
 wrong, or one thing from another. How, indeed, 
 should it do so otherwise? 
 
 " Quid sit pulchraui, quid turpe, quid utile, quid non, 
 Plenius et melius Clirysippo et Crantore dicit." 
 
 The writers I speak of are, if not moral philso- 
 phers, moral historians, and that's better: or if 
 they are both, they found tlie one character upon 
 the other ; their premises precede their con- 
 clusions ; and we put faith in their testimony, for 
 we know that it is true. 
 
 Montaigne was the first person who in his 
 Essavs led the v\av to this kind of writing among 
 the n^oderns. The great merit of Montaigne then 
 was, tliat he may be said to have been the first 
 who had the courage to say as an author what lie 
 felt as a man. And as courage is generally the
 
 180 ON THE PERIODICAL ESSAYISTS. 
 
 eft'ect of conscious strength, he was probably led 
 16 do so by the richness, truth, and force of his 
 own observations on books and men. He was, in 
 the truest sense, a man of original mind, that is, 
 lie had the power of looking at things for himself, 
 or as they really were, instead of blindly trusting 
 to, and fondly repeating what others told him that 
 they were. He got rid of the go-cart of prejudice 
 and affectation, with the learned lumber that fol- 
 lows at their heels, because he could do without 
 them. In taking up his pen he did not set up for 
 a philosopher, wit, orator, or moralist, but he be- 
 came all these by merely daring to tell us whatever 
 passed through his mind, in its naked simplicity 
 and force, that he thought any ways worth 
 communicating. He did not, in the abstract cha- 
 racter of an author, undertake to say all that could 
 be said upon a subject, but what in his capacity as 
 an inquirer after truth he happened to know about 
 it. He was neither a pedant nor a bigot. He 
 neither supposed that he was bound to know all 
 things, nor that all things were bound to conform 
 to what he had fancied or would have them to 
 be. In treating of men and manners, he spoke of 
 thcni as he found them, not according to pre- 
 conceived notions and abstract dogmas ; and he 
 began by teaching us what he himself was. In 
 criticising books he did not compare them with
 
 ON THE PERIODICAL ESSAYISTS. ISl 
 
 rules and systems, but told us what he saw to like 
 or dislike in them. He did not take his standard 
 of excellence " according to an exact scale " of 
 Aristotle, or fall out with a work that was good 
 for any thing, because " not one of the angles at 
 the four corners was a right one." He was, in a 
 word, the first author who was not a book-maker, 
 and who wrote not to make converts of others to 
 established creeds and prejudices, but to satisfy his 
 own mind of the truth of things. In this respect 
 we know not which to be most charmed with, the 
 author or the man. There is an inexpressible 
 frankness and sincerity, as well as power, in what 
 he writes. There is no attempt at imposition or 
 concealment, no iugielins: tricks or solemn mouth- 
 ing, no laboured attempts at proving himself al- 
 ways in the right, and every body else in the wrong ; 
 he says what is uppermost, lays open what floats 
 at. the top or the bottom of his mind, and deserves 
 Pope's character of him, where he professes to 
 
 " jjour out all as plain 
 
 As downright Shippen, or as old Montaigne*." 
 
 He does not converse with us like a pedagogue 
 with his pupil, whom he wishes to make as great 
 
 * Why I'opc should say in reference to him, ' Or mvi': 
 :isc Charron," is not easy to determine.
 
 182 ON THE PERIODICAL ESSAYISTS. 
 
 a blockhead as himself, but like a philosopher and 
 friend who has passed through life with thought 
 and observation, and is willing to enable others to 
 pass through it with pleasure and proBt. A writer 
 of this stamp, I confess, appears to me as much 
 superior to a common bookworm, as a library of 
 real books is superior to a mere book-case, painted 
 and lettered on the outside with the names of 
 celebrated works. As he Avas the first to attempt 
 this new way of writing, so the same strong 
 natural impulse which prompted the undertaking, 
 carried him to the end of his career. The same 
 force and honestv of mind which urgjed him to 
 throw off the shackles of custom and prejudice, 
 would enable him to complete his triumph over 
 them. He has left little for his successors to 
 atchieve in tlie Avay of just and original speculation 
 on human life. Nearly all the thinking of the two 
 last centuries of that kind which the French de- 
 nominate morale obsertatrice, is to be found in 
 Montaigne's Essays : there is the germ, at least, 
 and generally much more. He sowchI the seed 
 and cleared away the rubbish, even where others 
 have reaped the fruit, or cultivated and decorated 
 the ; oil to a greater degree of nicety and perfection. 
 There is no one to whom tlie old Latin adage is 
 more a])})lieable than to Montaigne, " Fcrmnt hit 
 >:ul ante nos nostra diveruntr Tliere has been no
 
 ON THE PERIODICAL ESSAYISTS. 183 
 
 new impulse given to thought since his time. 
 Among the specimens of criticisms on authors 
 which he has left us, are those on Virgil, Ovid, 
 and Boccaccio, in the account of books which he 
 thinks worth reading, or (which is the same thing) 
 which he finds he can read in his old age, and 
 which may be reckoned among the few criticisms 
 which are worth reading at any age*. 
 
 * As an instance of his general power of reasoning, I 
 siiall give his chapter entitled One Man's Profit is another s 
 Loss, in which he has nearly anticipated Mandeville's cele- 
 brated paradox of private vices being public benefits : 
 
 " Demades, the Athenian, condemned a fellow-citizen, 
 \siio furnished out funerals, for demanding too great a price 
 f>'r his goods : and if he got an estate, it must he by the 
 death of a great many people : but I think it a sentence ill 
 grounded, forasmuch as no profit can be niade, but at the 
 expense of some other person, and that every kind of gain is 
 by that rule liable to be condemned. The tradesman thrives 
 iiy the debauchery of youth, and the farmer by the dearness 
 of corn J the architect by the ruin of buildings, the officers 
 nf justice by quarrels and law-suits ; nay, even the honour 
 and function of divines is owing to our mortality and vices. 
 No physician takes pleasure in the health even of his best 
 friends, said the ancient Greek comedian, nor soldier in the 
 peace of his country ; and so of tlie rest. And, what is yet 
 worse, let every one but examine his own heart, and he v.ill 
 liiul, that his private wishes spring and grow up at the ex- 
 pense of some other person. U})on which consideration 
 
 I
 
 184 ON THE PERIODICAL ESSAYISTS. 
 
 Montaigne's Essays were translated into En- 
 glish by Charles Cotton, who was one of the wits 
 and poets of the age of Charles II; and Lord Hali- 
 fax, one of the noble critics of that day, declared 
 it to be " the book in the world he was the best 
 pleased with." This mode of familiar Essay- 
 writing, free from the trammels of the schools, 
 and the airs of professed authorship, was success- 
 fully imitated, about the same time, by Cowley and 
 Sir William Temple^ in their miscellaneous Essays, 
 which are very agreeable and learned talking upon 
 paper. Lord Shaftesbury, on the contrary, who 
 aimed at the same easy, degage mode of com- 
 municating his thoughts to the world, has quite 
 -spoiled his matter, which is sometimes valuable, by 
 his manner, in which he carries a certain flaunting, 
 flowery, jBgurative, flirting style of amicable con- 
 descension to the reader, to an excess more tanta- 
 
 this thought came into my head, that nature does not hereby 
 deviate from her general jjolicy; for the naturalists hold, 
 that the birth, nourishment, and increase of any one thing is 
 the decay and corruption of another : 
 
 Nam quodcimque suis mutatum Jlnibus exit, 
 Covlinuo hoc mors est illius, quodfuit ante. i. e. 
 
 Tor what from its own confines chang'd doth pass, 
 la tlraight the death of what before it was." 
 
 Vol. I. Chap, xxi.
 
 ON THE PERIODICAL ESSAYISTS. I85 
 
 lising than the most starched and ridiculous for- 
 mality of the age of James I. There is nothing 
 so tormenting as the affectation of ease and free- 
 dom from affectation. 
 
 The ice being thus thawed, and the barrier 
 that kept authors at a distance from common sense 
 and feeling broken through, the transition was not 
 difficult from Montaigne and his imitators, to our 
 Periodical Essayists. These last applied the same 
 unrestrained expression of their thoughts to the 
 more immediate and passing scenes of life, to 
 temporary and local matters ; and in order to dis- 
 charge the invidious office of Censor Morum more 
 freely, and with less responsibility, assumed some 
 fictitious and humorous disguise, which, however, in 
 a great degree corresponded to their own peculiar 
 habits and character. By thus concealing their 
 own name and person under the title of the Tatler, 
 Spectator, &c. they ^verc enabled to inform us 
 more fully of what was passing in the world, while 
 the dramatic contrast and ironical point of view to 
 which the whole is subjected, added a greater 
 liv(;liness and phiiutnci) to the descriptions. The 
 pbilosoj)hcr and wit here commences newsmonger, 
 makers himself master of " the perfect spy o' th' 
 time.*' and from his various walks and turns through 
 life, brings home little curious specimens of the 
 humours, opinions, and manners of his contem-
 
 186 ON THE PERIODICAL ESSAYISTS. 
 
 poraries, as the botanist brings home different 
 plants and weeds, or the mineralogist different 
 shells and fossils, to illustrate their several theories, 
 and be useful to mankind. 
 
 The first of these papers that was attempted 
 in this country was set up by Steele in the begin- 
 ning of the last century ; and of all our periodical 
 Essayists, the Tatler (for that was the name he 
 assumed) has always appeared to me the most 
 amusing and agreeable. Montaigne, whom I have 
 proposed to consider as the father of this kind of 
 personal authorship among the moderns, in which 
 the reader is admitted behind tlie curtain, and sits 
 down with the writer in his gown and slippers, 
 was a most magnanimous and undisguised egotist ; 
 but Isaac Bickerstaff, Esq. was the more disin- 
 terested gossip of the two. The French author 
 is contented to describe the peculiarities of his 
 own mind and constitution, which he does with a 
 copious and unsparing hand. The English jour- 
 nalist good-naturedly lets you into the secret both 
 of his own affairs and those of others. A young 
 lady, on the other side Temple Bar, cannot be 
 seen at' her glass for half a day together, but Mr. 
 Bickerstaff takes due notice of it ; and he has the 
 first intelligence of the symptoms of the belle 
 passion appearing in any young gentleman at the 
 West-end of the town. The departures and ar-
 
 ON THE PERIODICAL ESSAYISTS. 187 
 
 rivals of widows with handsome jointures, either to 
 bury their grief in the country, or to procure a second 
 husband in town, are punctually recorded in his pages. 
 He is well acquainted with the celebrated beauties 
 of the preceding age at the court of Charles II ; 
 and the old gentleman (as he feigns himself) often 
 grows romantic in recounting " the disastrous 
 strokes which his youth suffered" from the glances 
 of their bright eyes, and their unaccountable ca- 
 prices. In particular, he dwells with a secret 
 satisfaction on the recollection of one of his mis- 
 tresses, who left him for a richer rival, and whose 
 constant reproach to her husband, on occasion of 
 any quarrel between them, was " I, that might 
 have married the famous Mr. Bickerstaif, to be 
 treated in this manner!" The club at the Trumpet 
 consists of a set of persons almost as well worth 
 knowing as himself. The cavalcade of the justice 
 of the peace, the knight of the shire, the country 
 squire, and the young gentleman, his nephew, 
 who carne to wait on him at his chambers, in 
 such form and ceremony, seem not to have settled 
 the order of their precedence to this hour*; and 
 I should hope that the upholsterer and his com- 
 ])anions, who used to sun themselves in the Green 
 
 * No, 125.
 
 188 ON THE PERIODICAL ESSAYISTS. 
 
 Park, and who broke their rest and fortunes to 
 maintain the balance of power in Europe, stand as 
 fair a chance for inimortah'ty as some modern 
 poHticians. Mr. Bickerstaff himself is a gentleman 
 and a scholar, a humourist, and a man of the 
 world ; with a great deal of nice easy naivete about 
 him. If he walks out and is caught in a shower 
 of rain, he makes amends for this unlucky ac- 
 cident by a criticism on the shower in Virgil, and 
 concludes with a burlesque copy of verses on a 
 city-shower. He entertains us, when he dates 
 from his own apartment, with a quotation from 
 Plutarch, or a moral reflection ; from the Grecian 
 coifee-house with politics ; and from Wills', or the 
 Temple, with the poets and players, the beaux and 
 men of wit and pleasure about town. In reading 
 the pages of the Tatler, we seem as if suddenly 
 carried back to the age of Queen Anne, of toupees 
 and full-bottomed periwigs. The whole appear- 
 ance of our dress and manners undergoes a de- 
 lightful metamorphosis. The beaux and the belles 
 are of a quite different species from what they are 
 at present ; we distinguish the dappers, the smarts, 
 and the pretty fellows, as they pass by Mr. Lilly's 
 shop-windows in the Strand ; we are introduced to 
 Betterton and Mrs. Oldfield behind the scenes ; 
 arc made familiar with the persons and per- 
 formances of Will Estcourt or Tom Durfey ; we
 
 ON THE PERIODICAL ESSAYISTS. 189 
 
 listen to a dispute at a tavern, on the merits of the 
 Duke of Marlborough, or Marshal Turenne ; or 
 are present at the first rehearsal of a play by 
 Vanbrugh, or the reading of a new poem by Mr. 
 Pope. The privilege of thus virtually transporting 
 ourselves to past times, is even greater than that 
 of visiting distant places in reality. London, a 
 hundred years ago, would be much better worth 
 seeing than Paris at the present moment. 
 
 It will be said, that all this is to be found, in 
 the same or a greater degree, in the Spectator. 
 For myself, I do not think so ; or at least, there is in 
 the last work a much greater proportion ofcommon- 
 place matter. I have, on this account, always pre- 
 ferred the Tatler to the Spectator. Whether it is 
 owing to my having been earlier or better acquainted 
 with tlie one than the other, my pleasure in 
 reading these two admirable works is not in 
 proportion to their comparative reputation. The 
 Tatler contains only half the number of volumes, 
 and, I will venture to say, nearly an equal quan- 
 tity of sterling wit and sense. " The first sprightly 
 runnings" are there : it has more of the original 
 spirit, more of the freshness and stamp of nature. 
 The indications of character and strokes of humom 
 are more true and frequent; the reflections that 
 suggest themselves arise more from the occasion.
 
 190 ON THE PERIODICAL ESSAYISTS. 
 
 and are less spun out into regular dissertations. 
 They are more like the remarks which occur in 
 sensible conversation, and less like a lecture. 
 Something is left to the understanding of the 
 reader. Steele seems to have gone into his closet 
 chiefly to set down what he observed out of 
 doors. Addison seems to have spent most of his 
 time in his study, and to have spun out and wire- 
 drawn the hints, which he borrowed from Steele, 
 or took from nature, to the utmost. I am far 
 from wishing to depreciate Addison's talents, but 
 I am anxious to do justice to Steele, who Avas, I 
 think, upon the whole, a less artificial and more 
 original writer. The humorous descriptions of 
 Steele resemble loose sketches, or fragments of 
 a comedy ; those of Addison are rather comments 
 or ingenious paraphrases on the genuine text. 
 The characters of the club not only in the Tatler, 
 but in the Spectator, were drawn by Steele. That 
 of Sir Roger de Coverley is among the number. 
 Addison has, however, gained himself immortal 
 honour by his manner of fillinii; up this last cha- 
 racter. Who is there that can forget, or be in- 
 sensible to, the inimitable nameless graces and 
 varied traits of nature and of old English cha- 
 racter in it to bis unpretending virtues and amiable 
 weaknesses to his modesty, generosity, hos- 
 pitality, and eccentric whims to the respect of
 
 ON THE PERIODICAL ESSAYISTS. 191 
 
 his neighbours, and the affection of his domestics 
 to his wayward, hopeless, secret passion for his 
 fair enemy, the widow, in which there is more of 
 real romance and true delicacy, than in a thousand 
 tales of knight-errantry (we perceive the hectic 
 flush of his cheek, the faltering of his tongue in 
 speaking of her bewitching airs and " the white- 
 ness of her hand") to the havoc he makes among 
 the game in his neighbourhood to his speech 
 from the bench, to shew the Spectator what is 
 thought of him in the country to his unwilling- 
 ness to be put up as a sign-post, and his having his 
 own likeness turned into the Saracen's head to 
 his gentle reproof of the baggage of a gipsy that 
 tells him " he has a widow in his line of life" to 
 his doubts as to the existence of witchcraft, and 
 protection of reputed witches to his account of 
 the family pictures, and his choice of a chaplain 
 to his falling asleep at church, and his reproof of 
 John WilHams, as soon as he recovered from his 
 nap, for talking in sermon-time. The characters 
 of Will. Wimble and Will. Honeycomb are not a 
 whit behind their friend, Sir Roger, in delicacy 
 and felicity. The delightful simplicity and good- 
 humoured officiousness in the one, are set off by 
 the graceful affectation and courtly pretension in 
 the other. How long since I first became ac- 
 quainted with these two characters in the Spec-
 
 192 ON THE PERIODICAL ESSAYISTS. 
 
 tator ! What old-fashioned friends they seem, 
 and yet I arn not tired of them, like so many 
 other friends, nor they of me ! How airy these 
 abstractions of the poet's pen stream over the 
 dawn of our acquaintance with human life ! how 
 they glance their fairest colours on the prospect 
 before us ! how pure they remain in it to the last, 
 like the rainbow in the evening-cloud, which the 
 rude hand of time and experience can neither soil 
 nor dissipate ! What a pity that we cannot find 
 the reality, and yet if we did, the dream would be 
 over. I once thought I knew a Will. Wimble, 
 and a Will. Honeycomb, but they turned out but 
 indifferently ; the originals in the Spectator still 
 read, word for word, the same that they always 
 did. We have only to turn to the page, and find 
 them where we left them ! Many of the most 
 exquisite pieces in the Tatler, it is to be observed, 
 are Addison's, as the Court of Honour, and the 
 Personification of Musical Instruments, with almost 
 all those papers that form regular sets or series. 
 I do not know whether the picture of the family of 
 an old college acquaintance, in the Tatler, where the 
 children run to let Mr. Bickerstaff in at the door, 
 and where the one that loses the race that way, 
 turns back to tell the father that he is come ; with 
 the nice gradation of incredulity in the little boy, 
 who is got into Guy of Warwick, and the Seven
 
 ON THE PERIODICAL ESSAYISTS. . 193 
 
 Champions, and who shakes his head at the im- 
 probability of ^sop's Fables, is Steele's or Ad- 
 dison's, though I believe it belongs to the former. 
 The account of the two sisters, one of whom held 
 up her head higher than ordinary, from having on 
 a pair of flowered garters, and that of the married 
 lady who complained to the Tatler of the neglect 
 of her husband, with her answers to some home 
 questions that were put to her, are unquestionably 
 Steele's. If the Tatler is not inferior to the Spec- 
 tator as a record of manners and character, it is 
 superior to it in the interest of many of the stories. 
 Several of the incidents related there by Steele have 
 never been surpassed in the heart-rending pathos 
 of private distress. I might refer to those of the 
 lover and hii mistress, when the theatre, in which 
 they were, caught fire ; of the bridegroom, who by 
 accident kills his bride on the day of their mar- 
 riage; the story of Mr. Eustace and his wife; and 
 the fine dream about his own mistress when a 
 youth. What has given its superior reputation 
 to the Spectator, is the greater gravity of its pre- 
 tensions, its moral dissertations and critical reason- 
 ings, by wliicli I confess myself less edified than 
 by other things, whicli are thoug^it more lightlv 
 of. Systems and oj)inions change, but nature is 
 always true. It is the moral and didactic tone ol 
 the Spectator which makes us apt to think ol
 
 194 ON THE PERIODICAL EvSSAYISTS. 
 
 Addison (according to Mandeville's scarcasm) as 
 " a parson in a tie-wig." Many of his moral 
 Essays are, however, exquisitely beautiful and quite 
 happy. Such are the reflections on cheerfulness, 
 those in Westminster Abbey, on the Royal Ex- 
 change, and particularly some very affecting ones 
 on the death of a young lady in the fourth volume. 
 These, it must be allowed, are the perfection of 
 elegant sermonising. His critical Essays are not 
 so good. I prefer Steele's occasional selection of 
 beautiful poetical passages, without any affectation 
 of analysing their beauties, to Addison's finer-spun 
 theories. The best criticism in the Spectator, 
 that on the Cartoons of Raphael, of which Mr. 
 Fuseli has availed himself with great spirit in his 
 Lectures, is by Steele.* I owed this acknowledg- 
 ment to a writer who has so often put me in good 
 humour with myself, and every thing about me, 
 when few things else could, and when the tomes 
 of casuistry and ecclesiastical history, with which 
 the little duodecimo volumes of the Tatler were 
 overwhelmed and surrounded, in the only library to 
 
 * I'lie antithetical style and verbal paradoxes which 
 Burke was so fond of, in which the epitiiet is a seeming con- 
 tradiction to the substantivCj suoli as " proud submission 
 and dignified obedience," are, I think, first to be found in 
 the Tatler.
 
 ON THE PERIODICAL ESSAYISTS. 195 
 
 which I had access when a boy, had tried their tran- 
 quilh'sing effects upon me in vain. I had not long 
 ago in my hands, by favour of a friend, an original 
 copy of the quarto edition of the Tatler, with a 
 list of the subscribers. It is curious to see some 
 names there which we should hardly think of, 
 (that of Sir Isaac Newton is among them,) and also 
 to observe the degree of interest excited by those 
 of the different persons, which is not determined 
 according to the rules of the Herald's College. 
 One literary name lasts as long as a whole race of 
 heroes and their descendants ! The Guardian, 
 which followed the Spectator, was, as may be 
 supposed, inferior to it. 
 
 The dramatic and conversational turn which 
 forms the distinguishing feature and greatest charm 
 of tlie Spectator and Tatler, is quite lost in the 
 Rambler by Dr. Johnson. There is no reflected 
 light thrown on human life from an assumed 
 character, nor any direct one from a display of the 
 author's own. The Tatler and Spectator are, as 
 it were, made up of notes and memorandums of 
 the events and incidents of the dav, with finished 
 studies after nature, and characters fresh from the 
 life, which the writer moralises upon, and turns to 
 account as they come before him : the Rambler is 
 a collection of moral Essays, or scholastic theses.
 
 196 ON THE PERIODICAL ESSAYISTS. 
 
 written on set subjects, and of which the individual 
 characters and incidents are merely artificial illus- 
 trations, brought in to give a pretended relief to 
 the dryness of didactic discussion. The Rambler 
 is a splendid and imposing common-place-book of 
 general topics, and rhetorical declamation on the 
 conduct and business of human life. In this sense, 
 there is hardly a reflection that had been suggested 
 on such subjects which is not to be found in this 
 celebrated work, and there is, perhaps, hardly a 
 reflection to be found in it which had not been 
 already suggested and developed by some other 
 author, or in the common course of conversa- 
 tion. The mass of intellectual wealth here 
 heaped together is immense, but it is rather the 
 result of gradual accumulation, the produce of 
 the general intellect, labouring in the mine of 
 knowledge and reflection, than dug out of the 
 quarry, and dragged into the light by the in- 
 dustry and sagacity of a single mind. I am 
 not here saying that Dr. Johnson was a man 
 without originality, compared with the ordinary 
 run of men's minds, but he was not a man of 
 original thought or genius, in the sense in which 
 Montaigne or Lord Bacon was. He opened no 
 new vein of precious ore, nor did he light upon 
 any single pebbles of uncommon size and un- 
 rivalled lustre. We seldom meet witli ar.v thin*;
 
 ON THE PERIODICAL ESSAYISTS. 197 
 
 to " give us pause ; " he does not set us thinking 
 for the first time. His reflections present them- 
 selves like reminiscences ; do not disturb the 
 ordinary march of our thoughts ; arrest our at- 
 tention by the stateliness of their appearance, and 
 the costliness of their garb, but pass on and 
 mingle with the throng of our impressions. After 
 closing the volumes of the Rambler, there is 
 nothing that we remember as a new truth gained 
 to the mind, nothing indelibly stamped upon the 
 meraory ; nor is there any passage that we wish 
 to turn to as embodying any known principle or 
 observation, with such force and beauty that 
 justice can only be done to the idea in the author's 
 own words. Such, for instance, are many of the 
 passages to be found in Burke, which shine by their 
 own light, belong to no class, have neither equal 
 nor counterpart, and of which we say that no one 
 but the author could have written them ! There 
 is neither the same boldness of design, nor mas- 
 tery of execution in Johnson. In the one, the 
 spark of genius seems to have met with its con- 
 genial matter : the shaft is sped ; the forked 
 lightning dresses up the face of nature in ghastly 
 smiles, and the loud thunder rolls far away from 
 the ruin that is made. Dr. Johnson's style, on the 
 contrary, resembles rather the rumbling of mimic 
 thunder at one of our theatres ; and the li^ht he
 
 19S ON THE PERIODICAL ESSAYISTS. 
 
 throws upon a subject is like the dazzling effect of 
 phosphorus, or an ignis fatiius of words. There is a 
 wide difference, however, between perfect originality 
 and perfect common-place : neither ideas nor ex- 
 pressions are trite or vulgar because they are not 
 quite new. They are valuable, and ought to be 
 repeated, if they have not become quite common ; 
 and Johnson's style both of reasoning and imagery 
 holds the middle rank between startling novelty 
 and vapid common-place. Johnson has as much 
 originality of thinking as Addison ; but then he 
 wants his familiarity of illustration, knowledge of 
 character, and delightful humour. What most 
 distinguishes Dr. Johnson from other writers is 
 the pomp and uniformity of his style. All his 
 periods are cast in the same mould, are of the 
 same size and shape, and consequently have little 
 fitness to the variety of things he professes to 
 treat of. His subjects are familiar, but the author 
 is always upon stilts. He has neither ease nor 
 simplicity, and his efforts at playfulness, in part, 
 remind one of the lines in Milton : 
 
 ft li\\e elephant 
 
 'i'o luake them sport wieath'd his proboscis lithe," 
 
 His Lcttirs from Correspondents, in particular, are 
 more pompous and unwieldy than what he writes
 
 ON THE PERIODICAL ESSAYISTS. 199 
 
 ill his own person. This want of relaxation and 
 variety of manner has, .1 think, after the first 
 effects of novelty and surprise were over, been 
 prejudicial to the matter. It takes from the 
 general power, not only to please, but to instruct. 
 The monotony of style produces an apparent mo- 
 notony of ideas. What is really striking and 
 valuable, is lost in the vain ostentation and 
 circumlocution of the expression ; for when we find 
 the same pains and pomp of diction bestowed 
 upon the most trifling as upon the most important 
 parts of a sentence or discourse, we grow tired of 
 distinguishing between pretension and reality, and 
 are disposed to confound the tinsel and bombast 
 of the phraseology with want of weight in the 
 thoughts. Thus, from the imposing and oracular 
 nature of the style, people are tempted at first to 
 imagine that our author's speculations are all wis- 
 dom and profundity : till having found out their 
 mistake in some instances, they suppose that there 
 is nothing but common-place in them, concealed 
 imder verbiage and pedantry ; and in both they are 
 wrong. The fault of Dr. Johnson's style is, tiiat it 
 reduces all thing's to the same artificial and un- 
 meaning level. It destroys all shades of difference, 
 the association between vrords and tilings. It is 
 a perpetual paradox and innovation. He conde- 
 scends to the familiar till we are ashamed of our
 
 200 ON THE PERIODICAL ESSAYISTS. 
 
 interest in it : he expands the Utile till it looks big. 
 ''If he were to write a fable of little fishes," as Gold- 
 smith said of him, " he would make them speak like 
 great w^iales." We can no more distinguish the 
 most familiar objects in his descriptions of tl>em, 
 than we can a well-known face under a huge 
 painted mask. The structure of his sentences, 
 which was his own invention, and which has been 
 generally imitated since his time, is a species of 
 rhyming in prose, where one clause answers to 
 another in measure and quantity, like the tagging 
 of syllables at the end of a verse; the close of the 
 period follows as mechanically as the oscillation 
 of a pendulum, the sense is balanced with the 
 sound ; each sentence, revolving round its centre 
 of gravity, is contained with itself like a couplet, 
 and each paragraph forms itself into a stanza. 
 Dr. Johnson is also a complete balance-master in 
 the topics of morality. Fie never encourages hope, 
 but he counteracts it by fear ; he never elicits a 
 truth, but he suggests some objection in answer to 
 it. He seizes and alternately quits the clue of 
 reason, lest it should involve him in the labyrinths 
 oi ejidless error: he wants confidence in himself 
 and ]iis fellows. He dares not trust himself with 
 tiic immediate impressions of things, for fear of 
 conipromising his dignity; or follow them into 
 their consequences, for fear of committing his pre-
 
 ON THE PERIODICAL ESSAYISTS. 201 
 
 Indices. His timidity is the result, not of ignorance, 
 but of morbid apprehension. " He runs the great 
 circle, and is still at home." No advance is made by 
 his writings in any sentiment, or mode of reasoning. 
 Out of the pale of established authority and received 
 dogmas, all is sceptical, loose, and desultory : he 
 seems in imagination to strengthen the dominion 
 of prejudice, as he weakens and dissipates that of 
 reason ; and round the rock of faith and power, 
 on the edge of which he slumbers blindfold and 
 uneasy, the waves and billows of uncertain and 
 dangerous opinion roar and heave for evermore. 
 His Rasselas is the most melancholy and debilitat- 
 ing moral speculation that ever was put forth. 
 Doubtful of the faculties of his mind, as of his or- 
 gans of vision, Johnson trusted only to his feelings 
 and his fears. He cultivated a belief in witches 
 as an out-guard to the evidences of religion ; and 
 abused Milton, and patronised Lauder, in spite of 
 his aversion to his countrymen, as a step to secure 
 the existing establishment in church and state. 
 This was neither right feeling nor sound logic. 
 
 The most triumphant record of the talents and 
 character of Johnson is to be found in Bos well's 
 Life of him. The man was superior to the author. 
 When he threw aside his pen, which he regarded 
 as an incumbrance,, he became not only learned
 
 202 ON THE PERIODICAL ESSAYISTS. 
 
 and thoughtful, but acute, witty, humorous, natural, 
 honest; hearty and determined, " the king of 
 good fellows and wale of old men." There are as 
 many smart repartees, profound remarks, and 
 keen invectives to be found in Boswell's " inven- 
 tory of all he said," as are recorded of any cele- 
 brated man. The life and dramatic play of his 
 conversation forms a contrast to his written 
 works. His natural powers and undisguised opi- 
 nions were called out in convivial intercourse. In 
 public, he practised with the foils on : in pri- 
 vate, he unsheathed the sword of controversy, and 
 it was " the Ebro's temper." The eagerness of 
 opposition roused him from his natural sluggish- 
 ness and acquired timidity; he returned blow for 
 blow ; and whether the trial were of argument or 
 wit, none of his rivals could boast much of the 
 encounter. Burke seems to have been the only 
 person who had a chance with him : and it is the 
 unpardonable sin of Boswell's work, that he has 
 purposely omitted their combats of strength and 
 skill. Goldsmith asked, " Does he wind into a 
 subject like a serpent, as Burke does?" And 
 when exhausted with sickness, he himself said, 
 " If that fellow Burke were here now, he would 
 kill me. ' It is to be observed, that Johnson's 
 colloquial style was as blunt, direct, and dowinight, 
 as his style of studied composition was involved
 
 ON THE PERIODICAL ESSAYISTS. 203 
 
 and circuitous. As when Topham Beauclerc and 
 Langton knocked him up at his chambers, at three 
 in the morning, and he came to the door with the 
 poker in his hand, but seeing them, exclaimed, 
 " What, is it you, my lads ? then I'll have a frisk 
 with you!" and he afterwards reproaches Lang- 
 ton, who was a literary milksop, for leaving them 
 to go to an engagement " with some un-idead 
 girls." What words to come from the mouth of 
 the great moralist and lexicographer ! His good 
 deeds were as many as his good sayings. His 
 domestic habits, his tenderness to servants, and 
 readiness to oblige his friends ; the quantity of 
 strong tea that he drank to keep down sad 
 thoughts ; his many labours reluctantly begun, and 
 irresolutely laid aside ; his honest acknowledg- 
 ment of his own, and indulgence to the weak- 
 nesses of others ; his throwing himself back in 
 the post-chaise with Boswell, and saying, " Now 
 I think I am a good-humoured fellow," though no- 
 body thought him so, and yet he was ; his quitting 
 the society of Garrick and his actresses, and his 
 reason for it ; liis dining with Wilkes, and his kind- 
 ness to Goldsmith ; his sitting with the young 
 ladies on his knee at the Mitre, to give them good 
 advice, in which situation, if not explained, he 
 might be taken for Falstaff; and last and noblest, 
 bis carrying the unfortunate victim of disease and
 
 204 ON THE PERIODICAL ESSAYISTS. 
 
 dissipation on his back up through Fleet Street, 
 (an act which reahses the parable of the good 
 Samaritan) all these, and innumerable others, en- 
 dear him to the reader, and must be remembered 
 to his lasting honour. He had faults, but they 
 he buried with him. He had his prejudices and 
 his intolerant feelings ; but he suffered enough in 
 the conflict of his own mind with them. For if 
 no man can be happy in the free exercise of his 
 reason, no wise man can be happy without it. 
 His were not time-serving, heartless, hypocritical 
 prejudices ; but deep, inwoven, not to be rooted 
 out but with life and hope, which he found from 
 old habit necessary to his own peace of mind, 
 and thought so to the peace of mankind. I do 
 not hate, but love him for them. They were be- 
 tween himself and his conscience ; and should be 
 left to that higher tribunal, " where they in 
 trembling hope repose, the bosom of his Father 
 and his God." In a word, he has left behind him 
 few wiser or better men. 
 
 The herd of his imitators shewed what he was 
 by their disproportionate effects. The Periodical 
 Essayists, that succeeded the Rambler, are, and 
 deserve to be, little read at present. The 
 Adventurer, by Hawksworth, is completely trite 
 and vapid, aping all the faults of Johnson's
 
 ON THE PERIODICAL ESSAYISTS. 205 
 
 style, without any thing to atone for them. 
 The sentences are often absolutely unmeaning ; 
 and one half of each might regularly be left 
 blank. The World, and Connoisseur, which fol- 
 lowed, are a little better ; and in the last of these 
 there is one good idea, that of a man in indifferent 
 health, who judges of every one's title to respect 
 from their possession of this blessing, and bows to 
 a sturdy beggar with sound limbs and a florid com- 
 plexion, while he turns his back upon a lord who 
 is a valetudinarian. 
 
 Goldsmith's Citizen of the World, like all his 
 works, bears the stamp of the author's mind. It 
 does not " go about to cozen reputation without 
 the stamp of merit." He is more observing, more 
 original, more natural and picturesque than John- 
 son. His work is written on the model of the 
 Persian Letters ; and contrives to give an abstracted 
 and somewhat perplexing view of things, by op- 
 posing foreign prepossessions to our own, and 
 thus stripping objects of their customary disguises. 
 Whether truth is elicited in this collision of con- 
 trary absurdities, I do not know ; but I confess 
 the ]n-ocess is too ambiguous and full of intricacy 
 to be very amusing to my plain understanding. 
 For light summer reading, it is like walking in a 
 garden full of traps and pitfalls. It necessarily
 
 206 ON THE PERIODICAL ESSAYISTS. 
 
 gives rise to paradoxes, and there are some very 
 bold ones in the Essays, which would subject an 
 author less established to no very agreeable sort 
 of censura litcraria. Thus the Chinese philoso- 
 pher exclaims very unadvisedly, " The bonzes and 
 priests of all religions keep up superstition and 
 imposture : all reformations begin with the laity." 
 Goldsmith, however, was staunch in his practical 
 creed, and might bolt speculative extravagances 
 with impunity. There is a striking difference in 
 this respect between him and Addison, who, if he 
 attacked authority, took care to have common 
 sense on his side, and never hazarded any thing 
 offensive to the feelings of others, or on the 
 strength of his own discretional opinion. There 
 is another inconvenience in this assumj3tion of an 
 exotic character and tone of sentiment, that it 
 produces an inconsistency between the knowledge 
 which the individual has time to acquire, and 
 which the author is bound to communicate. Thus 
 the Chinese has not been in England three days 
 before he is acquainted with the characters of the 
 three countries which compose this kingdom, and 
 describes them to his friend at Canton, by extracts 
 from the newspapers of each metropolis. The 
 nationality of Scotchmen is thus ridiculed: 
 " EdinburgJi. We are positive when we say, that 
 Sanders Macgregor, lately executed for horse-
 
 ON THE PERIODICAL ESSAYISTS. 207 
 
 stealing, is not a nativ^e of Scotland, but born at 
 Carrickfergus." Now this is very good ; but how- 
 should our Chinese philosopher find it out by in- 
 stinct? Beau Tibbs, a prominent character in 
 this little work, is the best comic sketch since the 
 time of Addison; unrivalled in his finery, his 
 vanity, and his poverty. 
 
 I have only to mention the names of the 
 Lounger and the Mirror, which are ranked by the 
 author's admirers with Sterne for sentiment, and 
 with Addison for humour. I shall not enter into 
 that : but I know that the story of La Roche 
 is not like the story of Le Fevre, nor one hun- 
 dredth part so good. Do I say this from pre- 
 judice to the author? No: for I have read his 
 novels. Of the Man of the World I cannot think 
 so favourablv as some others ; nor shall I here 
 dwell on the picturesque and romantic beau- 
 ties of Julia de Roubigne, the early favourite of 
 the author of Rosamond Gray; but of the Man 
 of Feeling I would speak with grateful recollec- 
 tions : nor is it possible to forget the sensitive, 
 irresolute, interesting Harley ; and that lone figure 
 of Miss Walton in it, that floats in the horizon, 
 dim and ethereal, the day-dream of her lovers 
 youthful fancy better, far better than all Ojc 
 realities of life !
 
 LECTURE VI. 
 
 ON THE ENGLISH NOVELISTS. 
 
 There is an exclamation in one of Gray's Let- 
 ters " Be mine to read eternal new romances of 
 Marivaux and Crebillon !" If I did not utter a 
 similar aspiration at the conclusion of the last new 
 novel wliich I read (I would not give offence by 
 being more particular as to the name) it was not 
 from anv want of affection for the class of writing 
 to which it belongs : for, without going so far as 
 the celebrated French ])hilosopher, who thought 
 that more was to be learnt from ^ood novels and 
 romances than from the gravest treatises on his- 
 tory and morality, yet there are iew uorks to 
 which I am often er tempted to turn for profit or 
 delight, than to the standard productions in this 
 species of composition. We find there a cloae 
 imitation of men and manners ; we see the very 
 web and texture of society as it really exists, and 
 as we meet with it when we come into tlie world. 
 If poetry has " sometlung more divine in it," this
 
 ON THE ENGLISH NOVELISTS. 20^ 
 
 savours more of humanity. We are brought ac- 
 quainted with the motives and characters of man- 
 kind, imbibe our notions of virtue and vice from 
 practical examples, and are taught a knowledge of 
 the world through the airy medium of romance. 
 As a record of past manners and opinions, too, such 
 writings afford the best and fullest information. 
 For example, I should be at a loss where to find 
 in any authentic documents of the same period so 
 satisfactory an account of the general state of so- 
 ciety, and of moral, political, and religious feeling 
 in the reign of George II. as we meet with in the 
 Adventures of Joseph Andrews and his friend 
 Mr. Abraham Adams. This work, indeed, I take 
 to be a perfect piece of statistics in its kind. In 
 looking into any regular history of that period, 
 into a learned and eloquent charge to a grand jury 
 or the clergy of a diocese, or into a tract on con- 
 troversial divinity, we should hear only of the as- 
 cendancy of the Protestant succession, the horrors 
 of Popery, the triumph of civil and religious 
 liberty, the wisdom and moderation of the sove- 
 reign, the happiness of the subject, and the flourish- 
 ing state of manufactures and commerce. But if 
 we really wish to know what all these fine-sounding 
 names come to, we cannot do better than turn to 
 the works of those, who having no other object 
 than to imitate nature, could only hope for success 
 
 1'
 
 210 ON THE ENGLISH NOVELISTS. 
 
 from the fidelity of their pictures ; and were bound 
 (in self-defence) to reduce the boasts of vague 
 theorists and the exaggerations of angry disputants 
 to the mortifying standard of reality. Extremes 
 are said to meet : and the works of imagination, 
 as they are called, sometimes come the nearest to 
 truth and nature. Fielding in speaking on this 
 subject, and vindicating the use and dignity of the 
 style of writing in which he excelled against the 
 loftier pretensions of professed historians, says, 
 that in their productions nothing is true but the 
 names and dates, whereas in his every thing is 
 true but the names and dates. If so, he has the 
 advantage on his side. 
 
 I will here confess, however, that I am a little 
 prejudiced on the point in question ; and that the 
 effect of many fine speculations has been lost upon 
 me, from an early familiarity with the most 
 striking passages in the work to which I have just 
 alluded. Thus nothing can be more captivating 
 than the description somewhere given by Mr. Burke 
 of the indissoluble connection between learning 
 and nobility ; and of the respect universally paid by 
 wealth to piety and morals. But the effect of this 
 ideal representation has always been spoiled by my 
 recollection of Parson Adams sitting over his cup 
 of ale in Sir Thomas Booby's kitchen. Echard
 
 ON THE ENGLISH NOVELISTS. 11 
 
 ^^ On the Contempt of the Clergy" is, in like 
 manner, a very good book, and " worthy of all ac- 
 ceptation :" but, somehow, an unlucky impression of 
 the reality of Parson TruUiber involuntarily checks 
 the emotions of respect, to which it might other- 
 wise give rise: while, on the other hand, the 
 lecture which Lady Booby reads to Lawyer Scout 
 on the immediate expulsion of Joseph and Fanny 
 from the parish, casts no very favourable light on 
 the flattering accounts of our practical jurispru- 
 dence which are to be found in Blackstone or De 
 Lolme. The most moral writers, after all, are 
 those who do not pretend to inculcate any moral. 
 The professed moralist almost unavoidably degene- 
 rates into the partisan of a system ; and the philo- 
 sopher is too apt to warp the evidence to his own 
 purpose. But the painter of manners gives the 
 facts of human nature, and leaves us to draw the in- 
 ference : if we are not able to do this, or do it ill, at 
 least it is our own fault. 
 
 The first-rate writers in this class, of course, are 
 few ; but those few we may reckon among the 
 greatest ornaments and best benefactors of our kind. 
 There is a certain set of them who, as it were, take 
 their rank by the side of reality, and are appealed 
 to as evidence on all questions concerning human 
 nature. The principal of these are Cervantes and
 
 212 ON THE ENGLISH NOVELISTS. 
 
 Le Sage, who may be considered as having been 
 naturalised among ourselves ; and, of native 
 English growth, Fielding, Smollett, Richardson, 
 and Sterne.* As this is a department of criticism 
 which deserves more attention than has been 
 usually bestowed upon it, I shall here venture to 
 recur (not from choice, but necessity) to what I 
 have said upon it in a well known periodical 
 publication ; and endeavour to contribute my 
 mite towards settling the standard of excellence, 
 both as to degree and kind, in these several 
 writers. 
 
 I shall begin with the history of the renowned 
 Don Quixote de la Mancha ; who presents some- 
 thing more stately, more romantic, and at the same 
 time more real to the imagination than any other 
 hero upon record. His lineaments, his accoutre- 
 ments, his pasteboard vizor, are familiar to us ; and 
 Mambrino's helmet still glitters in the sun I We 
 not only feel the greatest love and veneration for 
 the knight himself, but a certain respect for all 
 
 * It is not to be forgotten that the author of Robinson 
 Crusoe was also an Englishman. His other works, such us 
 the Life of Colonel Jack, &c. are of the same cast, and 
 leave an impression on the mind more like that of things 
 than words.
 
 ON THE ENGLISH NOVELISTS. 513 
 
 those connected with him, the curate and Master 
 Nicolas the barber, Sancho and Dapple, and 
 even for Rosinante's leanness and his errors. 
 Perhaps there is no work which combines so much 
 whimsical invention with such an air of truth. Its 
 popularity is almost unequalled ; and yet its merits 
 have not been sufficiently understood. The story 
 is the least part of them ; though the blunders of 
 Sancho, and the unlucky adventures of his master, 
 are what naturally catch the attention of the ma- 
 jority of readers. The pathos and dignity of the 
 sentiments are often disguised under the ludicrous- 
 ness of the subject ; and provoke laughter when 
 they might well draw tears. The character of Don 
 Quixote himself is one of the most perfect disin- 
 terestedness. He is an enthusiast of the most 
 amiable kind ; of a nature equally open, gentle, and 
 generous ; a lover of truth and justice; and one 
 who had brooded over the fine dreams of chivalry 
 and romance, till they had robbed him of himself, 
 and cheated his brain into a belief of their reality. 
 There cannot be a greater mistake than to consider 
 Don Quixote as a merely satirical work, or as a 
 vulgar attempt to explode "^ the long-forgotten 
 order of chivalry."' There could be no need to ex- 
 plode what no longer existed. Besides, Cervantes 
 himself was a man of the most sanguine and en- 
 tliusiastic temperament ; and even through the
 
 214 ON THE ENGLISH NOVELISTS. 
 
 crazed and battered figure of the knight, the spirit 
 of chivalry shines out with undiminished lustre ; 
 as if the author had half-designed to revive the 
 example of past ages, and once more " witch the 
 world with noble horsemanship." Oh ! if ever the 
 mouldering flame of Spanish liberty is destined to 
 break forth, wrapping the tyrant and the tyranny 
 in one consuming blaze, that the spark of generous 
 sentiment and romantic enterprise, from which it 
 must be kindled, has not been quite extinguished, 
 will perhaps be owing to thee, Cervantes, and to 
 thy Don Quixote ! 
 
 The character of Sancho is not more admirable 
 in itself, than as a relief to that of the knight. 
 The contrast is as picturesque and striking as that 
 between the figures of Rosinante and Dapple. 
 Never was there so complete a partie quarree : 
 they answer to one another at all points. Nothing 
 need surpass the truth of physiognomy in the de- 
 scription of the master and man, both as to body 
 and mind ; the one lean and tall, the other round 
 and short ; the one heroical and courteous, the 
 other selfish and servile; the one full of high- 
 flown fancies, the other a bag of proverbs ; the 
 one always starting some romantic scheme, the 
 other trying to keep to the safe side of custom 
 and tradition. The gradual ascendancy, however.
 
 ON THE ENGLISH NOVELISTS. 215 
 
 obtained by Don Quixote over Sancbo, is as finely 
 managed as it is characteristic. Credulity and a 
 love of the marvellous are as natural to ignorance, 
 as selfishness and cunning. Sancho by degrees be- 
 comes a kind of lay-brother of the order ; acquires 
 a taste for adventures in his own way, and is made 
 all but an entire convert, by the discovery of the 
 hundred crowns in one of his most comfortless 
 journeys. Towards the end, his regret at being 
 forced to give up the pursuit of knight-errantry, 
 almost equals his master s ; and he seizes the pro- 
 posal of Don Quixote for them to turn shepherds 
 with the greatest avidity still applying it in his 
 own fashion ; for while the Don is ingeniously 
 torturing the names of his humble acquaintance 
 into classical terminations, and contriving scenes 
 of gallantry and song, Sancho exclaims, " Oh, what 
 delicate wooden spoons shall I carve! what crumbs 
 and cream shall I devour!" forgetting, in his 
 milk and fruits, the pullets and geese at Camacho's 
 wedding. 
 
 This intuitive perception of the hidden ana- 
 logies of things, or, as it may be called, this 
 instinct of the imagination, is, perhaps, what stamps 
 the character of genius on tlie productions of art 
 more than any other circumstance : for it works 
 unconsciously, like nature, and receives its im-
 
 216 ON THE ENGLISH NOVELISTS. 
 
 pressions from a kind of inspiration. There is as 
 much of this indistinct keeping and involuntary 
 unity of purpose in Cervantes, as in any author 
 whatever. Something of the same unsettled, ram- 
 bling humour extends itself to all the subordinate 
 parts and characters of the work. Thus we find 
 the curate confidentially informing Don Quixote, 
 that if he could get the eaf of the government, he 
 has something of considerable importance to pro- 
 pose for the good of the state ; and our adventurer 
 afterwards (in the course of his peregrinations) 
 meets with a young gentleman who is a candidate 
 for poetical honours, with a mad lover, a forsaken 
 damsel, a Mahometan lady converted to the Chris- 
 tian faith, &c. all delineated with the same truth, 
 wildness, and delicacy of fancy. The whole work 
 breathes that air of romance, that aspiration after 
 imaginary good, that indescribable longing after 
 something more than we possess, that in all places 
 and in all conditions of life, 
 
 " still prompts the eternal sigh. 
 
 For wliich we wish to live, or ilare to die !" 
 
 The leading characters in Don Quixote are strictly 
 individuals ; that is, they do not so much belong 
 to, as form a class by themselves. In other words, 
 the actions and manners of the chief dramatid' pcr- 
 so)/cc do not arise out of the actions and manners
 
 ON THE ENGLISH NOVELISTS. 217 
 
 of those around them, or the situation of life in 
 which they are placed, but out of the peculiar 
 dispositions of the persons themselves, operated 
 upon by certain impulses of caprice and accident. 
 Yet these impulses are so true to nature, and their 
 operation so exactly described, that we not only 
 recognise the fidelity of the representation, but 
 recognise it with all the advantages of novelty 
 superadded. They are in the best sense originals, 
 namely, in the sense in which nature has her 
 originals. They are unlike any thing we have 
 seen before may be said to be purely ideal; 
 and yet identify themselves more readily with our 
 imagination, and are retained more strongly in 
 memory, than perhaps any others : they are never 
 lost in the crowd. One test of the truth of this 
 ideal painting is the number of allusions which 
 Don Quixote has furnished to the whole of civilised 
 Europe ; that is to say, of appropriate cases and 
 striking illustrations of the universal principles of 
 our nature. The detached incidents and occasional 
 descriptions of human life are more familiar and 
 obvious ; so that we have nearly the same insight 
 here given us into the characters of innkeepers, 
 bar-maids, ostlers, and puppet-show men, that we 
 have in Fielding. There is a much greater mix- 
 ture, however, of the pathetic and sentimental 
 Avitli the quaint and humorous, than there ever
 
 218 ON THE ENGLISH NOVELISTS. 
 
 is in Fielding. I might instance the story of the 
 coantryraan whom Don Quixote and Sancho met 
 in their doubtful search after Dulcinea, driving his 
 mules to plough at break of day, and " singing 
 the ancient ballad of Ronscevalles !" The episodes, 
 which are frequently introduced, are excellent, but 
 have, upon the whole, been overrated. They de- 
 rive their interest from their connexion with the 
 main story. We are so pleased with that, that we 
 are disposed to receive pleasure from every thing 
 else. Compared, for instance, with the serious 
 tales in Boccaccio, they are slight and somewhat 
 superficial. That of Marcella, the fair shepherdess, 
 is, I think, the best. I shall only add, that Don 
 Quixote was, at the time it was published, an en- 
 tirely original work in its kind, and that the author 
 claims the highest honour which can belong to 
 one, that of being the inventor of a new style of 
 writing. I have never read his Galatea, nor his 
 Loves of Persiles and Sigismunda, though I have 
 often meant to do it, and I hope to do so yet. 
 Perhaps there is a reason lurking at the bottom 
 of this dilatoriness : I am quite sure the reading 
 of these works could not make me think higher 
 of the author of Don Quixote, and it might, for a 
 moment or two, make me think less. 
 
 There is another Spanish novel, (iusman
 
 ON THE ENGLISH NOVELISTS. SI9 
 
 D'Alfarache, nearly of the same age as Don 
 Quixote, and of great genius, though it can hardly 
 be ranked as a novel or a work of imagination. 
 It is a series of strange, unconnected adventures, 
 rather drily told, but accompanied by the most 
 severe and sarcastic commentary. The satire, the 
 wit, the eloquence and reasoning, are of the most 
 potent kind: but they are didactic rather than 
 dramatic. They would suit a homily or a pas- 
 quinade as well or better than a romance. Still 
 there are in this extraordinary book occasional 
 sketches of character and humorous descriptions, 
 to which it would be difficult to produce any thing 
 superior. This work, which is hardly known in 
 this country except by name, has the credit, with- 
 out any reason, of being the original of Gil Bias. 
 There is one incident the same, that of the un- 
 savoury ragout, which is served up for supper at 
 the inn. In all other respects these two works 
 are the very reverse of each other, both in their 
 excellences and defects. Lazarillo de Tormes has 
 been more read than the Spanish Rogue, and is a 
 work more readable, on this account among others, 
 that it is contained in a duodecimo instead of a folio 
 volume. This, however, is long enough, consider- 
 ing that it treats of only one subject, that of eating, 
 or rather the ])ossibility of living without eating. 
 Famine is here framed into an art, and feasting is
 
 2^0 ON THE ENGLISH NOVELISTS. 
 
 banished far hence. The hero's time and thoughts 
 are taken up in a thousand shifts to procure a 
 dinner; and that failing, in tampering with his 
 stomach till supper time, when being forced to go 
 supperless to bed, he comforts himself with the 
 hopes of a breakfast the next morning, of which 
 being again disappointed, he reserves his appetite 
 for a luncheon, and then has to stave it off again 
 by some meagre excuse or other till dinner ; and so 
 on, by a perpetual adjournment of this necessary 
 process, through the four and twenty hours round. 
 The quantity of food proper to keep body and 
 soul together is reduced to a minimum ; and the 
 most uninviting morsels with which Lazarillo 
 meets once a week as a God's-send, are pampered 
 into the most sumptuous fare by a long course of 
 inanition. The scene of this novel could be laid 
 nowhere so properly as in Spain, that land of 
 priestcraft and poverty, where hunger seems to 
 be the ruling passion, and starving the order of the 
 day. 
 
 Gil Bias has, next to Don Quixote, been more 
 generally read and admired than any other novel ; 
 and in one sense, deservedly so : for it is at the 
 head of its class, though that class is very different 
 from, and I slioald say inferior to the other. 
 There is little individual character in Gil Bias. The
 
 ON THE ENGLISH NOVELISTS. 221 
 
 author is a describer of manners, and not of cha^ 
 racter. He does not take the elements of human 
 nature, and work them up into new combinations 
 (which is the excellence of Don Quixote) ; nor 
 trace the peculiar and shifting shades of folly and 
 knavery as they are to be found in real life (like 
 Fielding) : but he takes off, as it were, the general, 
 habitual impression which circumstances make on 
 certain conditions of hfe, and moulds all his cha- 
 racters accordingly. All the persons whom he in- 
 troduces, carry about with them the badge of their 
 profession ; and you see little more of them than 
 their costume. He describes men as belonging 
 to distinct classes in society; not as they are 
 in themselves, or with the individual differences 
 which are always to be discovered in nature. 
 His hero, in particular, has no character but 
 that of the successive circumstances in which 
 he is placed. His priests are only described as 
 priests : his valets, his players, his women, his 
 courtiers and his sharpers, are all alike. Nothing 
 can well exceed the monotony of the work in this 
 respect : at the same time that nothing can exceed 
 the truth and precision with which the general 
 manners of these different characters are preserved, 
 nor the felicity of the particular traits by which 
 their common foibles are brouirht out. Thus the 
 Arclibishop of Grenada will remain an everlasting
 
 nn ON THE ENGLl&FI NOVELISTS. 
 
 memento of the weakness of human vanity ; and 
 the account of Gil Bias' legacy, of the uncertainty 
 of human expectations. This novel is also deficient 
 in the fable as well as in the characters. It is not 
 a regularly constructed story ; but a series of 
 amusing adventures told with equal gaiety 
 and good sense, and in the most graceful style 
 imaginable. 
 
 It has been usual to class our own great 
 novelists as imitators of one or other of these two 
 writers. Fielding, no doubt, is more like Don 
 Quixote than Gil Bias ; Smollett is more like Gil 
 Bias than Don Quixote; but there is not much 
 resemblance in either case. Sterne's Tristram 
 Shandy is a more direct instance of imitation. 
 Richardson can scarcely be called an imitator of 
 any one ; or if he is, it is of the sentimental re- 
 finement of Marivaux, or of the verbose gallantry 
 of the writers of the seventeenth century. 
 
 There is very little to warrant the common 
 idea that Fielding was an imitator of Cervantes, 
 except his own declaration of such an intention in 
 the title-page of Joseph Andrews, the romantic 
 turn of the character of Parson Adams (the only 
 romantic character in his works), and the pro- 
 verbial humour of Partridge, which is kept up
 
 ON THE ENGLISH NOVELISTS. 223 
 
 only for a few pages. Fielding's novels are, in 
 general, thoroughly his own; and they are tho- 
 roughly English. What they are most remarkable 
 for, is neither sentiment, nor imagination, nor 
 wit, nor even humour, though there is an immense 
 deal of this last quality ; but profound knowledge 
 of human nature, at least of English nature ; and 
 masterly pictures of the characters of men as he 
 saw them existing. This quality distinguishes all 
 his works, and is shown almost equally in all of 
 them. As a painter of real life, he was equal to 
 Hogarth ; as a mere observer of human nature, he 
 was little inferior to Shakspeare, though without 
 any of the genius and poetical qualities of his 
 mind. His humour is less rich and laughable 
 than Smollett's ; his wit as often misses as hits ; 
 he has none of the fine pathos of Richardson or 
 Sterne ; but he has brought together a greater 
 variety of characters in common life, marked with 
 more distinct peculiarities, and without an atom of 
 caricature, than any other novel writer whatever. 
 The extreme subtlety of observation on the 
 springs of human conduct in ordinary characters, 
 is only equalled by the ingenuity of contrivance in 
 bringing those springs into play, in such a manner 
 as to lay open their smallest irregularity. The 
 detection is always complete, and made with the 
 certainty and skill of a philosophical ox])erinient,
 
 224 ON THE ENGLISH NOVELISTS. 
 
 and the obviousness and familiarity of a casual 
 observation. The truth of the imitation is indeed 
 so great, that it has been argued that Fielding 
 must have had his materials ready-made to his 
 hands, and was merely a transcriber of local 
 manners and individual habits. For this conjec- 
 ture, however, there seems to be no foundation. 
 His representations, it is true, are local and in- 
 dividual ; but they are not the less profound and 
 conclusive. The feeling of the general principles of 
 human nature operating in particular circum- 
 stances, is always intense, and uppermost in his 
 mind ; and he makes use of incident and situation 
 only to bring out character. 
 
 It is scarcely necessary to give any illustra- 
 tions. Tom Jones is full of them. There is the 
 account, for example, of the gratitude of the elder 
 Bhfil to his brother, for assisting him to obtain 
 the fortune of Miss Bridget Alworthy by marriage; 
 and of the gratitude of the poor in his neighbour- 
 hood to Alworthy himself, who had done so much 
 good in the country that he had made every one 
 in it his enemy. There is the account of the Latin 
 dialogues between Partridge and his maid, of the 
 assault made on him during one of these by Mrs. 
 Partridge, and the severe bruises he patiently 
 received on that occasion, after which the parish
 
 ON THE ENGLISH NOVELISTS. 2SJ& 
 
 of Little Baddington rung with the story, that the 
 school-master had killed his wife. There is the 
 exquisite keeping in the character of Blifil, and 
 the want of it in that of Jones. There is the 
 gradation in the lovers of Molly Seagrim ; the 
 philosopher Square succeeding to Tom Jones, 
 who again finds that he himself had succeeded to 
 the accomplished Will. Barnes, who had the first 
 possession of her person, and had still possession 
 of her heart, Jones being only the instrument of 
 her vanity, as Square was of her interest. Then 
 there is the discreet honesty of Black George, the 
 learning of Thwackum and Square, and the pro- 
 fundity of Squire Western, who considered it as a 
 physical impossibility that his daughter should fall 
 in love with Tom Jones. We have also that 
 gentleman's disputes with his sister, and the ini- 
 mitable appeal of that lady to her niece. " I wa^ 
 never so handsome as you, Sophy : yet I had some- 
 thing of you formerly. I was called the cruel 
 Parthenissa. Kingdoms and states, as Tully Cicero 
 says, undergo alteration, and so must the human 
 form !" The adventure of the same ladv with the 
 highwayman, who robbed her of her jewels, while 
 he coniplinKiited her beauty, ought not to be 
 passed over, nor that of Sophia and her muff, nor 
 the reserved coquetry of her cousin Fitzpatrick, 
 nor the description of Lady Bellaston, nor 
 
 Q
 
 2Q6 ON THE ENGLISH NOVELISTS. 
 
 the modest overtures of the pretty widow Hunt, 
 Dor the indiscreet babblings of Mrs. Honour. 
 The moral of this book has been objected to, 
 without much reason ; but a more serious objection 
 has been made to the want of refinement and 
 elegance in two principal characters. We never 
 feel this objection, indeed, while we are reading 
 the book : but at other times, we have something 
 like a lurking suspicion that Jones was but an 
 awkward fellow, and Sophia a pretty simpleton. 
 I do not know how to account for this effect, 
 unless it is that Fielding's constantly assuring us 
 of the beauty of his hero, and the good sense of 
 his heroine, at last produces a distrust of both. 
 The story of Tom Jones is allowed to be unri- 
 valled : and it is this circumstance, together with 
 the vast variety of characters, that has given the 
 history of a Foundling so decided a preference 
 over Fielding's other novels. The characters 
 themselves, both in Amelia and Joseph Andrews, 
 are quite equal to any of those in Tom Jones. 
 The account of Miss Matthews and Ensign Hibbert, 
 in the former of these ; the way in which that lady 
 reconciles herself to the death of her father ; the 
 inflexible Colonel Bath ; the insipid Mrs. James, 
 the complaisant Colonel Trent, the demure, sly, 
 intriguing, equivocal Mrs. Bennet, the lord who 
 is her seducer, and who attempts afterwards to
 
 ON THE ENGLISH NOVELISTS. 227 
 
 seduce Amelia by the same mecham"cal process of 
 a concert-ticket, a book, and the disguise of a 
 great coat ; his little, fat, short-nosed, red-faced, 
 good-humoured accomplice, the keeper of the 
 lodging-house, who, having no pretensions to 
 gallantry herself, has a disinterested delight in for- 
 warding the intrigues and pleasures of others, (to 
 say nothing of honest Atkinson, the story of the 
 miniature-picture of Amelia, and the hashed mut- 
 ton, which are in a different style,) are master- 
 pieces of description. The whole scene at the 
 lodging-house, the masquerade, &c. in Amelia, are 
 equal in interest to the parallel scenes in Tom 
 Jones, and even more refined in the knowledge of 
 character. For instance, Mrs. Bennet is superior 
 to Mrs. Fitzpatrick in her own way. The un- 
 certainty, in which the event of her interview with 
 her former seducer is left, is admirable. Fielding- 
 was a master of what may be called the double 
 etitendre of character, and surprises you no less by 
 what he leaves in the dark, (hardly known to the 
 persons themselves) than by the unexpected dis- 
 coveries he makes of the real traits and circum- 
 stances in a character with which, till then, you find 
 you were unacquainted. There is nothing at all he- 
 roic, however, in the usual style of his delineations. 
 lie does not draw lofty characters or stronj? pas- 
 sions ; all his persons arc of the ordinary -stature
 
 228 ON THE ENGLISH NOVELISTS. 
 
 as to intellect ; and possess little elevation of fancy, 
 or energy of purpose. Perhaps, after all, Parson 
 Adams is his finest character. It is equally true 
 to nature, and more ideal than any of the others. 
 Its unsuspecting simplicity makes it not only 
 more amiable, but doubly amusing, by gratifying 
 the sense of superior sagacity in the reader. Our 
 laughing at him does not once lessen our respect 
 for him. His declaring that he would willingly 
 walk ten miles to fetch his sermon on vanity, 
 merely to convince Wilson of his thorough con- 
 tempt of this vice, and his consoling himself for 
 the loss of his iEschylus, by suddenly recollecting 
 that he could not read it if he had it, because it is 
 dark, are among the finest touches of nciinetL The 
 night-adventures at Lady Booby's with Beau Di- 
 dapper, and the amiable Slipslop, are the most 
 ludicrous ; and that with the huntsman, who 
 draws off the hounds from the poor Parson, 
 because they would be spoiled by following 
 mrmin, the most profound. Fielding did not 
 often repeat himself; but Dr. Harrison, in Amelia, 
 may be considered as a variation of the character 
 of Adams: so also is Goldsmith's Vicar of Wake- 
 field ; and the latter part of that work, which sets 
 out so delightfully, an almost entire plagiarism 
 from Wilson's account of himself, and Adams's 
 domestic history.
 
 ON THE ENGLISH NOVELISTS. ^99 
 
 Smollett's first novel, Roderick Random, which 
 is also his best, appeared about the same time as 
 Fielding's Tom Jones ; and yet it has a much 
 more modern air with it: but this may be ac- 
 counted for, from the circumstance that Smollett 
 was quite a young man at the time, whereas 
 Fielding's manner must have been formed long 
 before. The style of Roderick Random is more 
 easy and flowing than that of Tom Jones ; the in- 
 cidents follow one another more rapidly (though, 
 it must be confessed, they never come in such a 
 throng, or are brought out with the same dramatic 
 effect) ; the humour is broader, and as effectual ; 
 and there is very nearly, if not quite, an equal in- 
 terest excited by the story. What then is it that 
 gives the superiority to Fielding ? It is the superior 
 insight into the springs of human character, and the 
 constant developement of that character through 
 every change of circumstance. Smollett's humour 
 often arises from the situation of the persons, or the 
 peculiarity of their external appearance ; as, from 
 Roderick Random's carrotty locks, which hung 
 down over his shoulders like a pound of candles, or 
 Strap's ignorance of London, and the blunders that 
 follow from it. There is a tone of vulgarity about all 
 his productions. The incidents frequently resemble 
 detached anecdotes taken from a newspaper or 
 magazine; and, like those in Gil Bias, might
 
 230 ON THE ENGLISH NOVELISTS. 
 
 happen to a hundred other characters. He exhibits 
 the ridiculous accidents and reverses to which 
 human life is liable, not ^the stuff' of which it is 
 composed. He seldom probes to the quick, or pe- 
 netrates beyond the surface; and, therefore, he 
 leaves no stings in the minds of his readers, and in 
 this respect is far less interesting than Fielding. 
 His novels always enliven, and never tire us: we 
 take them up with pleasure, and lay them down 
 without any strong feeling of regret. We look 
 on and laugh, as spectators of a highly amusing 
 scene, without closing in with the combatants, or 
 being made parties in the event. We read Roderick 
 Random as an entertaining story ; for the particu- 
 lar accidents and modes of life which it describes 
 have ceased to exist : but we regard Tom Jones 
 as a real history ; because the author never stops 
 short of those essential principles which lie at the 
 bottom of all our actions, and in which we feel 
 an immediate interest intus et in cute. Smollett 
 excels most as the lively caricaturist : Fielding as 
 the exact painter and profound metaphysician. I 
 am far from maintaining that this account applies 
 uniformly to the productions of these two writers ; 
 but I think that, as far as they essentially differ, 
 what I have stated is the general distinction be- 
 tween them. Roderick Random is the purest of 
 vSmollett's novels : I mean in point of style and
 
 ON THE ENGLISH NOVELISTS. 231 
 
 description. Most of the incidents and characters 
 are supposed to have been taken from the events 
 of his own Hfe ; and are, therefore, truer to nature. 
 There is a rude conception of generosity in some 
 of his characters, of which Fielding seems to have 
 been incapable, his amiable persons being merely 
 good-natured. It is owing to this that Strap is 
 superior to Partridge ; as there is a lieartiness 
 and warmth of feeling in some of the scenes be- 
 tween Lieutenant Bowling and his nephew, which 
 is beyond Fielding's power of impassioned writing- 
 The whole of the scene on ship-board is a most 
 admirable and striking picture, and, I imagine, 
 very little if at all exaggerated, though the interest 
 it excites is of a very unpleasant kind, because the 
 irritation and resistance to petty oppression can be 
 of no avail. The picture of the little profligate 
 French friar, who was Roderick's travelling com- 
 panion, and of whom he always kept to the wind- 
 ward, is one of Smollett's most masterly sketches. 
 Peregrine Pickle is no great favourite of mine, and 
 Launcelot Greaves was not worthy of the genius 
 of the author. 
 
 Humphry Clinker and Count Fathom are 
 both equally admirable in their way. Perhaps the 
 former is the most pleasant gossiping novel that 
 pver was written; that which gives llie most
 
 232 ON THE ENGLISH NOVELISTS. 
 
 pleasure with the least effort to the reader. It is 
 quite as amusing as going the journey could have 
 been ; and we have just as good an idea of what 
 happened on the road, as if we had been of the 
 party. Humphry Clinker himself is exquisite; 
 and his sweetheart, Winifred Jenkins, not much 
 behind him. Matthew Bramble, though not alto- 
 gether original, is excellently supported, and seems 
 to have been the prototype of Sir Anthony Abso- 
 lute in the Rivals. But Lismahago is the flower 
 of the flock. His tenaciousness in argument is not 
 so delightful as the relaxation of his logical severity, 
 when he finds his fortune mellowing in the wintry 
 smiles of Mrs. Tabitha Bramble. This is the best 
 preserved, and most severe of all Smollett's cha- 
 racters. The resemblance to Don Quixote is only 
 just enough to make it interesting to the critical 
 reader, without giving offence to any body else. 
 The indecency and filth in this novel, are what must 
 be allowed to all Smollett's writings. ^The subject 
 and characters in Count Fathom are, in general, 
 exceedingly disgusting : the story is also spun out 
 to a degree of tediousness in the serious and senti- 
 mental parts ; but there is more power of writing 
 occasionally shewn in it than in any of his works. 
 I need only refer to the fine and bitter irony of the 
 Count's address to the country of his ancestors on 
 his landing in England; to the robber scene in the
 
 ON THE ENGLISH NOVELISTS. ^33 
 
 forest, which has never been surpassed ; to the 
 Parisian swindler who personates a raw English 
 country squire (Western is tame in the compa- 
 rison) ; and to the story of the seduction in the 
 west of England. It would be difficult to point 
 out, in any author, passages written with more 
 force and mastery than these. 
 
 It is not a very difficult undertaking to class 
 Fielding or Smollett ; the one as an observer of 
 the characters of human life, the other as a de- 
 scriber of its various eccentricities. But it is by no 
 means so easy to dispose of Richardson, who was 
 neither an observer of the one, nor a describer of 
 the other ; but who seemed to spin his materials 
 entirely out of his own brain, as if there had been 
 nothing existing in the world beyond the little room 
 in which he sat writing. There is an artificial re- 
 ality about his works, which is no where else to be 
 met with. They have the romantic air of a pure 
 fiction, with the literal minuteness of a common 
 diary. The author had the strongest matter-of- 
 fact imagination that ever existed, and wrote the 
 oddest mixture of poetry and prose. He does not 
 appear to have taken advantage of any thing in 
 actual nature, from one end of his works to the 
 other ; and yet, throughout all his works, volu- 
 minous as they arc (and this, to be sure, is one
 
 234 ON THE ENGLISH NOVELISTS. 
 
 reason why they are so,) he sets about describing 
 every object and transaction, as if the whole had 
 been given in on evidence by an eye-witness. 
 This kind of high finishing from imagination is an 
 anomaly in the history of human genius ; and, cer- 
 tainly, nothing so fine was ever produced by the 
 same accumulation of minute parts. There is not 
 the least distraction, the least forgetfulness of the 
 end: every circumstance is made to tell. I cannot 
 agree that this exactness of detail produces heavi- 
 ness ; on the contrary, it gives an appearance of 
 truth, and a positive interest to the story ; and we 
 listen with the same attention as we should to the 
 particulars of a confidential communication. I at 
 one time used to think some parts of Sir Charles 
 Grandison rather trifling and tedious, especially the 
 long description of Miss Harriet Byron's wedding 
 clothes, till I was told of two young ladies who had 
 severally copied out the whole of that very de- 
 scription for their own private gratification. After 
 that, I could not blame tlie author. 
 
 The effect of reading this work is like an in- 
 crease of kindred. You find yourself all of a sudden 
 introduced into the midst of a large family, with 
 aunts and cousins to the third and fourth gene- 
 ration, and grandmothers both by the father's and 
 mother s side ;~-and a very odd set of j)eoplc they
 
 ON THE ENGLISH NOVELISTS, 235 
 
 are, but people whose real existence and personal 
 identity you can no more dispute than your own 
 senses, for you see and hear all that they do or say. 
 What is still more extraordinary, all this extreme 
 elaborateness in working out the story, seems to 
 have cost the author nothing ; for it is said, that 
 the published works are mere abridgments. I 
 have heard (though this I suspect must be a plea- 
 sant exaggeration) that Sir Charles Grandison was 
 originally written in eight and twenty volumes. 
 
 Pamela is the first of Richardson's productions, 
 and the very child of his brain. Taking the general 
 idea of the character of a modest and beautiful 
 country girl, and of the ordinary situation in which 
 she is placed, he makes out all the rest, even to 
 the smallest circumstance, by the mere force of a 
 reasoning imagination. It would seem as if a step 
 lost, would be as fatal here as in a mathematical 
 demonstration. The developement of the cha- 
 racter is the most simple, and comes the nearest to 
 nature that it can do, without being the same 
 thing. The interest of the story increases with 
 the dawn of understanding and reflection in the 
 heroine: her sentiments gradually expand them- 
 selves, like opening flowers. She writes better 
 every time, and acquires a confidence in herself, 
 just as a ^irl would do, writing siicli letters in
 
 236 ON THE ENGLISH NOVELISTS. 
 
 such circumstances ; and yet it is certain that no 
 girl would write such letters in such circumstances. 
 What I mean is this: Richardson's nature is 
 always the nature of sentiment and reflection, not 
 of impulse or situation. He furnishes his charac- 
 ters, on every occasion, with the presence of mind 
 of the author. He makes them act, not as they 
 would from the impulse of the moment, but as 
 they might upon reflection, and upon a careful 
 review of every motive and circumstance in their 
 situation. They regularly sit down to write letters : 
 and if the business of life consisted in letter- 
 writing, and was carried on by the post (like a 
 Spanish game at chess), human nature would be 
 what Richardson represents it. All actual objects 
 and feelings are blunted and deadened by being 
 presented through a medium which may be true to 
 reason, but is false in nature. He confounds his 
 own point of view with that of the immediate 
 actors in the scene ; and hence presents you with 
 a conventional and factitious nature, instead of 
 that which is real. Dr. Johnson seems to have 
 preferred this truth of reflection to the truth of 
 nature, when he said that there was more know- 
 ledge of the human heart in a page of Richardson, 
 than in all Fielding. Fielding, however, saw more 
 of the practical results, and understood the prin- 
 ciples as well ; but he had not the same power of
 
 ON THE ENGLISH NOVELISTS. 237 
 
 speculating upon their possible results, and com- 
 bining them in certain ideal forms of passion and 
 imagination, which was Richardson's real excel- 
 lence. 
 
 It must be observed, however, that it is this 
 mutual good understanding, and comparing of 
 notes between the author and the persons he de- 
 scribes ; his infinite circumspection, his exact pro- 
 cess of ratiocination and calculation, which gives 
 such an appearance of coldness and formality to 
 most of his characters, which makes prudes of 
 his women, and coxcombs of his men. Every 
 thing is too conscious in his works. Every thing 
 is distinctly brought home to the mind of the 
 actors in the scene, which is a fault undoubtedly : 
 but then it must be confessed, every thing is 
 brought home in its full force to the mind of the 
 reader also ; and we feel the same interest in the 
 story as if it were our own. Can any thing be 
 more beautiful or more affecting than Pamela's 
 reproaches to her * lumpish heart,' when she is 
 sent away from her master's at her own request ; 
 its lightness, when she is sent for back ; the joy 
 which the conviction of the sincerity of his love 
 diffuses in her heart, like the coming on of spring; 
 the artifice of the stuff gown ; the meeting with 
 Lady Davcrs after her marriage ; and the trial- 
 scene with her husband? Who ever remained
 
 <^38 ON THE ENGLISM NOVELISTS, 
 
 insensible to the passion of Lady Clementina, ex- 
 cept Sir Charles Grandison himself, who was the 
 object of it ? Clarissa is, however, his masterpiece, 
 if we except Lovelace. If she is fine in herself, 
 she is still finer in his accomit of her. With that 
 foil, her purity is dazzling indeed : and she who 
 could triumph by her virtue, and the force of her 
 love, over the regality of Lovelace's mind, his wit, 
 his person, his accomplishments, and his spirit, 
 conquers all hearts. I should suppose that never 
 sympathy more deep or sincere was excited than 
 by the heroine of Richardson's romance, ex- 
 cept by the calamities of real life. The links in 
 this wonderful chain of interest are not more 
 finely wrought, than their whole weight is over- 
 whelming and irresistible. Who can forget the 
 exquisite gradations of her long dying-scene, or 
 the closing of the coffin-lid, when Miss Howe 
 comes to take her last leave of her friend ; or the 
 heart-breaking reflection that Clarissa makes on 
 what was to have been her wedding-day ? Well 
 does a certain writer exclaim 
 
 " Books are a real world, both pure and good. 
 Round which, with tendrils strong as flesh and blood, 
 Our pastime and our happiness may grow ! " 
 
 Richardson's wit was unlike that of any otlier 
 writer his humour was so too. 13otli were the 
 effect of intense activity of mind laboured, and
 
 ON THE ENGLISH NOVELISTS. 239 
 
 yet completely eflPectnal. I might refer to Love- 
 lace's reception and description of Hickman, when 
 he calls ont Death in his ear, as the name of the 
 person with whom Clarissa had fallen in love; 
 and to the scene at the glove-shop. What can be 
 more magnificent than his enumeration of his 
 companions " Belton, so pert and so pimply 
 Tourville, so fair and so foppish !" &c. In casuis- 
 try this author is quite at home ; and, with a 
 boldness greater even than his puritanical severity, 
 has exhausted every topic on virtue and vice. 
 There is another peculiarity in Richardson, not 
 perhaps so uncommon, which is, his systema- 
 tically preferring his most insipid characters to 
 his finest, though both were equally his own in- 
 vention, and he must be supposed to have under- 
 stood something of their qualities. Thus he pre- 
 ferred the little, selfish, affected, insignificant Miss 
 Byron, to the divine Clementina ; and again, Sir 
 Charles Grandison, to the nobler Lovelace. I 
 have nothing to say in favour of Lovelace's mo- 
 rality ; but Sir Charles is the prince of coxcombs, 
 whose eye was never once taken from his own 
 person, and his own virtues ; and there is nothing 
 which excites so little sympathy as this excessive 
 egotism. 
 
 It remains to speak of Sterne ; and I sliall do 
 ii in few words, 'i'here is more of nunuiemm and
 
 240 ON THE ENGLISH NOVELISTS. 
 
 affectation in hirn, and a more immediate reference 
 to preceding authors ; but his excellences, where 
 he is excellent, are of the first order. His charac- 
 ters are intellectual and inventive, like Richard- 
 son's ; but totally opposite in the execution. The 
 one are made out by continuity, and patient 
 repetition of touches : the others, by glancing 
 transitions and graceful apposition. His style is 
 equally different from Richardson's : it is at times 
 the most rapid, the most happy, the most idio- 
 matic of any that is to be found. It is the pure 
 essence of English conversational style. His works 
 consist only of morceaux of brilliant passages. 
 I wonder that Goldsmith, who ought to have 
 known better, should call him " a dull fellow." 
 His wit is poignant, though artificial ; and his 
 characters (though the groundwork of some of 
 them had been laid before) have yet invaluable 
 original differences ; and the spirit of the execu- 
 tion, the master-strokes constantly thrown into 
 them, are not to be surpassed. It is sufficient to 
 name them ; Yorick, Dr. Slop, Mr. Shandy, My 
 Uncle Toby, Trim, Susanna, and the Widow 
 Wad man. In these he has contrived to oppose, 
 with equal felicity and originality, two characters, 
 one of pure intellect, and the other of pure good 
 nature, in My Father and My Uncle Toby. There 
 appears to have been in Sterne a vein of dry, sar- 
 castic humour, and of extreme tenderness of feel-
 
 ON THE ENGLISH NOVELISTS. 241 
 
 ng ; the latter sometimes carried to affectation, as 
 in the tale of Maria, and the apostrophe to the 
 recording angel: but at other times pure, and 
 without blemish. The story of Le Fevre is per- 
 haps the finest in the English language. My 
 Father's restlessness, both of body and mind, is 
 inimitable. It is the model from which all those 
 despicable performances against modern philoso- 
 phy ought to have been copied, if their authors 
 had known any thing of the subject they were 
 writing about. My Uncle Toby is one of the 
 finest compliments ever paid to human nature. 
 He is the most unofi'ending of God's creatures ; 
 or, as the French express it, un tel petit bou 
 homme ! Of his bowling-green, his sieges, and his 
 amours, who would say or think any thing 
 amiss ! 
 
 It is remarkable that our four best novel- 
 writers belong nearly to the same age. We also 
 owe to the same period (the reign of George II.) 
 the inimitable Hogarth, and some of our best 
 writers of the middle style of comedy. If I were 
 called upon to account for this coincidence, I should 
 wave the consideration of more general causes, and 
 ascribe it at once to the establishment of the Pro- 
 testant ascendancy, and the succession of the House 
 of Hanover. These great events appear to have
 
 'Z4'Z ON THE ENGLISH NOVELISTS. 
 
 given a more popular turn to our literature and 
 genius, as well as to our government. It was 
 found high time that the people should be repre- 
 sented in books as well as in Parliament. Thev 
 wished to see some account of themselves in what 
 they read ; and not to be confined always to the 
 vices, the miseries, and frivolities of the great. 
 Our domestic tragedy, and our earliest periodical 
 works, appeared a little before the same period. 
 In despotic countries, human nature is not of suf- 
 ficient importance to be studied or described. The 
 cauaiile are objects rather of disgust than curiosity; 
 and there are no middle classes. The works of 
 Racine and Moliere are either imitations of the 
 verbiage of the court, before which they were 
 represented, or fanciful caricatures of the manners 
 of the lowest of the people. But in the period of 
 our history in question, a security of person and 
 property, and a freedom of opinion had been esta- 
 blished, which made every man feel of some con- 
 sequence to himself, and appear an object of some 
 curiosity to his neighbours : our manners became 
 more domesticated ; there was a general spirit of 
 sturdiness and independence, which made the Eng- 
 lish character more truly English than perhaps at 
 any other period that is, more tenacious of its 
 own opinions and purposes. The whole surface 
 of society appeared cut out uito square enclosures
 
 ON THE ENGLISH NOVELISTS. 243 
 
 and sharp angles, which extended to the dresses 
 of the time, their gravel-walks, and clipped hedges. 
 Each individual had a certain ground-plot of his 
 own to cultivate his particular humours in, and 
 let them shoot out at pleasure ; and a most plen- 
 tiful crop they have produced accordingly. The 
 reign of George II. Avas, in a word, the age of 
 hohhy-horsts : but, since that period, things have 
 taken a different turn. 
 
 His present Majesty (God save the mark!) 
 during almost the wliole of his reign, has been 
 constantly mounted on a great war-horse ; and 
 has fairly driven all competitors out of the field. 
 Instead of minding our own affairs, or laughing at 
 each other, the eyes of all his faithful subjects 
 have been fixed on the career of the sovereign, 
 and all hearts anxious for the safety of his person 
 and government. Our pens and our swords have 
 been alike drawn in their defence ; and the returns 
 of killed and wounded, the manufacture of news- 
 papers and parhamentary speeches, have exceeded 
 all former example. If we have had little of the 
 blessings of peace, wc have had enough of the 
 glories and calamities of war. His Majesty has 
 indeed contrived to keep alive the greatest jiublic 
 interest ever known, by his determined manner of 
 riding his hobby for half a century t05:('t]irr, witli
 
 '244 ON THE ENGLISH NOVELISTS. 
 
 the aristocracy, the democracy, the clergy, the 
 landed and inonied interest, and the rabble, in full 
 cry after him ; and at the end of his career, most 
 happily and unexpectedly succeeded, amidst em- 
 pires lost and won, kingdoms overturned and 
 created, and the destruction of an incredible num- 
 ber of lives, in restoring the divine right of kings, 
 and thus preventing any future abuse of the ex- 
 ample which seated his family on the throne ! 
 
 It is not to be wondered at, if amidst the 
 tumult of events crowded into this period, our 
 literature has partaken of the disorder of the time; 
 if our prose has run mad, and our poetry grown 
 childish. Among those persons who " have kept 
 the even tenor of their way," the author of Eve- 
 lina, Cecilia, and Camilla, must be allowed to hold 
 a distinguished place.* Mrs. Radcliffe's " enchant- 
 ments drear," and mouldering castles, derived part 
 of their interest, no doubt, from the supposed 
 tottering state of all old structures at the time ; 
 and Mrs. Inchbald's " Nature and Art" would 
 scarcely have had the same popularity, but that it 
 fell in (as to its two main characters) with the 
 
 * The Fool of Quality, David Simple, and Sidney Bid- 
 dulph, written about the middle of the last century, belong 
 to the ancient regime of novel-writing. Of the Vicar of 
 Wakefield 1 have attempted a character elsewhere.
 
 ON THE ENGLISH NOVELISTS. 245 
 
 prevailing prejudice of the moment, that judges 
 and bishops were not invariably pure abstractions 
 of justice and piety. Miss Edgeworth's Tales 
 again (with the exception of Castle Rack-rent, 
 which is a genuine, unsophisticated, national por- 
 trait) are a kind of pedantic, pragmatical common 
 sense, tinctured with the pertness and pretensions 
 of the paradoxes to which they are so self-com- 
 placently opposed. Madame D'Arblay is, on the 
 contrary, quite of the old school, a mere common 
 observer of manners, and also a very woman. It 
 is this last circumstance which forms the pecu- 
 liarity of her writings, and distinguishes them from 
 those masterpieces which I have before mentioned. 
 She is a quick, lively, and accurate observer of 
 persons and things ; but she always looks at them 
 with a consciousness of her sex, and in that point 
 of view in which it is the particular business and 
 interest of women to observe them. There is little 
 in her works of passion or character, or even man- 
 ners, in the most extended sense of the word, as 
 implying the sum-total of our habits and pursuits ; 
 iier forte is in describing the absurdities and af- 
 fectations of external behaviour, or the maimers oj 
 people in company. Her characters, which are inge- 
 nious caricatures, are, no doubt, distinctly marked, 
 and well kept up ; but they are slightly shaded, 
 and exceedingly uniform . Her heroes and heroines,
 
 246 ON THE ENGLISH NOVELISTS. 
 
 almost all of them, depend on the stock of a single 
 phrase or sentiment, and have certain mottoes 
 or devices by which they may always be known. 
 They form such characters as people might be 
 supposed to assume for a night at a masquerade. 
 She presents, not the whole-length figure, nor even 
 the face, but some prominent feature. In one of 
 her novels, for example, a lady appears regularly 
 every ten pages, to get a lesson in music for no- 
 thing. She never appears for any other purpose ; 
 this is all you know of her ; and in this the whole 
 wit and humour of the character consists. Mea- 
 dows is the same, who has always the cue of 
 being tired, without any other idea. It has been 
 said of Shakspearc, that you may always assign 
 his speeches to the proper characters ; and you 
 may infallibly do the same thing with Madame 
 D'Arblay's, for they always say the same thing. 
 The BranghtoDs are the best. Mr. Smith is an 
 exquisite city portrait. Evelina is also her best 
 novel, because it is the shortest ; that is, it has all 
 the liveliness in the sketches of character, and 
 smartness of comic dialogue and repartee, without 
 the tediousness of the story, and endless affecta- 
 tion of sentiment which disfigures the others. 
 
 Women, in general, have a ([uicker perception 
 of any oddity or sit)p;ulcirity of character than men.
 
 ON THE ENGLISH NOVELISTS. 247 
 
 and are more alive to every absurdity which arises 
 from a violation of the rules of society, or a devia- 
 tion from established custom. This partly arises 
 from the restraints on their own behaviour, which 
 turn their attention constantly on the subject, and 
 partly from other causes. The surface of their 
 minds, like that of their bodies, seems of a finer 
 texture than ours ; more soft, and susceptible of 
 immediate impulses. They have less muscular 
 strength ; less power of continued voluntary at- 
 tention of reason, passion, and imagination : but 
 they are more easily impressed with whatever ap- 
 peals to their senses or habitual jirejudices. The 
 intuitive perception of their minds is less disturbed 
 by any abstruse reasonings on causes or conse- 
 quences. They learn the idiom of character and 
 manners, as they acquire that of language, by rote, 
 without troubling themselves about the principles. 
 Their observation is not the less accurate on that 
 account, as far as it goes ; for it has been well 
 said, that " there is nothing so true as liabit." 
 
 There is little other power in Miss Barney's 
 novels, than that of immediate observation : her 
 characters, whether of refinement or vulgarity, are 
 equally superficial and confined. The whole is a 
 question of form, Avhethcr that form is adlicrcd to 
 or infringed upon. It is this circumstance which
 
 2V6 ON THE ENGLISH NOVELISTS. 
 
 takes away dignity and interest from her story and 
 sentiments, and makes the one so teazing and 
 tedious, and the other so insipid. The difficulties 
 in which she involves her heroines are too much 
 " Female Difficulties ;" they are difficulties created 
 out of nothing. The author appears to have no 
 other idea of refinement than that it is the reverse 
 of vulgarity ; but the reverse of vulgarity is fas- 
 tidiousness and affectation. There is a true and a 
 false delicacy. Because a vulgar country Miss 
 would answer " yes" to a proposal of marriage in 
 the first page, Madame D'Arblay makes it a proof 
 of an excess of refinement, and an indispensable 
 point of etiquette in her young ladies, to postpone 
 the answer to the end of five volumes, without the 
 smallest reason for their doing so, and with every 
 reason to the contrary. The reader is led every 
 moment to expect a denouement, and is as often 
 disappointed on some trifling pretext. The whole 
 artifice of her fable consists in coming to no con- 
 f'lasion. Her ladies " stand so upon the order of 
 their going," that they do not go at all. They will 
 not abate an ace of their pimctilio in any circum- 
 stunces, or on any emergency. They would con- 
 sidcr it as ({uite indecorous to run down stairs 
 though tlie house were in flames, or to move an 
 inch off the pavement though a scaffolding was 
 ialling. She has formed to herself an abstract
 
 ON THE ENGLISH NOVELISTS. 249 
 
 idea of perfection in common behaviour, which is 
 quite as romantic and impracticable as any other 
 idea of the sort : and the consequence has natu- 
 rally been, that she makes her heroines commit 
 the greatest improprieties and absurdities in order 
 to avoid the smallest. In opposition to a maxim 
 in philosophy, they constantly act from the weak- 
 est motive, or rather from pure contradiction. The 
 whole tissue of the fable is, in general, more wild 
 and chimerical than any thing in Don Quixote, 
 without the poetical truth or elevation. Madame 
 D'Arblay has woven a web of difficulties for her 
 heroines, something like the green silken threads 
 in which the shepherdesses entangled the steed of 
 Cervantes 's hero, who swore, in his fine enthu- 
 siastic way, that he would sooner cut his passage 
 to another world than disturb the least of those 
 beautiful meshes. To mention the most painful 
 instance the Wanderer, in her last novel, raises 
 obstacles, lighter than " the gossamer that idles in 
 the wanton summer air," into insurmountable bar- 
 riers ; and trifles with those that arise out of com- 
 mon sense, reason, and necessity. Her conduct 
 is not to be accounted for directly out of the cir- 
 cumstances in which she is placed, but out of some 
 factitious and misplaced refinement on them. It 
 is a perpetual game at cross-purposes. There 
 Ix'ing a plain and strong motive why she should
 
 '^50 ON THE ENGLISH NOVELISTS. 
 
 pursue any course of action, is a sufficient reason 
 for her to avoid it ; and the perversity of her con- 
 duct is in proportion to its levity as the lightness 
 of the feather baffles the force of the impulse that 
 is given to it, and the slightest breath of air turns 
 it back on the h^nd from which it is thrown. We 
 can hardly consider this as the perfection of the 
 female character ! 
 
 I must say I like Mrs. RadclifFe's romances 
 better, and think of them oftener : and even when 
 I do not, part of the impression with which I sur- 
 vey the full-orbed moon shining in the blue expanse 
 of heaven, or hear the wind sighing through au- 
 tumnal leaves, or walk under the echoing arch- 
 ways of a Gothic ruin, is owing to a repeated 
 perusal of the Romance of the Forest and the 
 Mysteries of Udolpho. Her descriptions of scenery, 
 indeed, are vague and wordy to the last degree ; 
 they are neither like Salvator nor Claude, nor 
 nature nor art ; and she dwells on the effects of 
 moonlight till we are sometimes weary of them : 
 her characters are insipid, the shadows of a shade, 
 continued on, under different names, through all 
 her novels ; her story comes to nothing. But 
 in harrowing up the soul with imaginary horrors, 
 and making the flesh creep, and the nerves thrill, 
 with fond hopes and fears, she is unrivalled among
 
 ON THE ENGLISH NOVELISTS. 531 
 
 her fair country-women. Her great power lies in 
 describing the indefinable, and embodying a phan- 
 tom. She makes her readers twice children : and 
 from the dim and shadowy veil which she draws 
 over the objects of her fancy, forces us to believe 
 all that is strange, and next to impossible, of their 
 mysterious agency : whether it is the sound of the 
 lover's lute borne o'er the distant waters along the 
 winding shores of Provence, recalling, with its 
 magic breath, some long-lost friendship, or some 
 hopeless love ; or the full choir of the cloistered 
 monks, chaunting their midnight orgies, or the 
 lonely voice of an unhappy sister in her pensive 
 cell, like angels' whispered music ; or the deep 
 sigh that steals from a dungeon on the startled 
 ear; or the dim apparition of ghastly features; or 
 the face of an assassin hid beneath a monk's cowl; 
 or the robber gliding through the twilight gloom 
 of the forest. All the fascination that links the 
 world of passion to the world unknown, is hers, 
 and she plays with it at her pleasure : she has 
 all the poetry of romance, all that is obscure, 
 visionary, and objectless, in the imagination. 
 It seems that the simple notes of Clara's lute, 
 which so delighted her youthful heart, still echo 
 among the rocks and mountains of the Valois ; 
 the mellow tones of the minstrel's songs still 
 mingle with the noise of the dashing oar, and the
 
 252 ON THE ENGLISH NOVELISTS. 
 
 rippling of the silver waves of the Mediterranean ; 
 the voice of Agnes is heard from the haunted 
 tower ; and Schedoni's form still stalks through the 
 frowning ruins of Palinzi. The greatest treat, 
 however, which Mrs. Radcliffe's pen has provided 
 for the lovers of the marvellous and terrible, is the 
 Provenifal tale which Ludovico reads in the Castle 
 of Udolpho, as the lights are beginning to burn 
 blue, and just before the faces appear from behind 
 the tapestry that carry him off, and we hear no 
 more of him. This tale is of a knight, who being 
 engaged in a dance at some high festival of old 
 romance, was summoned out by another knight 
 clad in complete steel ; and being solemnly adjured 
 to follow him into the mazes of the neighbouring 
 wood, his conductor brought him at length to a 
 hollow glade in the thickest part, where he pointed 
 to the murdered corse of another knight, and lifting 
 up his beaver, shewed him by the gleam of moon- 
 light which fell on it, that it had the face of his 
 spectre-guide ! The dramatic power in the cha- 
 racter of Schedoni; the Italian monk, has been 
 much admired and praised ; but the effect does not 
 depend upon the character, but the situations ; not 
 u])oii the figure, but upon the back-ground. The 
 Castle of Otranto (which is supposed to have led 
 the w^ay to this style of writing) is, to my notion, 
 dry, meagre, and without effect. It is done upon
 
 ON THE ENGLISH NOVELISTS. ^53 
 
 false principles of taste. The great hand and arm, 
 which are thrust into the court-yard, and remain 
 there all day long, are the pasteboard machinery 
 of a pantomime ; they shock the senses, and have 
 no purchase upon the imagination. They are a 
 matter-of-fact impossibility; a fixture, and no 
 longer a phantom. Quod sic mihi ostendis, incre- 
 diilus odi. By realising the chimeras of ignorance 
 and fear, begot upon shadows and dim likenesses, 
 we take away the very grounds of credulity and 
 superstition ; and, as in other cases, by facing out the 
 imposture, betray the secret to the contempt and 
 laughter of the spectators. The Recess and the 
 Old English Baron are also " dismal treatises," but 
 with little in them " at which our fell of hair is 
 likely to rouse and stir as life were in it." They 
 are dull and prosing, Avithout the spirit of fiction, 
 or the air of tradition to make them interesting. 
 After Mrs. Radcliffe, Monk Lewis was the greatest 
 master of the art of freezing the blood. The 
 robber-scene in the Monk is only inferior to that in 
 Count Fathom, and perfectly new in the circum- 
 stances and cast of the characters. Some of his 
 descriptions are chargeable with unpardonable 
 grossness, but the pieces of poetry interspersed in 
 this far-famed novel, such as the fight of Ronsce- 
 valles and the Exile, in particular, have a romantic 
 and delightful harmony, such as might be chaunted
 
 254 ON THE ENGLISH NOVELISTS. 
 
 by the moonlight pilgrim, or might lull the dream- 
 ing mariner on summer-seas. 
 
 If Mrs. Radcliffe touched the trembling chords 
 of the imagination, making wild music there, 
 Mrs. Inchbald has no less power over the springs 
 of the heart. She not only moves the affections, 
 but melts us into " all the luxury of woe." Her 
 " Nature and Art" is one of the most pathetic and 
 interesting stories in the world. It is, indeed, too 
 much so ; or the distress is too naked, and the 
 situations hardly to be borne with patience, I 
 think nothing, however, can exceed in delicacy 
 and beauty the account of the love-letter 
 which the poor girl, who is the subject of the 
 story, receives from her lover, and which she is a 
 fortnight in spelling out, sooner than shew it to any 
 one else ; nor the dreadful catastrophe of the last 
 fatal scene, in which the same poor creature, as her 
 former seducer, now become her judge, is about to 
 pronounce sentence of death upon her, cries out in 
 agony " Oh, not from you!" The effect of this 
 novel upon the feelings, is not only of the most 
 distressing, but withering kind. It blights the 
 sentiments, and haunts the memory. The Simple 
 Story is not much better in this respect : the gloom, 
 however, which hangs over it, is of a more fixed 
 and tender kind : we are not now lifted to ecstacv.
 
 ON THE ENGLISH NOVELISTS. :>55 
 
 only to be plunged in madness ; and besides the 
 sweetness and dignity of some of the characters, 
 there are redeeming traits, retrospective glances 
 on the course of human life, which brighten the 
 backward stream, and smile in hope or patience to 
 the last. Such is the account of Sandford, her 
 stern and inflexible adviser, sitting by the bed- 
 side of Miss Miller, and comforting her in her 
 dying moments ; thus softening the worst pang of 
 human nature, and reconciling us to the best, but 
 not most shining virtues in human character. 
 The conclusion of Nature and Art, on the con- 
 trary, is a scene of heartless desolation, which 
 must effectually deter any one from ever reading 
 the book twice. Mrs. Inchbald is an instance to 
 confute the assei'tion of Rousseau, that women fail 
 whenever they attempt to describe the passion of 
 love. 
 
 I shall conclude this Lecture, by saying a few 
 words of the author of Caleb Williams, and the 
 author of Waverley. I shrill speak of the last 
 hrst. In knowledge, in variety, in facility, in 
 truth of ])ainting, in costume and scenery, in 
 freshness of subject and in untired interest, in 
 glancing lights and the graces of a style passing 
 at will from grave to gay, from lively to severe, at 
 once romantic and familiar, having the utmost 
 force of imitation and apparent freedom of in-
 
 256 ON THE ENGLISH NOVELISTS. 
 
 vention ; these novels have the highest claims to 
 admiration. What lack they yet? The author 
 has all power given him from without he has 
 not, perhaps, an equal power from within. The in- 
 tensity of the feeling is not equal to the distinctness 
 of the imagery. He sits like a magician in his 
 cell, and conjures up all shapes and sights to the 
 view ; and with a little variation we might apply 
 to him what Spenser says of Fancy : 
 
 " His chamber was dispainted all within 
 
 With sundry colours, in the which were writ 
 
 Infinite shapes of things dispersed thin ; 
 
 Some such as in the world were never yet j 
 
 Some daily seen and knowen by their names. 
 
 Such as in idle fantasies do fiitj 
 
 Infernal hags, centaurs, fiends, hippodames. 
 
 Apes, lions, eagles, owls, fools, lovers, children, dames." 
 
 In the midst of all this phantasmagoria, the author 
 himself never appears to take part with his charac- 
 ters, to prompt our affection to the good, or sharpen 
 our antipathy to the bad. It is the perfection 
 of art to conceal art; and this is here done so 
 completely, that while it adds to our pleasure in the 
 work, it seems to take away from the merit of the 
 author. As he does not thrust himself forward 
 in the foreground, he loses the credit of the per- 
 formance. The copies are so true to nature, that 
 they appear like tapestry figures taken off by the 
 pattern ; the obvious patchwork of tradition and
 
 ON THE ENGLISH NOVELISTS. 257 
 
 history. His characters are transplanted at once 
 from their native soil to the page which we are 
 reading, without any traces of their having passed 
 through the hot-bed of the author's genius or 
 vanity. He leaves them as he found them ; but 
 this is doing wonders. The Laird and the Baillie 
 of Bradwardine, the idiot rhymer David Gellatly, 
 Miss Rose Bradwardine, and IMiss Flora Mac 
 Ivor, her brother the Highland Jacobite chieftain, 
 Vich Ian Vohr, the Highland rover, Donald 
 Bean Lean, and the worthy page Galium Beg, 
 Bothwell, and Balfour of Burley, Claverhousc and 
 Macbriar, Elshie, the Black Dwarf, and the Red 
 Reever of Westburn Flat, Hobbie and Grace 
 Armstrong, Ellen Gowan and Dominie Sampson, 
 Dirk Hatteraick and Meg Merrilees, are at present 
 '' familiar in our mouths as houshold names," and 
 whether they arc actual persons or creations of the 
 poet's pen, is an impertinent inquiry. The pic- 
 turesque and local scenery is as fresh as the lichen 
 on tlie rock : the characters are a part of tbe 
 sciniery. If they are put in action, it is a moving 
 ])iLtiir(' : if they speak, we hear their dialect and 
 tho tones of their voice. If tlie liumonr is made 
 out by dialect, the character by the dress, the 
 interest Ijy the facts and documents i'.i the author\i 
 possessioni, we have no right to complain, if if is 
 made out ; but sometimes it hardly is, and then
 
 258 ON THE ENGLISH NOVELISTS. 
 
 we have a right to say so. For instance, in the 
 Tales of my Landlord, Canny Elshie is not in 
 himself so formidable or petrific a person as the 
 real Black Dwarf, called David Ritchie, nor are 
 his acts or sayings so staggering to the ima- 
 gination. Again, the first introduction of this ex- 
 traordinary personage, groping about among the 
 hoary twilight ruins of the Witch of Micklestane 
 Moor and her Grey Geese, is as full of preter- 
 natural power and bewildering effect (according to 
 the tradition of the country) as can be ; while 
 the last decisive scene, where the Dwarf, in his 
 resumed character of Sir Edward Mauley, comes 
 from the tomb in the chapel, to prevent the forced 
 marriage of the daughter of his former betrothed 
 mistress with the man she abhors, is altogether 
 powerless and tame. No situation could be 
 imagined more finely calculated to call forth an 
 author s powers of imagination and passion ; but 
 nothing is done. The assembly is dispersed under 
 circumstances of the strongest natural feeling, 
 and the most appaUing preternatural appearances, 
 just as if the effect had been produced by a peace- 
 officer entering for the same purpose. These 
 instances of a falling oflP are, however, rare ; and 
 if this author should not be supposed by fastidious 
 critics to have original genius in the highest degree, 
 he has other (pialities which supply its place so well.
 
 ON THE ENGLISH NOVELISTS. -^59 
 
 ill's materials are so rich and varied, and lie nscs 
 them so lavishly, that the reader is no loser 
 by the exchange. We are not in fear that he 
 should publish another novel ; we are under no 
 apprehension of his exhausting himself, for he has 
 shewn that he is inexhaustible. 
 
 Whoever else is, it is pretty clear that the au- 
 thor of Caleb Williams and St. Leon is not the 
 author of Waverley. Nothing can be more dis- 
 tinct or excellent in their several ways than these 
 two writers. If the one owes almost every thing 
 to external observation and traditional character, 
 the other owes every thing to internal conception 
 and contemplation of the possible workings of the 
 human mind. There is little knowledge of the 
 world, little variety, neither an eye for the pic- 
 turesque, nor a talent for the humorous in Caleb 
 Williams, for instance, but you cannot doubt for a 
 moment of the originality of the work and the 
 force of the conception. The impression niudc 
 upon the reader is the exact measure of the 
 strength of the autiior's genius. For the effect, 
 both in Caleb Williams and St. Leon, is entirely 
 made out, neither by facts, nor dates, by black- 
 letter or magazine learning, by transcript nor 
 record, but by intense and patient study of the 
 liuman heart, and by an imagination projecting 
 itself into certain situations, and capable of working
 
 260 ON THE ENGLISH NOVELISTS. 
 
 lip its imaginary feelings to the height of reality. 
 The author launches into the ideal world, and must 
 sustain himself and the reader there by the mere 
 force of imagination. The sense of power in the 
 writer thus adds to the interest of the subject. 
 The character of Falkland is a sort of apotheosis of 
 the love of fame. The gay, the gallant Falkland 
 lives only in the good opinion of good men ; for 
 this he adorns his soul with virtue, and tarnishes 
 it Tvith crime ; he lives only for this, and dies as 
 he loses it. He is a lover of virtue, but a worshipper 
 of fame. Stung to madness by a brutal insult, he 
 avenges himself by a crime of the deepest die, 
 and the remorse of his conscience and the stain 
 upon his honour prey upon his peace and reason 
 ever after. It was into the mouth of such a cha- 
 racter that a modern poet has well put the words, 
 
 t( Action is momentary. 
 
 The motion of a muscle, this way or that ; 
 Suffering is long, obscure, and infinite." 
 
 In the conflict of his feelings, he is worn to a 
 skeleton, wasted to a shadow. But he endures 
 this living death to watch over his undying repu- 
 tation, and to preserve his name unsullied and 
 free from suspicion. But he is at last disap- 
 pointed ill this his darling object, by the very means 
 he tal!<cs to secure it, and by harassing and goading 
 Cak'b Williams (vvlsosc insatiable; incessant curlu-
 
 ON THE ENGLISH NOVELISTS. oqi 
 
 sity had wormed itself into his confidence) to a 
 state of desperation, by employing every sort of 
 persecution, and by trying to hunt him from 
 society hke an infection, makes him turn upon 
 him, and betray the inmost secret of his soul. 
 The last moments of Falkland are indeed sublime: 
 the spark of life and the hope of imperishable 
 renown are extinguished in him together ; and 
 bending his last look of forgiveness on his victim 
 and destroyer, he dies a martyr to fame, but a con- 
 fessor at the shrine of virtue ! The re-action and 
 play of these two characters into each other's hands 
 (like Othello and lago) is inimitably well managed, 
 and on a par with any thing in the dramatic art ; 
 but Falkland is the hero of the story, Caleb 
 Williams is only the instrument of it. This novel 
 is utterly unlike any thing else that ever was 
 written, and is one of the most original as well as 
 powerful productions in the English language. 
 St. Leon is not equal to it in the plot and ground- 
 work, though perhaps superior in the execution. 
 In the one Mr. Godwin has hit upon the extreme 
 point of the perfectly natural and perfectly new ; 
 in the other he ventures into the preternatural 
 world, and comes nearer to the world of common 
 place. JStill the character is of the same exalted 
 iiUcllectual kind. As the ruling passion of tlu^ 
 one was the love of fame, so in the other the sole
 
 262 ON THE ENGLISH NOVELISTS. 
 
 business of life is thought. Raised by the fatal 
 discovery of the philosopher's stone above mor- 
 tality, he is cut off from all participation with its 
 pleasures. He is a limb torn from society. In 
 possession of eternal youth and beauty, he can feel 
 no love ; surrounded, tantalized, tormented with 
 riches, he can do no good. The races of men pass 
 before him as in a speculum ; but he is attached to 
 them by no common tie of sympathy or suffering. 
 He is thrown back into himself and his own 
 thoughts. He lives in the solitude of his own 
 breast, without wife or child, or friend, or enemy 
 in the world. His is the solitude of the soul, 
 not of woods, or seas, or mountains, but the 
 desart of society, the waste and desolation of the 
 heart. He is himself alone. His existence is 
 purely contemplative, and is therefore intolerable 
 to one who has felt the rapture of affection or the 
 anguish of woe. The contrast between the entliu- 
 siastic eagerness of human pursuits and their 
 blank disappointment, was never, perhaps, more 
 finely pourtrayed than in this novel. Marguerite, 
 the wife of St. Leon, is an instance of pure and 
 disinterested affection in one of the noblest of her 
 sex. It is not improbable that the author found 
 the model of this character in nature. Of Mande- 
 ville, I shall say only one word. It appears to me 
 to be a falling off in the subject, not in the ability.
 
 ON THE ENGLISH NOVELISTS. 263 
 
 The style and declamation are even more powefnl 
 than ever. But unless an author surpasses himself, 
 and surprises the public as much the fourth or fifth 
 time as he did the first, he is said to fall off, because 
 there is not the same stimulus of novelty. A 
 great deal is here made out of nothing, or out of a 
 very disagreeable subject. I cannot agree that the 
 story is out of nature. The feeling is very com- 
 mon indeed ; though carried to an unusual and 
 improbable excess, or to one with which from the 
 individuality and minuteness of the circumstances, 
 we cannot readily sympathise. 
 
 It is rare that a philosopher is a writer of ro- 
 mances. The union of the two characters in this 
 author is a sort of phenomenon in the history of 
 letters ; for I cannot but consider the author of 
 Political Justice as a philosophical reasoner of no 
 ordinary stamp or pretensions. That work, what- 
 ever its defects may be, is distinguished by the 
 most acute and severe logic, and by the utmost 
 boldness of thinking, founded on a love and con- 
 viction of truth. It is a system of ethics, and one 
 that, though I think it erroneous myself, is built 
 on following up into its fair consequences, a very 
 common and acknowledged principle, that abstract 
 reason and general utility are the only test and 
 standard of moral rectitude. If this jiriiiciple is
 
 264 ON THE ENGLISH NOVELISTS. 
 
 true, then the system is true : but I think that 
 Mr. Godwin's book has done more than any thing 
 else to overturn the sufficiency of this principle by 
 abstracting, in a strict metaphysical process, the in- 
 fluence of reason or the understanding in mqral 
 questions and relations from that of habit, sense, 
 association, local and personal attachment, natural 
 affection, &c. ; and by thus making it appear how 
 necessary the latter are to our limited, imperfect, 
 and mixed being, how impossible the former as an 
 exclusive guide of action, unless man were, or 
 were capable of becoming, a purely intellectual 
 being. Reason is no doubt one faculty of the 
 human mind, and the chief gift of Providence to 
 man ; but it must itself be subject to and modified 
 by other instincts and principles, because it is not 
 the only one. Thi? work then, even supposing it 
 to be false, is invaluable as demonstrating an impor- 
 tant truth by the rediictio ad absiirdimi ; or it is an 
 e.vperimentum cnicis in one of the grand and trying 
 questions of moral philosophy. In delineating the 
 character and feelings of the hermetic philosopher 
 8t. Leon, perhaps the author had not far to go 
 Ironi those of a speculative philosophical Re- 
 cluse. He who deals in the secrets of magic, or 
 in the secrets of the human mind, is too often 
 looked upon with jealous eyes by the world, which 
 lb lio great conjuror; he who pours out his intel-
 
 ON THE ENGLISH NOVELISTS. 265 
 
 lectnal wealtli into the lap of the public, is hated 
 by those who cannot understand how he came by 
 it ; he who thinks beyond his age, cannot expect 
 the feelings of his contemporaries to go along with 
 him ; he whose mind is of no age or country, is 
 seldom properly recognised during his life-time, 
 and must wait, in order to have justice done him, 
 for the late but lasting award of posterity : 
 " Where his treasure is, there his heart is also."
 
 LECTURE VII. 
 
 ON THE WORKS OF HOGARTH. ON THE GRAND 
 AND FAMILIAR STYLE OF PAIN'J ING. 
 
 If the quantity of amusementj or of matter for 
 more serious reflection which their works have 
 afforded, is that hy which we are to judge of pre- 
 cedence among the intellectual benefactors of man- 
 kindj there are, perhaps, few persons who can put 
 in a stronger claim to our gratitude than Hogarth. 
 It is not hazarding too much to assert, that he 
 Avas one of the greatest comic geniuses that ever 
 lived, and he was certainly one of the most extraor- 
 dinary men this country has produced. The won- 
 derful knowledge which he possessed of human 
 life and manners, is only to be surpassed (if it can 
 be) by the power of invention with which he has 
 coml)ined and contrasted his materials in the most 
 ludicrous and varied points of view, and by the 
 mastery of execution with which he has embodied 
 and made tangible the very thoughts and passing
 
 ON THE WORKS OF HOGARTH, &c. 267 
 
 movements of the mind. Critics sometimes ob- 
 ject to the style of Hogarth's pictures, or to the 
 class to which they belong. First, he belongs to 
 no class, or if he does, it is to the same class as 
 Fielding, Smollett, Vanbrugh, and Moliere. Be- 
 sides, the merit of his pictures does not depend on 
 the nature of the subject, but on the knowledge 
 displayed of it, on the number of ideas they excite, 
 on the fund of thought and observation contained 
 in them. They are to be studied as works of 
 science as well as of amusement ; they satisfy our 
 love of truth ; they fill up the void in the mind ; 
 they form a series of plates in natural history, 
 and of that most interesting part of natural history, 
 the history of our own species. Make what deduc- 
 tions you please for the vulgarity of the subject, yet 
 in the research, the profundity, the absolute truth 
 and precision of the delineation of character ; in the 
 invention of incident, in wit and humour; in the 
 Mfe with which they are '^ instinct in every part ;" 
 in everlasting variety and originality ; they never 
 have, and probably never will be surpassed. They 
 stimulate the faculties as well as soothe them. 
 " Other pictures we see, Hogarth's we read." 
 
 The pubHc jiad not long ago an opportunity 
 of viewing most of Hogarth's pictures, in the col- 
 lection made oi' them at the J3ritish Gallery. The 
 sn})eri(irity ul the original paintings to the com-
 
 26S ON THE WORKS OF HOGARTH, &c. 
 
 irion prints, is in a great measure confined to the 
 Marriage a-la-Mode, with which I shall begin my 
 remarks. 
 
 Boccaccio, the most refined and sentimental of 
 all tlie novel-writers, has been stigmatised as a mere 
 inventor of licentious tales, because readers in 
 general have only seized on those things in his 
 works which were suited to their own taste, and 
 have thus reflected their own grossness back upon 
 the writer. So it has happened, that the majority 
 of critics having been most struck with the strong 
 and decided expression in Hogarth, the extreme 
 delicacy and subtle gradations of character in his 
 pictures have almost entirely escaped them. In 
 the first picture of the Marriage a-la-Mode, the 
 three figures of the young Nobleman, his intended 
 Bride, and her Inamorato, the Lawyer, shew how 
 much Hogarth excelled in the power of giving soft 
 and effeminate expression. They have, however, 
 been less noticed than the other figures, which tell 
 a plainer story, and convey a more palpable moral. 
 Nothing can be more finely managed than the 
 differences of character in these delicate personages. 
 The ])eau sits smiling at the looking-glass with a 
 reflected simper of self-admiration, and a languish- 
 ing inclination of the head, while the rest of his 
 body is perked up on his high heels with a certain 
 air of tip-toe elevation. He is the Narcibbus ui
 
 ON THE WORKS OF HOGARTH, &c. 269 
 
 the reign of George II ; whose powdered peruke, 
 ruffles, gold-lace, and patches, divide his self-love 
 unequally with his own person the true Sir 
 Plume of his day ; 
 
 " Of amber-lidded snuff box justly vain. 
 And the nice conduct of a clouded cane." 
 
 Again we find the same felicity in the figure 
 and attitude of the Bride, courted by the Lawyer- 
 There is the utmost flexibility, and yielding soft- 
 ness in her whole person, a listless languor and 
 tremulous suspense in the expression of her face. 
 It is the precise look and air which Pope has given 
 to his favourite Belinda, just at the moment of the 
 liape of the Lock. The heightened glow, the for- 
 ward intelligence, and loosened soul of love in the 
 same face, in the Assignation scene before the 
 masquerade, form a fine and instructive contrast 
 to the delicacy, timidity, and coy reluctance ex- 
 ])ressed in the first. The Lawyer in both pictures 
 is nnich the same, perhaps too much so ; though 
 even this unnioved, unaltered appearance may be 
 designed as characteristic. In both cases he has 
 " a person, and a smooth dispose, framed to make 
 women fais'\" He is full of that easy good- 
 humour, and easy good opinion of himself, witii 
 which the sex are often delighted. There is not a 
 sharp angle in his face to obstruct his success, oi
 
 ^70 ON THE WORKS OF HOGARTH, &c. 
 
 give a hint of doubt or difficulty. His whole aspect 
 is round and rosy, lively and unmeaning, happy 
 without the least expense of thought, careless and 
 inviting ; and conveys a perfect idea of the unin- 
 terrupted glide and pleasing murmur of the soft 
 periods that flow from his tongue. 
 
 The expression of the Bride in the Morning 
 Scene is the most highly seasoned, and at the 
 same time the most vulgar in the series. The 
 figure, face, and attitude of the husband, arc 
 inimitable. Hogarth has with great skill con- 
 trasted the pale countenance of the husband with 
 the yellow whitish colour of the marble chimney- 
 piece behind him, in such a manner as to preserve 
 the fleshy tone of the former. The airy splendour 
 of the view of the inner-room in this picture is 
 probably not exceeded by any of the productions 
 of the Flemish school. 
 
 The young girl hi the third picture, who is 
 represented as the victim of fashionable profligacy, 
 is unquestionably one of the artist's chef-d'osuvres. 
 The exquisite delicacy of the painting is only sur- 
 passed by the felicity and subtlety of the concep- 
 tion. Nothing can be more striking than the 
 contrast between the extreme softness of her per- 
 son, and the hardened indifference of her character.
 
 ON THE WORKS OF HOGARTH, &c. 271 
 
 The vacant stillness, the docility to vice, the pre- 
 mature suppression of youthful sensibility, the 
 doll-like mechanism of the whole figure, which 
 seems to have no other feeling but a sickly sense 
 of pain shew the deepest insight into human 
 nature, and into the effects of those refinements in 
 depravity, by which it has been good-naturedly 
 asserted, that *^ vice loses half its evil in losing all 
 its grossness." The story of this picture is in 
 some parts very obscure and enigmatical. It is 
 certain that the nobleman is not looking strait 
 forward to the quack, whom he seems to have 
 been threatening with his cane ; but that his eyes 
 are turned up with an ironical leer of triumph to 
 the procuress. The commanding attitude and size 
 of this woman, the swelling circumference of her 
 dress, spread out like a turkey-cock's feathers, 
 the fierce, ungovernable, inveterate mtilignity of 
 her countenance, which hardly needs the comment 
 of the clasp-knife to explain her purpose, are all 
 admirable In themselves, and still more so, as they 
 are opposed to the mute insensibility, the elegant 
 negligence of dress, and the childish figure of the 
 girl who is supposed to be her protegee. As for 
 the Quack, there can be no doubt entertained about 
 him. His face seems as if it were composed of 
 salve, and his features exhibit all the chaos and 
 confusion of the most gross, ignorant, and impu-
 
 272 ON THE WORKS OF HOGARTH, &c. 
 
 dent empiricism. The gradations of ridiculous af- 
 fectation in the Music scene are finely imagined 
 and preserved. The preposterous, overstrained 
 admiration of the lady of quality ; the sentimental, 
 insipid, patient delight of the man, with his hair 
 in papers, and sipping his tea; the pert, smirking, 
 conceited, half-distorted approbation of the figure 
 next to him ; the transition to the total insensibility 
 of the round face in profile, and then to the 
 wonder of the negro-boy at the rapture of his 
 mistress, form a perfect whole. The sanguine 
 complexion and flame-coloured hair of the female 
 virtuoso throw an additional light on the character. 
 This is lost in the print. The continuing the red 
 colour of the hair into the back of the chair, has 
 been pointed out as one of those instances of what 
 may be termed alliteration in colouring, of which 
 these pictures are every where full. The gross 
 bloated appearance of the Italian singer is well re- 
 lieved by the hard features of the instrumental 
 performer behind him, which might be carved of 
 wood. The negro-boy holding the chocolate, both in 
 expression, colour, and execution, is a masterpiece. 
 The gay, lively derision of the other negro-boy play- 
 ing with the Acteon, is an ingenious contrast to the 
 profound amazement of the first. Some account 
 has already been given of the two lovers in this 
 picture. It in curious to observe the infinite ac-
 
 ON THE WORKS OF HOGARTH, &c. 273 
 
 tivity of mind which the artist displays on every 
 occasion. An instance occurs in the present 
 picture. He has so contrived the papers in the 
 hair of the bride, as to make them look almost 
 like a wreath of half-blown flowers ; while those 
 which he has placed on the head of the musical 
 amateur, very much resemble a cheveux-de-fris of 
 horns, which adorn and fortify the lack lustre 
 expression, and mild resignation of the face 
 beneath. 
 
 The Night Scene is inferior to the rest of the 
 series. The attitude of the husband, who is just 
 killed, is one in which it would be impossible for 
 him to stand or even to fall. It resembles the 
 loose pasteboard figures they make for children. 
 The characters in the last picture, in which the wife 
 dies, are all masterly. I would particularly refer 
 to the captious, petulant, self-sufficiency of the 
 Apothecary, whose face and figure are constructed 
 on exact physiognomical principles ; and to the fine 
 example of passive obedience and non-resistance 
 in the servant, whom he is taking to task, and 
 whose coat, of green and yellow livery, is as long 
 and melancholy as his face. The disconsolate look 
 and haggard eyes, the open mouth, the comb 
 sticking in the hair, the broken gapped teeth, 
 which, as it were, hitch in an answer, every thing
 
 274 ON THE WORKS OF HOGARTH, &c. 
 
 about him denotes the utmost perplexity and 
 dismay. The harmony and gradations of colour 
 in this picture are uniformly preserved with the 
 greatest nicety, and are well worthy the attention 
 of the artist. I have so far attempted to point 
 out the fund of observation, physical and moral, 
 contained in one set of these pictures, the Mar- 
 riage-a-la-Modc. The rest would furnish as many 
 topics to descant upon, were the patience of the 
 reader as inexhaustible as the painter's invention. 
 But as this is not the case, I shall content myself 
 with barely referring to some of those figures in 
 the other pictures, which appear to me the most 
 striking, and which we see not only while we are 
 looking at them, but which we have before us at all 
 other times. For instance, who, having seen, can 
 easily forget that exquisite frost-piece of religion and 
 morality, the antiquated Prude in the Morning- 
 Scene ; or that striking commentary on the good 
 old times, the little wretched appendage of a Foot- 
 boy, who crawls, half famished and half frozen, be- 
 hind her? The French man and woman in the 
 Noon, are the perfection of flighty affectation and 
 studied grimace; the amiable /'r^/e/7?/;^<7//o7/ of the 
 two old women saluting each other, is not enough 
 to be admired ; and in the little Master, in the 
 same national group, we see the early promise 
 and personification of that eternal principle of
 
 ON THE WORKS OF HOGARTH, &c. 275 
 
 wondrous self-complacency, proof against all cir- 
 cumstances, and which makes the French the only 
 people who are vain even of being cuckolded and 
 being conquered ! Or shall we prefer to this the 
 outrageous distress and unmitigated terrors of the 
 Boy who has dropped his dish of meat, and wlio 
 seems red all over with shame and vexation, and 
 bursting with the noise he makes ? Or what can 
 be better than the good housewifery of the Girl un- 
 derneath, who is devouring the lucky fragments ; 
 or than the plump, ripe, florid, luscious look of 
 the Servant-wench near her, embraced by a greasy 
 rascal of an Othello, with her pye-dish tottering 
 like her virtue, and with the most precious part of 
 its contents running over ? Just no, not quite 
 as good is the joke of the Woman overhead, who, 
 having quarrelled with her Husband, is throwing 
 their Sunday's dinner out of the window, to com- 
 plete this chapter of accidents of baked-dishes. 
 The Husband in the Evening Scene is certainly as 
 meek as any recorded in history ; but I cannot say 
 that I admire this picture, or the Night Scene 
 after it. But then, in the Taste in High-Life, 
 there is that inimitable pair, differing only in sex, 
 congratulating and delighting one another by " ali 
 the mutually reflected charities " of folly and af- 
 fectation, with the young Lady, coloured like a 
 rose, dandling her little., black, pug-f;iced, white-
 
 276 ON THE WORKS OF HOGARTH, &t. 
 
 teethed, chuckling favourite ; and with the portrait 
 of Monsieur Des Noyers in the back-ground, 
 dancing in a grand ballet, surrounded by butterflies. 
 And again, in the Election Dinner, is the immortal 
 Cobbler, surrounded by his Peers, who, 
 
 " frequent and full. 
 
 In loud recess and brawling cohclave sit" 
 
 the Jew in the second picture, a very Jew in grain ; 
 innumerable fine sketches of heads in the Polling 
 for Votes, of which the Nobleman overlooking the 
 Caricaturist is the second best, and the Blind-man 
 going up to vote, the best ; and then the irresistible, 
 tumultuous display of broad humour in the Chair- 
 ing the Member, which is, perhaps, of all Hogarth's 
 pictures, the most full of laughable incidents and 
 situations; the yellow, rusty-faced Thresher, with 
 his swinging flail breaking the head of one of the 
 chairmen ; and his redoubted antagonist, the Sailor, 
 with his oak-stick, and stumping wooden-leg, a sup- 
 plemental cudgel; the persevering ecstacy of the 
 hobbling Blind Fiddler, who, in the fray, appears 
 to have been trod upon by the artificial excrescence 
 of the honest tar; Monsieur, the monkey, with 
 piteous aspect, speculating the impending disaster 
 of the triumphant Candidate, and his brother 
 Bruin, appropriating the paunch; the precipitous
 
 ON THE WORKS OF HOGARTH, &c. 277 
 
 flight of the Pigs, souse over head into the water; 
 the fine Lady fainting, with vermilion lips ; and the 
 two Chimney Sweepers, satirical young rogues 1 I 
 had almost forgot the Politician, who is burning a 
 hole through his hat with a candle in reading a 
 newspaper; and the Chickens, in the March to 
 F'mchley, wandering in search of their lost dam, 
 who is found in the pocket of the Serjeant. Of 
 the pictures in the Rake's Progress^ exhibited in 
 this collection, I shall not here say any thing, be- 
 cause I think them on the whole inferior to the 
 prints, and because they have already been criti- 
 cised by a writer, to whom I could add nothing, 
 in a paper which ought to be read by every lover 
 of Hogarth and of English genius I mean, Mr. 
 Lamb's Essay on the works of Hogarth. I shall 
 at present proceed to form some estimate of the 
 style of art in which this painter excelled. 
 
 What distinguishes his compositions from all 
 others of the same general kind, is, that they are 
 equally remote from caricature, and from mere 
 still life. It of course happens in subjects taken 
 from common life, that the painter can procure real 
 models, and he can get them to sit as long as he 
 pleases. Hence, in general, those attitudes and 
 expressions have been chosen which could be as- 
 sumed the longest ; and in imitating which, the
 
 278 ON THE WORKS OF HOGARTH, &c. 
 
 artist by taking pains and time might produce al- 
 most as complete facsimiles as he could of a flower 
 or a flower-potj of a damask curtain or a china-vase. 
 The copy was as perfect and as uninteresting in 
 the one case as in the other. On the contrary, 
 subjects of drollery and ridicule affording frequent 
 examples of strange deformity and peculiarity of 
 features, these have been eagerly seized by another 
 class of artists, who, without subjecting themselves 
 to the laborious drudgery of the Dutch school and 
 their imitators, have produced our popular cari- 
 catures, by rudely copying or exaggerating the 
 casual irregularities of the human countenance. 
 Hogarth has equally avoided the faults of both 
 these styles ; the insipid tameness of the one, and the 
 gross extravagance of the other, so as to give to the 
 productions of his pencil equal solidity and effect. 
 For his faces go to the very verge of caricature, 
 and yet never (I believe in any single instance) go 
 beyond it : they take the very widest latitude, and 
 yet we always see the links which bind them to 
 nature: they bear all the marks, and carry all the 
 conviction of reality with them, as if we had seen 
 the actual faces for the first time, from the pre- 
 cision, consistency, and good sense with which 
 the whole and every part is made out. They ex- 
 hibit the most uncommon features, with the most 
 uncommon expressions; but which yet are as fa-
 
 ON THE WORKS OF HOGARTH, &c. ^79 
 
 miliar and intelligible as possible, because with all 
 the boldness, they have all the truth of nature. 
 Hogarth has left behind him as many of these 
 memorable faces, in their memorable moments, as, 
 perhaps, most of us remember in the course of our 
 lives, and has thus doubled the quantity of our 
 experience. 
 
 It will assist us in forming a more determinate 
 idea of the peculiar genius of Hogarth, to compare 
 him with a deservedly admired artist in our own 
 times. The highest authority on art in this 
 country, I understand, has pronounced that Mr. 
 Wilkie united the excellences of Hogarth to those 
 of Teniers. I demur to this decision in both its 
 branches ; but in demurring to authority, it is 
 necessary to give our reasons, I conceive that 
 this ingenious and attentive observer of nature 
 has certain essential, real, and indisputable excel- 
 lences of his own ; and I think it, therefore, the 
 less important to clothe him with any vicarious 
 jiierits which do not belong to him. Mr. Wilkie's 
 pictures, generally speaking, derive almost their 
 whole value from their rcalitii, or the trntli of the 
 representation. They are works of pure imitative 
 iirt ; and the test of this style of composition is to 
 represent nature faithfully and happily iit its 
 simplest combinations. It may bo snid of an
 
 280 ON THE WORKS OF HOGARTH, &c. 
 
 artist like Mr. Wilkie, that nothing human is in- 
 different to him. His mind takes an interest in, 
 and it gives an interest to, the most familiar 
 scenes and transactions of life. He professedly 
 gives character, thought, and passion, in their 
 lowest degrees, and in their every-day forms. He 
 selects the commonest events and appearances of 
 nature for his subjects ; and trusts to their very 
 commonness for the interest and amusement he is 
 to excite. Mr. Wilkie is a serious, prosaic, literal 
 narrator of facts ; and his pictures may be con- 
 sidered as diaries, or minutes of what is passing 
 constantly about us. Hogarth, on the contrary, is 
 essentially a comic painter; his pictures are not 
 indifferent, unimpassioned descriptions of human 
 nature, but rich, exuberant satires upon it. He is 
 carried away by a passion for the iidiculous. His 
 object is " to shew vice her own feature, scorn her 
 own image." He is so far from contenting him- 
 self with still-life, that he is always on the verge 
 of caricature, though without ever falling into it. 
 He does not represent folly or vice in its incipient, 
 or dormant, or grub state ; but full grown, with 
 wings, pampered into all sorts of affectation, airy, 
 ostentatious, and extravagant. Folly is there seen 
 at the height the moon is at the full ; it is " the 
 very error of the time." There is a perpetual col- 
 lision of eccentricities a tilt and tournament of
 
 ON THE WORKS OF HOGARTH, &c. 281 
 
 absurdities ; the prejudices and caprices of man- 
 kind are let loose, and set together by the ears, as 
 in a bear-garden. Hogarth paints nothing but 
 comedy, or tragi-comedy. Wilkie paints neither 
 one nor the other. Hogarth never looks at any 
 object but to find out a moral or a ludicrous effect. 
 Wilkie never looks at any object but to see that it 
 is there. Hogarth's pictures are a perfect jest- 
 book, from one end to the other. I do not re- 
 member a single joke in Wilkie's, except one very 
 bad one of the boy in the Blind Fiddler, scraping 
 the gridiron, or fire-shovel, I forget which it is *. 
 In looking at Hogarth, you are ready to burst your 
 sides with laughing at the unaccountable jumble 
 of odd things which are brought together ; you 
 look at Wilkie's pictures with a mingled feeling of 
 curiosity, and admiration at the accuracy of the 
 representation. For instance, there is a most ad- 
 mirable head of a man coughing in the Rent-day ; 
 the action, the keeping, the choaked sensation, are 
 inimitable : but there is nothing to laugh at in a 
 man coughing. What strikes the mind is the 
 difficulty of a man's being painted coughing, which 
 here certainly is a masterpiece of art. But turn 
 to the blackguard Cobbler in the Election Dinner, 
 
 * The Waiter drawing the cork, in the Rent-day, is 
 another exception, and c^uite Hogarthian.
 
 282 ON THE WORKS OF HOGARTH, &c, 
 
 who has been smutting his neighbour's face over, 
 and who is lolling out his tongue at the joke, with 
 a most surprising obliquity of vision ; and imme- 
 diately " your lungs begin to crow like chanti- 
 cleer." Again, there is the little boy crying in the 
 Cut Finger, who only gives you the idea of a cross, 
 disagreeable, obstinate child in pain : whereas the 
 same face in Hogarth's Noon, from the ridiculous 
 perplexity it is in, and its extravagant, noisy, un- 
 felt distress, at the accident of having let fall the 
 pye-dish, is quite irresistible. Mr. Wilkie, in his 
 picture of the Alehouse-door, I believe, painted 
 Mr. Liston as one of the figures, without any great 
 effect. Hogarth would have given any price for 
 such a subject, and would have made it worth any 
 money. I have never seen any thing, in the ex- 
 pression of comic humour, equal to Hogarth's 
 pictures, but Liston's face ! 
 
 Mr. Wilkie paints interiors: but still you 
 generally connect them with the country. Ho- 
 garth, even when he paints people in the open 
 air, represents them either as coming from L'ondon, 
 as in the polling for votes at Brentford, or as re- 
 turning to it, as the dyer and his wife at Bagnigge 
 Wells. In this last picture, he has contrived to 
 convert a common rural image into a type and 
 emblem of city honours. In fact, I know no one 
 who had a lebs pastoral imagination than Hogarth.
 
 ON THE WORKS OF HOGARTH, &c. 283 
 
 He delights in the thick of St. Giles's or St. 
 James's. His pictures breathe a certain close, 
 greasy, tavern air. The fare he serves up to us 
 consists of high-seasoned dishes, ragouts and oUa 
 podridas, like the supper in Gil Bias, which it re- 
 quires a strong stomach to digest. Mr. Wilkie 
 presents us with a sort of lenten fare, very good 
 and wholesome, but rather insipid than over- 
 powering ! Mr. Wilkie's pictures are, in general, 
 much better painted than Hogarth's ; but the 
 Marriage-a-la-Mode is superior both in colour and 
 execution to any of Wilkie's. I may add here, 
 without any disparagement, that, as an artist, Mr. 
 Wilkie is hardly to be mentioned with Teniers. 
 Neither in truth and brilliant clearness of colour- 
 ing, nor in facility of execution, is there any com- 
 parison. Teniers was a perfect master in all 
 these respects ; and our own countryman is posi- 
 tively defective, notwithstanding the very laudable 
 care with which he finishes every part of his pic- 
 tures. There is an evident smear and dragging of 
 the paint, which is also of a bad purple, or putty- 
 ish tone, and which never appears in the pictures 
 of the Flemish artist, any more than in a looking- 
 glass. Teniers, probably from his facility of exe- 
 cution, succeeded in giving a more local and 
 momentary expression to his figures. They seem 
 ea(;h going on with his particular amusement or
 
 284 ON THE WORKS OF HOGARTH, &c. 
 
 occupation ; Wilkie's have, in general, more a look 
 of sitting for their pictures. Their compositions 
 are very different also : and in this respect, I be- 
 lieve, Mr. Wilkie has the advantage. Teniers's 
 boors are usually amusing themselves at skittles, 
 or dancing, or drinking, or smoking, or doing 
 what they like, in a careless, desultory way ; and 
 so the composition is loose and irregular. Wilkie's 
 figures are all drawn up in a regular order, and 
 engaged in one principal action, with occasional 
 episodes. The story of the Blind Fiddler is the'most 
 interesting, and the best told. The two children 
 standing before the musician are delightful. The 
 Card-players is the best coloured of his pictures, if 
 I am not mistaken. The Village Politicians, 
 though excellent as to character and composition, 
 is inferior as a picture to those which Mr. Wilkie 
 has since painted. His latest pictures, however, 
 do not appear to me to be his best. There is 
 something of manner and affectation in the group- 
 ing of the figures, and a pink and r^sy colour 
 spread over them, which is out of place. The 
 hues of Rubens and Sir Joshua do not agree with 
 Mr. Wilkie's subjects. One of his last pictures, 
 that of Duncan Gray, is equally remarkable for 
 sweetness and simplicity in colour, composition, 
 and expression. I must here conclude this very 
 general account; for to point out the particular
 
 ON THE WORKS OF HOGARTH, &c. 285 
 
 beauties of every one of his pictures in detail, 
 would require an Essay by itself. 
 
 I have promised to say something in this 
 Lecture on the difference between the grand and 
 familiar style of painting ; and I shall throw out 
 what imperfect hints I have been able to collect 
 on this subject, so often attempted, and never yet 
 succeeded in, taking the examples and illustra- 
 tions from Hogarth, that is, from what he pos- 
 sessed or wanted in each kind. 
 
 And first, the difference is not that between 
 imitation and invention : for there is as much 
 of this last quality in Hogarth, as in any painter 
 or poet whatever. As, for example, to take 
 two of his pictures only, I mean the Enraged 
 Musician and the Gin Lane ; in one of which 
 every conceivable variety of disagreeable and 
 discordant sound the razor-grinder turning his 
 wheel ; the boy with his drum, and the girl with 
 her rattle momentarily suspended ; the pursuivant 
 blowing his horn ; the shrill milkwoman ; the in- 
 exorable ballad-singer, with her squalling infant ; 
 the pewterer's shop close by; the fishwomen; 
 the chimney-sweepers at the top of a chimney, 
 and the two cats in melodious concert on the ridge 
 ot the tiles ; with the bells ringing in the distance.
 
 a86 ON THE WORKS OF HOGARTH, &c. 
 
 as we see by the flags flying : and in the other, the 
 complicated forms and signs of death and ruinous 
 decay the woman on the stairs of the bridge 
 asleep, letting her child fall over ; her ghastly 
 companion opposite, next to death's door, with 
 hollow, famished cheeks and staring ribs ; the dog- 
 fighting with the man for the bare shin-bone ; the 
 man hanging himself in a garret; the female 
 corpse put into a coffin by the parish beadle ; 
 the men marching after a funeral, seen through a 
 broken wall in the back ground ; and the very 
 houses reeling as if drunk and tumbling about the 
 ears of the infatuated victims below, the pawn- 
 broker's being the only one that stands firm and 
 unimpaired enforce the moral meant to be con- 
 veyed by each of these pieces with a richness and 
 research of combination and artful contrast not 
 easily paralleled in any production of the pencil 
 or the pen. The clock pointing to four in the 
 morning, in Modern Midnight Conversation, just 
 as the immoveable Parson Ford is filling out an- 
 other glass from a brimming punch-bowl, while 
 most of his companions, with the exception of 
 the sly Lawyer, are falling around him " like 
 leaves in October;" and again, the extraordinary 
 mistake of the man leaning against the post, in 
 the Lord Mayor's Procession shew a mind ca- 
 pable of seizing the most rare and transient coin-
 
 ON THE WORKS OF HOGARTH, &c. 287 
 
 cidences of things, of imagining what either never 
 happened at all, or of instantly fixing on and 
 applying to its purpose what never happened but 
 once. So far, the invention shewn in the great 
 style of painting is poor in the comparison. In- 
 deed, grandeur is supposed (whether rightly or 
 not, I shall not here inquire) to imply a simplicity 
 inconsistent with this inexhaustible variety of in- 
 cident and circumstantial detail. 
 
 Secondly, the difference between the ideal and 
 familiar style is not to be explained by the dif- 
 ference between the genteel and vulgar ; for it is 
 evident that Hogarth was almost as much at 
 home in the genteel comedy, as in the broad farce 
 of his pictures. He excelled not only in exhibit- 
 ing the coarse humours and disgusting incidents 
 of low life, but in exhibiting the vices, follies, and 
 frivolity of the fashionable manners of his time : 
 his fine ladies hardly yield the palm to his wait- 
 ing-maids, and his lords and his footmen are on a 
 respectable footing of equality. There is no want, 
 for example, in the Marriage-a-la-Mode, or in Taste 
 in High Life, of affectation verging into idiotism, 
 or of languid sensibility, that might 
 
 " Die of a rose in aromatic pain." 
 
 In short, Hogarth was a painter, not of low but
 
 288 ON THE WORKS OF HOGARTH, &c. 
 
 of actual life ; and the ridiculous and prominent 
 features of high or low life, of the great vulgar or 
 the small, lay equally open to him. The Country 
 Girl, in the first plate of the Flarlot's Progress, 
 coming out of the waggon, is not more simple 
 and ungainly, than the same figure, in the second, 
 is thoroughly initiated into the mysteries of her 
 art, and suddenly accomplished in all the airs and 
 graces of affectation, ease, and impudence. The 
 affected languor and imbecility of the same girl 
 afterwards, when put to beat hemp in Bridewell, is 
 exactly in keeping with the character she has been 
 taught to assume. Sir Joshua could do nothing 
 like it in his line of portrait, which differed chiefly 
 in the back ground. The fine gentleman at his 
 levee, in the Rake's Progress, is also a complete 
 model of a person of rank and fortune, sur- 
 rounded by needy and worthless adventurers, fid- 
 dlers, poetasters and virtuosi, as was tlie custom 
 in those days. Lord Chesterfield himself would 
 not have been disgraced by sitting for it. I might 
 multiply examples to shew that Hogarth was not 
 characteristically deficient in that kind of elegance 
 which arises from an habitual attention to external 
 appearance and deportment. I will only add as 
 instances, among his women, the two elegantes in 
 the Bedlam scene, which arc dressed (allowing for 
 the difference of not quite a century) in the manner
 
 ON THE WORKS OF HOGARTH, &c. 289 
 
 uf Ackerman's dresses for May ; and among the 
 men, the Lawyer in Modern MidnightConversation, 
 whose gracious significant leer and sleek lubricated 
 countenance exhibit all the happy finesse of his 
 profession, when a silk gown has been added, or 
 is likely to be added to it ; and several figures in 
 the Cockpit, who are evidently, at the first glance, 
 gentlemen of the old school, and where the mixture 
 of the blacklegs with the higher character is a 
 still further test of the discriminating skill of the 
 painter. 
 
 Again, Hogarth had not only a perception of 
 fashion, but a sense of natural beauty. There are 
 as many pleasing faces in his pictures as in Sir 
 Joshua. Witness the girl picking the Rake's 
 pocket in the Bagnio scene, whom we might sup- 
 pose to be " the Charming Betsy Careless ;" the 
 Poet's wife, handsomer than falls to the lot of 
 most poets, who are generally more intent upon 
 the idea in their own minds than on the image 
 before them, and are glad to take up with Dul- 
 cincus of their own creating ; the theatrical he- 
 roine in the Southwark Fair, who would be an 
 accession to either of our play-houses ; the girl 
 asleep, ogled by the clerk in church time, and tlie 
 sweetheart of the Good Apprentice in the reading 
 desk in the second of that series, almost an ideal fare
 
 290 ON THE WORKS OF HOGARTH, ike. 
 
 and expression, the girl in her cap selected for a part- 
 ner by the footman in the print of Morning, very 
 handsome; and many others equally so, scattered 
 like " stray-gifts of love and beauty" through these 
 pictures. Hogarth was not then exclusively the 
 painter of deformity. He painted beauty or ug- 
 liness indifferently, as they came in his way ; and 
 was not by nature confined to those faces which 
 are painful and disgusting, as many would have us 
 believe. 
 
 Again, neither are we to look for the solution 
 of the difficulty in the difference between the 
 comic and the tragic, between loose laughter and 
 deep passion. For Mr. Lamb has shewn unan- 
 swerably that Hogarth is quite at home in scenes 
 of the deepest distress, in the heart-rending cala- 
 mities of common life, in the expression of ungo- 
 vernable rage, silent despair, or moody madness, 
 enhanced by the tenderest sympathy, or aggravated 
 by the frightful contrast of the most impenetrable 
 and obdurate insensibility, as we see strikingly 
 exemplified in the latter prints of the Rake's Pro- 
 gress. To the unbeliever in Hogarth's power 
 over the passions and the feelings of the heart, 
 the characters there speak like " the hand-writing 
 on the wall." If Mr. Lamb has gone too far in 
 paralleling some of these appalling representations
 
 ON THE WORKS OF HOGARTH, &c. 'Z9l 
 
 with Shakespear, he was excusable in being led to 
 set off what may be considered as a staggering^ 
 paradox against a rooted prejudice. At any rate, 
 the inferiority of Hogarth (be it what it may) did 
 not arise from a want of passion and intense feel- 
 ing ; and in this respect he had the advantage over 
 Fielding, for instance, and others of our comic 
 writers, who excelled only in the light and lu- 
 dicrous. There is in general a distinction, almost 
 an impassable one, between the power of embo- 
 dying the serious and the ludicrous ; but these 
 contradictory faculties were reconciled in Hogarth, 
 as they were in Shakspeare, in Chaucer ; and as it 
 is said that they were in another extraordinary 
 and later instance, Garrick's acting. 
 
 None of these then will do : neither will the 
 most masterly and entire keeping of character 
 lead us to an explanation of the grand and ideal 
 style ; for Hogarth possessed the most complete 
 and absolute mastery over the truth and identity 
 of expression and features in his sn!)jects. Every 
 stroke of his pencil tells according to a precon- 
 ception in his mind. If the eye squints, the 
 mouth is distorted ; every feature acts, and is acted 
 upon by the re^t of the hice ; even the dress and 
 attitude are such as could be projjer to no other 
 figure : the whole is under the influence of one
 
 292 ON THE WORKS OF HOGARTH, &c. 
 
 
 impulse, that of truth and nature. Look at the 
 
 heads in the Cockpit, already mentioned, one of 
 the most masterly of his productions in this way, 
 where the workings of the mind are seen in every 
 muscle of every face ; and the same expression, 
 more intense or relaxed, of hope or of fear, is 
 stamped on each of the characters, so that you 
 could no more transpose any part of one coun- 
 tenance to another, than you could change a 
 profile to a front face. Hogarth was, in one 
 sense, strictly an historical painter : that is, he 
 represented the manners and humours of mankind 
 in action, and their characters by varied expression. 
 Every thing in his pictures has life and motion in 
 it. Not only does the business of the scene never 
 fetand still, but every feature is put into full play ; 
 the exact feeling of the moment is brought out, 
 and carried to its utmost height, and then instantly 
 seized and stamped on the canvass for ever. The 
 expression is always taken en passant, in a state of 
 progress or change, and, as it were, at the salient 
 point. Besides the excellence of each individual 
 face, the reflection of the expression from face to 
 face, the contrast and struggle of particular motives 
 and feelings in the different actors in the scene, as 
 of anger, contempt, laughter, compassion, are con- 
 veyed in the happiest and most lively manner. 
 His figures arc not like the back-ground on whicli
 
 ON THE WORKS OF HOGARTH, &c. 293 
 
 they are painted : even the pictures on the wall 
 have a peculiar look of their own. All this is 
 effected by a few decisive and rapid touches of the 
 pencil, careless in appearance, but infallible in their 
 results ; so that one great criterion of the grand 
 style insisted on by Sir Joshua Reynolds, that 
 of leaving out the details, and attending to general 
 character and outline, belonged to Hogarth. He 
 did not indeed arrive at middle forms or neutral 
 expression, which Sir Joshua makes another test 
 of the ideal ; for Hogarth was not insipid. That 
 was the last fault with which he could be charged. 
 But he had breadth and boldness of manner, as 
 well as any of them ; so that neither does that 
 constitute the ideal. 
 
 What then does ? We have reduced this 
 to something like the last remaining quantity 
 in an equation, where all the others have been 
 ascertained. Hogarth had all tlie other parts 
 of an original and accomplished genius except 
 this, but this he iiad not. He had an intense 
 feeling and command over the impressions of 
 sense, of habit, of character, and passion, the 
 serious and the comic, in a word, of nature, as it fell 
 within his own observation, or came within the 
 sphere of his actual experience ; but he had little 
 j)()\ver beyond that sj)here, or sympathy with that
 
 ^94 ON THE WORKS OF HOGARTH, &c. 
 
 which existed only m idea. He was " conformed 
 to this world, not transformed." If he attempted 
 to paint Pharaoh's daughter, and Paul before 
 Felix, he lost himself. His mind had feet and 
 hands, but not wings to fly with. There is a 
 mighty world of sense, of custom, of every-day 
 action, of accidents and objects coming home to us, 
 and interesting because they do so ; the gross, ma- 
 terial, stirring, noisy world of common life and 
 selfish passion, of which Hogarth was absolute lord 
 and master: there is another mightier world, that 
 which exists only in conception and in power, the 
 universe of thought and sentiment, that surrounds 
 and is raised above the ordinary world of reality, 
 as the empyrean surrounds this nether globe, 
 into which few are privileged to soar with mighty 
 wings outspread, and in which, as power is given 
 them to embody their aspiring fancies, to " give 
 to airy nothing a local habitation and a name," to 
 till with imaginary shapes of beauty or sublimity, 
 and make the dark abyss pregnant, bringing that 
 which is remote home to us, raising themselves to 
 the lofty, sustaining themselves on the refined and 
 abstracted, making all things like not what we 
 know and feel in ourselves, in this " ignorant 
 present" time, but like what they iiinst be in tlicni- 
 selves, or in our noblest idea of them, and stamping 
 that idea with reality, (but chiefly ch)lhing the
 
 ON THE WORKS OF HOGARTH, &c. 295 
 
 best and the highest with grace and grandeur:) 
 this is the ideal in art, in poetry, and in painting. 
 There are things which are cognisable only to 
 sense, which interest only our more immediate 
 instincts and passions ; the want of food, the 
 loss of a limb, or of a sum of money: there are 
 others that appeal to different and nobler facul- 
 ties ; the wants of the mind, the hunger and 
 thirst after truth and beauty; that is, to faculties 
 commensurate with objects greater and of greater 
 refinement, which to be grand must extend beyond 
 ourselves to others, and our interest in which must 
 he refined in proportion as they do so.* The inte- 
 ipst in these subjects is in proportion to the power 
 of conceiving them, and the power of conceiving 
 them is in proportion to the interest and affection 
 for them, to the innate bias of the mind to elevate 
 itself above every thing low, and purify itself from 
 every thing gross. Hogarth only transcribes or 
 transposes what was tangible and visible, not the 
 
 * When Meg Merrilies says in her dying moments 
 ' Nay, nay, lay my head to the East," what was the East 
 to her ? Not a reality but an idea of distant time and the 
 land of her forefathers ; the last, the strongest, and the bcit 
 that occurred to her in tliis world. Her gipsy slang >i;5.) 
 dress were quaint and grotesque,- her attaclimcnl to ihe 
 Kaim of Derncleugh and the wood of ^Varrook was m- 
 iiianticj her worship of the East wab idcaL
 
 296 ON THE WORKS OF HOGARTH, &c. 
 
 abstracted and intelligible. You see in his pic- 
 tures only the faces which you yourself have seen, 
 or others like them ; none of his characters are 
 thinking of any person or thing out of the pic- 
 ture : you are only interested in the objects of their 
 contention or pursuit, because they themselves 
 are interested in them. There is nothing remote 
 in thought, or comprehensive in feeling. The whole 
 is intensely personal and local : but the interest of 
 the ideal and poetical style of art, relates to more 
 permanent and universal objects ; and the cha- 
 racters and forms must be such as to correspond 
 with and sustain that interest, and give external 
 grace and dignity to it. Such were the subjects 
 which Raphael chose ; faces imbued with unalter- 
 able sentiment, and figures, that stand in the eternal 
 silence of thought. He places before you objects 
 of everlasting interest, events of greatest magni- 
 tude, and persons in them fit for the scene and 
 action warriors and kings, princes and nobles, and, 
 greater yet, poets and philosophers ; and mightier 
 than these, patriarchs and apostles, prophets and 
 founders of religion, saints and martyrs, angels 
 and the Son of God. We know their importance 
 and their high calling, and we feel that they do not 
 i)clie it. We see them as they were painted, witli 
 the eye of faith. The light which they have 
 kindled in the world, is reflected back upon their
 
 ON THE WORKS OF HOGARTH, &c. 297 
 
 faces : the awe and homage which has been paid 
 to them, is seated upon their brow, and encircles 
 them hke a glory. All those who come before 
 them, are conscious of a superior presence. For 
 example, the beggars, in the Gate Beautiful, are im- 
 pressed with this ideal borrowed character. Would 
 not the cripple and the halt feel a difference of 
 sensation, and express it outwardly in such circum- 
 stances r And was the painter wrong to transfer 
 this sense of preternatural power and the confidence 
 of a saving faith to his canvass ? Hogarth's Pool of 
 Bethesda, on the contrary, is only a collection of 
 common beggars receiving an alms. The waters 
 may be stirred, but the mind is not stirred with 
 them. The fowls, again in the Miraculous Draught 
 of Fishes, exult and clap their wings, and seem lift- 
 ed up with some unusual cause of joy. There is not 
 the same expansive, elevated principle in Hogarth. 
 He has amiable and praise-worthy characters, in- 
 deed, among his bad ones. The Master of the 
 Industrious and Idle Apprentice is a good citizen 
 and a virtuous man ; but his benevolence is me- 
 chanical and confined: it extends only to his 
 ^hop, or, at most, to his vvard. His face is not 
 ruffled by passion, nor is it inspired by thought. 
 To give another instance, the face of the faithful 
 Female, fainting in the prison-scene in the Rake's 
 Progress, is more one of effeminate softness than
 
 298 ON THE WORKS OF HOGARTH, &c. 
 
 of disinterested tenderness, or heroic constancy. 
 But in the pictures of the Mother and Child, by 
 Raphael and Leonard Da Vinci, we see all the 
 tenderness purified from all the weakness of ma- 
 ternal affection, and exalted by the prospects of 
 religious faith ; so that the piety and devotion of 
 future generations seems to add its weight to the 
 expression of feminine sweetness and parental love, 
 to press upon the heart, and breathe in the counte- 
 nance. This is the ideal, passion blended with thought 
 and pointing to distant objects, not debased by 
 grossness, not thwarted by accident, not weakened 
 by familiarity, but connected with forms and cir- 
 cumstances that give the utmost possible expansion 
 and refinement to the general sentiment. With all 
 my admiration of Hogarth, I cannot think him 
 equal to Raphael. I do not know whether, if the 
 port-folio were opened, I would not as soon look 
 over the prints of Hogarth as those of Raphael ; but, 
 assuredly, if the question were put to me, I would 
 sooner never have seen the prints of Hogarth, than 
 never have seen those of Raphael. It is many years 
 ago since I first saw the prints of the Cartoons 
 hanging round the old-fashioned parlour of a little 
 inn in a remote part of the country. I was then 
 young : I had heard of the fame of the Cartoons, 
 but this was the first time I had ever been ad- 
 mitted face to face into the presence of those
 
 ON THE WORKS OF HOGARTH, &c, 299 
 
 divine guests. " How was I then uplifted!" Pro- 
 phets and Apostles stood before me as in a dream, 
 and the Saviour of the Christian world, with his 
 attributes of faith and power; miracles were 
 %vorking on the walls ; the hand of Raphael was 
 there ; and as his pencil traced the lines, I saw 
 godlike spirits and lofty shapes descend and vvalk 
 visibly the earth, but as if their thoughts still 
 lifted them above the earth. There I saw the 
 figure of St. Paul, pointing with noble fervour to 
 " temples not made with hands, eternal in the 
 heavens;" and that finer one of Christ in the boat, 
 whose whole figure seems sustained by meekness 
 and love; and that of the same person surrounded 
 by his disciples, like a tlock of sheep listening to 
 the music of some divine shepherd. I knew not 
 how enough to admire them. Later in life, I saw 
 other works of this great painter (with more like 
 them) collected in the Louvre : where Art, at that 
 time, lifted up her head, and was seated on her 
 throne, and said, " All eyes shall see me, and all 
 knees shall bow to me !" Honour was done to her 
 and all hers. There was her treasure, and there 
 the inventory of all she had. There she had ga- 
 thered together her pomp, and there was her 
 shrine, and there her votaries came and wor- 
 shipped as in a temple. The crown she wore was 
 i)righter than that of kings. Where the struggle? 
 tor Innnan liberty had been, there were the triumph:^
 
 300 ON THE WORKS OF HOGARTH, &c. 
 
 of human genius. For there, in the Louvre, were 
 the precious monuments of art : there ^' stood 
 the statue that enchants the world ;" there was 
 Apollo, the Laocoon, the Dying Gladiator, the 
 head of the Antinous, Diana with her Fawn, 
 the Muses and the Graces in a ring, and all the 
 glories of the antique world : 
 
 *' There was old Proteus coming from the sea. 
 And wreathed Triton blew his winding horn." 
 
 There, too, were the two St. Jeromes, Correggio's, 
 and Domenichino's ; there was Raphael's Transfi- 
 guration ; the St. Mark of Tintoret ; Paul Veronese's 
 Marriage of Cana; the Deluge of Poussin; and 
 Titian's St. Peter Martyr. It was there that I 
 learned to become an enthusiast of the lasting 
 works of the great painters, and of their names no 
 less magnificent ; grateful to the heart as the sound 
 of celestial harmony from other spheres, waking 
 around us (whether heard or not) from youth to 
 age ; the stay, the guide, and anchor of our purest 
 thoughts; whom, having once seen, we always re- 
 member, c^nd who teach us to see all things 
 through them ; without whom life would be to 
 begin again, and the earth barren ; of Raphael, 
 who lifted the human form half way to heaven ; 
 of Titian, who painted the mind in the face, and 
 unJolded i\it boul of things to the eye ; of Rubtns,
 
 ON THE WORKS OF HOGARTH, &c. 301 
 
 around whose pencil gorgeous shapes thronged 
 numberless, startling us by the novel accidents of 
 form and colour, putting the spirit of motion into 
 the universe, and weaving a gay fantastic round 
 and Bacchanalian dance with nature ; of Rembrandt, 
 too, who " smoothed the raven down of darkness 
 till it smiled," and tinged it with a light like streaks 
 of burnished ore ; of these, and more than these, 
 of whom the world was scarce worthy, and for the 
 loss of whom nothing could console me not 
 even the works of Hogarth !
 
 LECTURE VIII. 
 
 ON THE COMIC WRITERS OF THE LAST 
 CENTURY. 
 
 The question which has been often asked, JVIiy 
 there are comparat'wely so few good modern Comedies? 
 appears in a great measure to answer itself. It is 
 because so many excellent comedies have been writ- 
 ten, that there are none written at present. Comedy 
 naturally wears itself out destroys the very food 
 on which it lives; and by constantly and success- 
 fully exposing the follies and weaknesses of man- 
 kind to ridicule, in the end leaves itself nothing 
 worth laughing at. It holds the mirror up to 
 nature; and men, seeing their most striking pe- 
 culiarities and def(^cts pass in gay review before 
 them, learn either to avoid or conceal them. It is 
 not the criticism which the public taste exercises 
 upon the stage, but the criticism which the stage 
 exercises upon public manners, that is fatal to 
 comedy, by rendering the subject-matter of it tame,
 
 ON THE COMIC WRITERS, &c. 303 
 
 correct, and spiritless. We are drilled into a sort 
 of stupid decorum, and forced to wear the same 
 dull uniform of outward appearance ; and yet it is 
 asked, why the Comic Muse does not point, as she 
 was wont; at the peculiarities of our gait and ges- 
 ture, and exhibit the picturesque contrasts of our 
 dress and costume, in all that graceful variety in 
 which she delights. The genuine source of comic 
 writing, 
 
 " Where it must live, or have no life at all/' 
 
 is undoubtedly to be found in the distinguishing 
 peculiarities of men and manners. Now this dis- 
 tinction can subsist, so as to be strong, pointed, 
 and general, only while the manners of different 
 classes are formed almost immediately by their 
 particular circumstances, and the characters of in- 
 dividuals by their natural temperament and situa- 
 tion, without being everlastingly modified and 
 neutralized by intercourse with the world by 
 knowledge and education. In a certain stage of 
 society, men may be said to vegetate like trees, 
 and to become rooted to the soil in which they 
 grow. They have no idea of any thing beyond 
 themselves and their immediate sphere of action ; 
 they are, as it were, circumscribed, and defined by 
 their particular circumstances; they are ^\)lat their
 
 ;304 ON THE COMIC WRITERS 
 
 situation makes them, and nothing more. Each 
 is absorbed in his own profession or pursuit, and 
 each in his turn contracts that habitual peculiarity 
 of manners and opinions which makes him the 
 subject of ridicule to others, and the sport of the 
 Comic Muse. Thus the physician is nothing but 
 a physician, the lawyer is a mere lawyer, the 
 scholar degenerates into a pedant, the country 
 squire is a different species of being from the fine 
 gentleman, the citizen and the courtier inhabit a 
 different world, and even the affectation of certain 
 characters, in aping the follies or vices of their 
 betters, only serves to shew the immeasurable 
 distance which custom or fortune has placed be- 
 tween them. Hence the earlier comic writers, 
 taking advantage of this mixed and solid mass of 
 ignorance, folly, pride, and prejudice, made those 
 deep and lasting incisions into it, have given 
 tliose sharp and nice touches, that bold relief to 
 their characters, have opposed them in every 
 variety of contrast and collision, of conscious self- 
 satisfaction and mutual antipathy, with a power 
 which can only find full scope in the same rich 
 and inexhaustible materials. But in proportion 
 as comic genius succeeds in taking off the mask 
 from ignorance and conceit, as it teaches us 
 
 " To see ourselves as others see us,"
 
 OF THE LAST CENTURY. 805 
 
 in proportion as we are brought out on the stage 
 together, and our prejudices clash one against the 
 other, our sharp angular points wear off; we are 
 no longer rigid in absurdity, passionate in folly, 
 and we prevent the ridicule directed at our habitual 
 foibles by laughing at them ourselves. 
 
 If it be said, that there is the same fund of 
 absurdity and prejudice in the world as ever that 
 there are the same unaccountable perversities lurk- 
 ing at the bottom of every breast, I should 
 answer. Be it so : but at least we keep our follies 
 to ourselves as much as possible ; we palliate, 
 shuffle, and equivocate with them ; they sneak 
 into bye-corners, and do not, like Chaucer s Can- 
 terbury Pilgrims, march along the high road, and 
 form a procession ; they do not entrench them- 
 selves strongly behind custom and precedent ; they 
 are not embodied in professions and ranks in life ; 
 they are not organized into a system ; they do no*t 
 openly resort to a standard, but are a sort of 
 straggling non-descripts, that, like JVart, " present 
 no mark to the ibenian." As to the gross and 
 palpable absurdities of modern manners, they are 
 too shallow and barefaced, and those who affect 
 are too little serious in them, to make them wortli 
 tlie detection of the Comic Muse. They ])rocee(l 
 from an idle, iminidont affectation of folly in 2:ene-
 
 306 ON THE COMIC WRITERS 
 
 ral, in the dashing bra^oura style, not from an in- 
 fatuation with any of its characteristic modes. In 
 short, the proper object of ridicule is egotism: 
 and a man cannot be a very great egotist, who 
 every day sees himself represented on the stage. 
 We are deficient in comedy, because we are with- 
 out characters in real life as we have no historical 
 pictures, because we have no faces proper for 
 them. 
 
 It is, indeed, the evident tendency of all litera- 
 ture to generalise and dissipate character, by giving 
 men the same artificial education, and the same 
 common stock of ideas ; so that we see all objects 
 from the same point of view, and through the 
 same reflected medium ; we learn to exist, not in 
 ourselves, but in books ; all men become alike 
 mere readers spectators, not actors in the scene, 
 and lose their proper personal identity. The tem- 
 plar, the wit, the man of pleasure, and the man 
 of fashion, the courtier and the citizen, the knight 
 and the squire, the lover and the miser Lo'velact\ 
 Lothario, Will Honeycomb, and Sir Roger de Co^er- 
 ley, Sparkish and Loi^d Foppington, Western and 
 Tom Jones, My Father and My Uncle Toby, Milla- 
 7nant and Sir Sampson Legend, Don Quixote and 
 Sancho, Gil Bias and Guzman d'Alfarache, Count 
 Fathom and Joseph Surface, have met and ex-
 
 OF THE LAST CENTURY. 307 
 
 changed common-places on the barren plains of 
 the haute literature toil slowly on to the temple 
 of science, " seen a long way off upon a level/' 
 and end in one dull compound of politics, criticism, 
 chemistry, and metaphysics ! 
 
 We cannot expect to reconcile opposite things. 
 If, for example, any of us were to put ourselves 
 into the stage-coach from Salisbury to London, it 
 is more than probable we should not meet with 
 the same number of odd accidents, or ludicrous 
 distresses on the road, that befel Parson Adams ; 
 but why, if we get into a common vehicle, and 
 submit to the conveniences of modern travelling, 
 should we complain of the want of adventures? 
 Modern manners may be compared to a modern 
 stage-coach ; our limbs may be a little cramped 
 with the confinement, and we may grow drowsy, 
 but we arrive safe, without any very amusing or 
 very sad accident, at our journey's end. 
 
 In this theory I have, at least, the authority of 
 kSterne and the Tatler on my side, who attribute 
 the greater variety and richness of comic ex- 
 cellence in our writers, to the greater variety and 
 distinctness of character among ourselves ; the 
 roughness of the texture and the sharp angles not 
 being worn out by the artificial refinements of in-
 
 308 OiN THE COMIC WRITERS 
 
 tellect, or the frequent collision of social inter- 
 course. It, has been argued on the other hand, 
 indeed, that this circumstance makes against me ; 
 that the suppression of the grosser indications of 
 absurdity ought to stimulate and give scope to 
 the ingenuity and penetration of the comic writer 
 who is to detect them ; and that the progress of 
 wit and humour ought to keep pace with critical 
 distinctions and metaphysical niceties. Some theo- 
 rists, indeed, have been sanguine enough to expect 
 a regular advance from grossness to refinement on 
 the stage and in real life, marked on a graduated 
 scale of human perfectibility, and have been hence 
 led to imagine that the best of our old comedies 
 were no better than the coarse jests of a set of 
 country clowns a sort of comedies bourgeoises, 
 compared with the admirable productions which 
 might, but have not, been written in our times. I 
 must yjrotest against this theory altogether, which 
 would go to degrade genteel comedy from a high 
 court lady into a literary prostitute. I do not 
 know what these persons mean by refinement in 
 this instance. Do they find none in Millamant 
 and her morning dreams, in Sir Roger de Coverley 
 and his widow ? Did not Etherege, Wycherley, 
 and Congreve, approach tolerably near 
 
 " the ring 
 
 Of iniiiuc stateomen and thejr merry king: r "
 
 OF THE LAST CENTURY. 30f> 
 
 Is there no distinction between an Angelica and a 
 Miss Prue, a Valentine, a Tattle, and a Ben? 
 Where, in the annals of modern literature, shall 
 we find any thing more refined, more deliberate, 
 more abstracted in vice, than the nobleman in 
 Amelia? Are not the compliments which Pope 
 paid to his friends equal in taste and elegance to 
 any which have been paid since? Are there no 
 traits in Sterne ? Is not Richardson minute 
 enough ? Must we part with Sophia Western and 
 her muff, and Clarissa Harlowe's " preferable re- 
 gards" for the loves of the plants and the triangles? 
 Or shall we say that the Berinthias and Alitheas 
 of former times were little rustics, because they 
 did not, like our modern belles, subscribe to cir- 
 culating libraries, read Beppo, prefer Gertrude of 
 Wyoming to the Lady of the Lake, or the Lady 
 of the Lake to Gertrude of Wyoming, differ in 
 their sentiments on points of taste or systems of 
 mineralogy, and deliver dissertations on the arts 
 with Corinna of Italy ? They had something else 
 to do and to talk about. They were employed in 
 reality, as we see them on the stage, in setting off 
 their charms to the greatest advantage, in mortify- 
 ing their rivals by the most pointed irony, and 
 trifling with their lovers with infinite address. 
 The height of comic elegance and refinement is 
 not to be found i)i tlic i2:encral diffusion of know-
 
 310 ON THE COMIC WRITERS 
 
 ledge and civilization, which tends to level and 
 neutralise, but in the pride of individual distinction, 
 and the contrast between the conflicting pre- 
 tensions of different ranks in society. 
 
 For this reason I conceive that the alterations 
 which have taken place in conversation and dress, 
 in consequence of the change of manners in the 
 same period, have been by no means favourable to 
 comedy. The present prevailing style of con- 
 versation is not personal, but critical and analytical. 
 It consists almost entirely in the discussion of 
 general topics, in ascertaining the merits of authors 
 and their works : and Congreve would be able to 
 derive no better hints from the conversations of our 
 toilettes or drawing-rooms, for the exquisite rail- 
 lery or poignant repartee of his dialogues, than 
 from a deliberation of the Royal Society. In 
 manner, the extreme simplicity and graceful uni- 
 formity of modern dress, however favourable to 
 the arts, has certainly stript comedy of one of its 
 richest ornaments and most expressive symbols. 
 The sweeping pall and buskin, and nodding plume, 
 were never more serviceable to tragedy, than the 
 ( normous hoops and stiff stays worn by the belles 
 of former days, were to the intrigues of comedy. 
 They assisted wonderfully in heightening the mys- 
 teries of the passion, and adding to the intricacy of
 
 OF THE LAST CENTURY. 311 
 
 the plot. Wycherley and Vanbrugh could not 
 have spared the dresses of Vandyke. These strange 
 fancy-dresses, perverse disguises, and counterfeit 
 shapes, gave an agreeable scope to the imagina- 
 tion. " That sevenfold fence" was a sort of foil 
 to the lusciousness of the dialogue, and a barrier 
 against the sly encroachments of double entendre. 
 The greedy eye and bold hand of indiscretion were 
 repressed, which gave a greater license to the 
 tongue. The senses were not to be gratified in an 
 instant. Love was entangled in the folds of the 
 swelling handkerchief, and the desires might wan- 
 der for ever round the circumference of a quilted 
 petticoat, or find a rich lodging in the flowers of a 
 damask stomacher. There was room for years of 
 patient contrivance, for a thousand thoughts, 
 schemes, conjectures, hopes, fears, and wishes. 
 TTiere seemed no end of obstacles and delays ; 
 to overcome so many difficulties was the work of 
 ages. A mistress was an angel, concealed behind 
 whalebone, flounces, and brocade. What an under- 
 taking to penetrate through the disguise ! What 
 an impulse must it give to the blood, what a keen- 
 ness to the invention, what a volubility to the 
 tongue ! " Mr. Smirk, you are a brisk man," 
 was then the most significant commendation ; but 
 now-a-days a woman can be but undressed! 
 Again, the character of the fine gentleman is at
 
 31-2 ON THE COMIC WRITERS 
 
 present a little obscured on the stage, nor do we 
 immediately recognise it elsewhere, for want of 
 the formidable iiisigtiia of a bag-wig and sword. 
 Without these outward credentials, the public must 
 not only be unable to distinguish this character 
 intuitively, but it must be " almost afraid to know 
 itself." The present simple disguise of a gentle- 
 man is like the mcognito of kings. The opinion 
 of others affects our opinion of ourselves ; and we 
 can hardly expect from a modern man of fashion 
 that air of dignity and superior gracefulness of 
 carriage, which those must have assumed who were 
 conscious that all eyes were upon them, and that 
 their lofty pretensions continually exposed them 
 either to public scorn or challenged public admira- 
 tion. A lord who should take the wall of the 
 plebeian passengers without a sword by his side, 
 would hardly have his claim of precedence ac- 
 knowledged ; nor could he be supposed to have 
 that obsolete air of self-importance about him, 
 which should alone clear the pavement at his 
 approach. It is curious how an ingenious actor 
 of the present day (Mr. Farren) should play 
 Lord Ogleby so well as he does, having never 
 seen any thing of the sort in reality. A noble- 
 man in full costume, and in broad day, would 
 ))c u phenomenon like the lord mayor's coach. 
 The attempt at getting up genteel comedy at pre-
 
 OF THE LAST CENTURY. 313 
 
 sent is a sort of Galvanic experimentj a revival 
 of the dead*. 
 
 * I have only to add, by way of explanation on this sub- 
 ject, the following passage from the Characters of Shak- 
 peare's Plays : " There is a certain stage of society in which 
 people become conscious of their peculiarities and absurdities, 
 affect to disguise what they are, and set up pretensions to 
 what they are not. This gives rise to a corresponding style 
 of comedy, the object of which is to detect the disguises of 
 self-love, and to make reprisals on these preposterous as- 
 sumptions of vanity, by marking the contrast between the 
 real and the affected character as severely as possible, and 
 denying to those, who would impose on us for what they are 
 not, even the merit which they have. This is the comedy of 
 artificial life, of wit and satire, such as we see it in Congreve, 
 Wycherley, Vanbrugh, &c. To this succeeds a state of 
 society from which the same sort of affectation and pretence 
 are banished by a greater knowledge of the world, or by 
 their successful exposure on the stage ; and which by neutra- 
 lizing tlie materials of comic character, both natural and 
 artificial, leaves no comedy at all but the sentimental. Such 
 is our modern comedy. There is a period in the progress of 
 manners anterior to both these, in which the foibles and 
 follies of individuals are of nature's planting, not the growth 
 of art or study; in which they are therefore unconscious of 
 them themselves, or care not who knows them, if they can 
 but have their whim out; and in wliich, as there is no 
 attempt at imposition, the spectators ratlier receive pleasure 
 from humouring tiie inclinations of the persons they laugli 
 at, than wisii to give them pain by exposing their absurditj. 
 This may be called the comedy of nature, and it is the comedy 
 which wc generally find in Shakspeare." P. 250".
 
 314 ON THE COMIC WRITERS 
 
 I have observed in a former Lecture, that the 
 most spirited aera of our comic drama was that 
 which reflected the conversation, tone, and man- 
 ners of the profligate, but witty age of Charles II. 
 With the graver and more business-like turn 
 which the Revolution probably gave to our minds, 
 comedy stooped from her bolder and more fan- 
 tastic flights ; and the ferocious attack made by 
 the nonjuring divine, Jeremy Collier, on the im- 
 morality and profaneness of the plays then chiefly 
 in vogue, nearly frightened those unwarrantable 
 liberties of wit and humour from the stage, which 
 were no longer countenanced at court nor copied in 
 the city. Almost the last of our writers who ven- 
 tured to hold out in the prohibited track, was a fe- 
 male adventurer, Mrs. Centlivre, who seemed to 
 take advantage of the privilege of her sex, and to set 
 at defiance the cynical denunciations of the angry 
 puritanical reformist. Her plays have a provoking 
 spirit and volatile salt in them, which still pre- 
 serves them from decay. Congreve is said to have 
 been jealous of their success at the time, and that 
 it was one cause which drove him in disgust from 
 the stage. If so, it was without any good reason : 
 for these plays have great and intrinsic merit in 
 them, which entitled them to their popularity (and 
 it is only spurious and undeserved popularity 
 which should excite a feehng of jealousy in any
 
 OF THE LAST CENTURY. 315 
 
 well-regulated mind): and besides, their merit was 
 of a kind entirely different from his own. The 
 Wonder and the Busy Body are properly comedies 
 of intrigue Their interest depends chiefly on the 
 intricate involution and artful denoutme7it of the 
 plot, which has a strong tincture of mischief in it, 
 and the wit is seasoned by the archness of the 
 humour and sly allusion to the most delicate 
 points. They are plays evidently written by a 
 very clever woman, but still by a woman : for I 
 hold, in spite of any fanciful theories to the con- 
 trary, that there is a distinction discernible in the 
 minds of women as well as in their faces. The 
 Wonder is one of the best of our acting plays. 
 The passion of jealousy in Don Felix is managed 
 in such a way as to give as little offence as pos- 
 sible to the audience, for every appearance com- 
 bines to excite and confirm his worst suspicions, 
 while we, who are in the secret, laugh at his 
 groundless uneasiness and apprehensions. The 
 ambiguity of the heroine's situation, which is like 
 a continued practical equivoque, gives rise to a 
 quick succession of causeless alarms, subtle ex- 
 cuses, and the most hair-breadth 'scapes. The 
 scene near the end, in which Don Felix, pretend- 
 ing to be drunk, forces his way out of Don 
 Manuel's house, who wants to keep him a pri- 
 soner by producing his marriage-contract in the
 
 316 ON THE COMIC WRITERS 
 
 shape of a pocket-pistol, with the terrors and 
 confusion into Avhich the old gentleman is thrown 
 by this sort of argumentum ad hominem, is one of 
 the richest treats the stage affords, and calls forth 
 incessant peals of laughter and applause. Besides 
 the two principal characters (Violante and Don 
 Felix) Lissardo and Flippanta come in very well 
 to carry on the under-plot ; and the airs and 
 graces of an amorous waiting-maid and conceited 
 man-servant, each copying after their master and 
 mistress, were never hit off with more natural 
 volubility or affected nonchalance than in this en- 
 viable couple. Lissardo's playing off the diamond 
 ring before the eyes of his mortified Dulcinea, 
 and aping his master's absent manner while re- 
 peating " Roast me these Violantes," as well as 
 the jealous quarrel of the two waiting-maids, 
 which threatens to end in some very extraordinary 
 discoveries, are among the most amusing traits in 
 this comedy. Colonel Breton, the lover of Clara, 
 is a spirited and enterprising soldier of fortune ; 
 and his servant Gibby's undaunted, incorrigible 
 blundering, with a dash of nationality in it, tells 
 in a very edifying way.^ The Busy Body is in- 
 ferior, in the interest of the story and characters, 
 to the Wonder ; but it is full of bustle and gaiety 
 from beginning to end. The plot never stands 
 btill ; the situations succeed one another like the
 
 OF THE LAST CENTURY. 317 
 
 changes of machinery in a pantominrie. The nice 
 (love-tailing of the incidents, and cross-reading in 
 the situations, supplies the place of any great 
 force of wit or sentiment. The time for the en- 
 trance of each person on the stage is the moment 
 when they are least wanted, and when their arrival 
 makes either themselves or somebody else look 
 as foolish as possible. The laughableness of this 
 comedy, as well as of the Wonder, depends on a 
 brilliant series of mistimed exits and entijanccs. 
 Marplot is the whimsical hero of the piece, and a 
 standing memorial of unmeaning vivacity and as- 
 siduous impertinence. 
 
 The comedies of Steele were the first that 
 were written expressly with a view not to imitate 
 the manners, but to reform the morals of the age. 
 The author seems to be all the time on his good 
 behaviour, as if writing a comedy Avas no very 
 creditable employment, and as if the ultimate ob- 
 ject of his ambition was a dedication to the queen. 
 Nothing can be better meant, or more inefficient. 
 It is almost a misnomer to call them comedies; 
 they are rather homilies in dialogue, in which a 
 number of very pretty ladies and gentlemen dis- 
 cuss the fashionable topics of gaming, of duelling, 
 of seduction, of scandal, &c. with a sickly sensi- 
 'Mlitv, that shews as little hearty aversion to vice.
 
 318 ON THE COMIC \^T11TERS 
 
 as sincere attachment to virtue. By not meeting 
 the question fairly on the ground of common ex- 
 perience, by slubbering over the objections, and 
 varnishing over the answers, the whole distinction 
 between virtue and vice (as it appears in evidence 
 in the comic drama) is reduced to verbal profes- 
 sions, and a mechanical, infantine goodness. The 
 sting is, indeed, taken out of what is bad; but 
 what is good, at the same time, loses its manhood 
 and nobility of nature by this enervating process. 
 I am unwilling to believe that the only difference 
 between right and wrong is mere cant, or make- 
 believe ; and I imagine, that the advantage which 
 the moral drama possesses over mere theoretical 
 precept or general declamation is this, that by being 
 left free to imitate nature as it is, and not being 
 referred to an ideal standard, it is its own voucher 
 for the truth of the inferences it draws, for its 
 warnings, or its examples ; that it brings out the 
 higher, as well as lower principles of action, 
 in the most striking and convincing points of 
 view; satisfies us that virtue is not a mere sha- 
 dow ; clothes it with passion, imagination, reality, 
 and, if I may so say, translates morality from the 
 language of theory into that of practice. But 
 Steele, by introducing the artificial mechanism of 
 morals on the stage, and making his characters 
 act, not from individual motives and existing cir-
 
 OF THE LAST CENTURY. 319 
 
 cumstances, the truth of which every one must 
 feel, but from vague topics and general rules, the 
 truth of which is the very thing to be proved in 
 detail, has lost that fine 'vantage ground which 
 the stage lends to virtue ; takes away from it its 
 best grace, the gi*ace of sincerity ; and, instead of 
 making it a test of truth, has made it an echo of 
 the doctrine of the schools and " the one cries 
 Mum, while t'other cries Budget!" The comic 
 writer, in my judgment, then, ought to open the 
 volume of nature and the world for his living 
 materials, and not take them out of his ethical 
 common-place book ; for in this way, neither will 
 throw any additional light upon the other. In all 
 things there is a division of labour ; and I am as 
 little for introducing the tone of the pulpit or 
 reading-desk on the stage, as for introducing plays 
 and interludes in church-time, according to the 
 good old popish practice. It was a part, indeed, 
 of Steele's plan, " by the politeness of his style 
 and the genteelness of his expressions,"* to bring 
 about a reconciliation between things which he 
 thought had hitherto been kept too far asunder, 
 to wed the graces to the virtues, and blend plea- 
 sure with profit. And in this design he succeeded 
 
 * See Mandeville's Fable of the Bees
 
 320 ON THE COMIC WRITERS 
 
 admirably in his Tatler, and some other works ; 
 but in his comedies he has failed. He has con 
 founded, instead of harmonising has taken away 
 its gravity from wisdom, and its charm from 
 gaiety. It is not that in his plays we find " some 
 soul of goodness in things evil;" but they have 
 no soul cither of good or bad. His Funeral is 
 as trite, as tedious, and full of formal grimace, 
 as a procession of mutes and undertakers. The 
 characters are made either affectedly good and 
 forbearing, with " all the milk of human kind- 
 ness;" or purposely bad and disgusting, for the 
 others to exercise their squeamish charities upon 
 them. The Conscious Lovers is the best; but 
 that is far from good, with the exception of the 
 scene between Mr. Thomas and Phillis, who are 
 fellow-servants, and commence lovers from being 
 set to clean the window together. We are here 
 once more in the company of our old friend, Isaac 
 Bickerstaff, Esq. Indiana is as listless, and as 
 insipid, as a drooping figure on an Indian screen ; 
 and Mr. Myrtle and Mr. Bevil only just disturb 
 the still life of the scene. I am sorry that in this 
 censure I should have Parson Adams against me ; 
 who thought the Conscious Lovers the only play 
 fit for a Christian to see, and as good as a sermon. 
 For myself, I would rather have read, or heard 
 him read, one of his own manuscript sermons :
 
 OF THE LAST CENTURY. 321 
 
 and if the volume which he left behind him in his 
 saddle-bags was to be had in print, for love or 
 money, I would at any time walk ten miles on 
 foot only to get a sight of it. 
 
 Addison's Drummer, or the Haunted House, 
 is a pleasant farce enough; but adds nothing to 
 our idea of the author of the Spectator. 
 
 Pope's joint afterpiece, called " An Hour after 
 Marriage," was not a successful attempt. He 
 brought into it " an alligator stuflf'd," which dis- 
 concerted the ladies, and gave just offence to the 
 critics. Pope was too fastidious for a farce-writer ; 
 and yet the most fastidious people, when they 
 step out of their regular routine, are apt to be- 
 come the grossest. The smallest offences against 
 probability or decorum are, to their habitual scru- 
 pulousness, as unpardonable as the greatest. This 
 was the rock on which Pope probably split. The 
 affair was, however, hushed U]) ; and he wreaked 
 his discreet vengeance at leisure on the " odious 
 endeavours," and more odious success of Colley 
 Cibber in the line in which he had failed. 
 
 Gay's " What-d'ye-call-it," is not one of his 
 happiest things. His " Polly" is a complete 
 iailuro, which, indeed, is the common fate of sc- 
 
 y
 
 302 ON THE COMIC WRITERS 
 
 cond parts. If the original Polly, in the Beggar's 
 Opera, had not had more winning ways with her, 
 she would hardly have had so many Conntesses 
 for representatives as she has had, from her first 
 appearance up to the present moment. 
 
 Fielding was a comic writer, as well as a 
 novelist ; but his comedies are very inferior to his 
 novels : they are particularly deficient both in plot 
 and character. The oidy excellence which they 
 have is that of the style, which is the only thing 
 in which his novels are deficient. The only dra- 
 matic pieces of Fielding that retain possession of 
 the stage are, the Mock Doctor (a tolerable 
 translation from Moliere's Medecin malgrh lui), 
 and his Tom Thumb, a very admirable piece of 
 burlesque. The absurdities and bathos of some 
 of our celebrated tragic writers could hardly be 
 credited, but for the notes at the bottom of this 
 preposterous medley of bombast, containing bis 
 authorities and the parallel passages. Drydcn, 
 Lee, and Shadwell, make no very shining figure 
 there. Mr. Liston makes a better figure in the text. 
 His Lord Grizzle is prodigious. What a name, and 
 what a person ! It has been said of this ingenious 
 actor, tliat '' he is very great in Liston;" but be 
 is even greater in Lord Grizzle. What a wig 
 is that be wears ! How flighty, flaunting, and 
 fantastical ' Not " like those hanging loeks cA
 
 OF THE LAST CENTURY. S'23 
 
 yonng: Apollo," nor like the serpent-hair of the 
 Furies of yEschylus ; l)nt as troublous, though 
 not as tragical as the one as imposing, though 
 less classical than the other. " Que terribles sont i 
 ces cheveuv gris^'' might be applied to Lord Grizzle's ' 
 most valiant and magnanimous curls. This sa- 
 pient courtier's " fell of hair does at a dismal 
 treatise rouse and stir as life were in't." His wits 
 seem flying away with the disorder of his flowing | 
 locks, and to sit as loosely on our hero's head as 
 the caul of his peruke. What a significant vacancy 
 in his open eyes and mouth ! what a listlessness 
 in his liml)s ! what an abstraction of all thought 
 or purpose! Witli what an headlong impulse of 
 enthusiasm he throws himself across the stage 
 when he is going to be married, crying, " Hey 
 for Doctor's Commons," as if the genius of folly 
 had taken whole-length possession of his person ! 
 And then his dancing is equal to the discovery of 
 a sixth sense which is certainly very different 1 
 
 irom conwion sense! If this extraordinary pcr- 
 sonaij^e cuts a great figure in his life, he is no less 
 wonderful in his death and burial. " From the 
 sublime to the ridiculous there is but one step;" | 
 
 and this character would almost seem to prove, 
 that there is })ut one step from the ridiculous to 
 the sublime, Lubin Log, however inimitable iu 
 ilscU, is itself an imitation of sonu^thiii;' existing
 
 324 ON THE COMIC WRITERS 
 
 elsewhere; but the Lord Grizzle of this truly 
 original actor, is a pure invention of his own. 
 His Caper, in the Widow's Choice, can alone 
 dispute the palm with it in incoherence and vola- 
 tility ; for that, too, " is high fantastical," almost 
 as full of emptiness, in as grand a gusto of insi- 
 pidity, aB profoundly absurd, as elaborately non- 
 sensical ! Why does not Mr. Liston play in some 
 of Moliere's farces? I heartily wish that the 
 author of Love, Law, and Physic, would launch 
 him on the London boards in Monsieur Jourdain, 
 or Monsieur Pourceaugnac. The genius of Liston 
 and Molicre together 
 
 " Must bid a gay defiance to mischance." 
 
 Mr. Liston is an actor hardly belonging to the 
 present age. Had he lived, imfortunately for us, 
 in the time of Colley Cibber, we should have seen 
 what a splendid niche he would have given him 
 in his Apology. 
 
 Cibber is the hero of the Dunciad ; but it 
 cannot be said of him, that lie was " by merit 
 raised to that bad eminence." He was pert, not 
 dull ; a coxcomb, not a blockhead ; vain, but not 
 malicious. Pope's unqualified abuse of him was 
 mere spleen ; and the most obvious provocation
 
 OF THE LAST CENTURY, 3^25 
 
 to it seems to have been an excess of flippant 
 vivacity in the constitution of Gibber. That 
 Gibbers Birth-day Odes were dull, is true; but 
 this was not pecuh'ar to him. It is an objection 
 which may be made equally to Shadwell's, to 
 Whitehead's, to Warton's, to Pye's, and to all 
 others, except those which of late years have not 
 been written ! In his Apology for his own Life, 
 Gibber is a most amusing biographer: happy in 
 his own good opinion, the best of all others ; 
 teeming with animal spirits, and uniting the self- 
 sufficiency of youth Avith the garrulity of age. 
 His account of his waiting as a page behind the 
 chair of the old Duchess of Marlborough, at the 
 time of the Revolution, who was then in the bloom 
 of youth and beauty, Avhich seems to have called up 
 in him the secret homage of " distant, enthusiastic, 
 respectful love," fifty years after, and the compli- 
 ment he pays to her (then in her old age), " a great 
 grandmother without grey hairs," is as delightful 
 as any thing in fiction or romance; and is the 
 evident origin of Mr. Burke's celebrated apos- 
 tro])lie to the Queen of France. Nor is the poli- 
 tical confession of faith which he makes on this 
 occasion, without a suitable mixture of vanity and 
 sincerity : the vanity we may ascribe to the playo', 
 the sincerity to the politician. The self-compla- 
 cency with which he talks of his own success,
 
 320 ON THE COMIC VVK1TER8 
 
 botli as a player and a writer, is not greater than 
 the candour and cordiality with which he does 
 heaped justice to the merits of his theatrical con- 
 temporaries and predecessors. He brings down 
 the history of the stage, either by the help of 
 observation or tradition, from the time of Shak- 
 speare to his own; and quite dazzles the reader 
 with a constellation of male and female, of tragic 
 and comic, of past and present excellence. He 
 gives portraits at full length of Kynaston, of Bet- 
 terton, of Booth, of Estcourt, of Penkethman and 
 Dogget, of Mohun and Wilks, of Nokes and 
 Sandford, of Mrs. Montford, of Mrs. Oldfield, of 
 Mrs. Barry and Mrs. Bracefirdle, and of others of 
 equal note ; with delectable criticisms on their 
 several performances, and anecdotes of their private 
 lives, with scarcely a single particle of jealousy or 
 ill-nature, or any other motive than to expatiate 
 in the delight of talking of the ornaments of his 
 art, and a wish to share his pleasure with the 
 reader, I wish I could quote some of these theatri- 
 cal sketches ; but the time presses. The latter 
 part of his work is less entertaining when he 
 becomes Manager, and gives us an exact state- 
 ment of his squabbles with the Lord Chamberlain, 
 and the expense of his ground-rent, his repairs, 
 his scenery, and his dresses. In Ills plays, his per- 
 sonal character j^erliaps prcdoniinates tof^ nmch
 
 OF THE LAST CENTURY 327 
 
 over the inventiveness of his Muse; but so far 
 from beinj^ dull, he is every where hght, flutter- 
 ing, and airy. His pleasure in himself made him 
 desirous to please ; but his fault was, that he was 
 too soon satisfied with what he did, that his in- 
 dolence or want of thought led him to indulge in 
 the vein that flowed from him with most ease, 
 and that his vanity did not allow him to distin- 
 guish between what he did best and worst. His 
 Careless Husband is a very elegant piece of agree- 
 able, thoughtless writing ; and the incident of Lady 
 Easy thiowing her handkerchief over her hus- 
 band, whom she finds asleep in a chair by the 
 side of her waiting-woman, was an admirable 
 contrivance, taken, as he informs us, from real life. 
 His Double Gallant, which has been lately re- 
 vived, though it cannot rank in the first, may 
 take its ])lace in the second or third class of 
 comedies. It abounds in character, bustle, and 
 stagc-eflect. It belongs to what may be called 
 the composite style; and very happily mixes uj) 
 the comedy of intrigue, such as we bee it in 
 JNIrs. Centlivre's Spanish plots, with a tolerable 
 share of the wit and spirit of Congreve and Van- 
 brugli. As there is a good deal of wit, there is a 
 spice ol wickedness in this play, which was a pri- 
 vilege ol the i'ood old style of comedy, not alto- 
 gcthei aljandoncd in ( ibber's time. The luscious
 
 328 ON THE COMIC WRITERS 
 
 vein of tlie dialogue is stopped short in many of the 
 scenes of the revived play, though not before we 
 perceive its object 
 
 " In hidden mazes running. 
 With wanton haste and giddy cunning." 
 
 These imperfect hints of double meanings, how- 
 ever, pass off without any marks of reprobation ; 
 for unless they are insisted on, or made pretty 
 broad, the audience, from being accustomed to the 
 cautious purity of the modern drama, are not very 
 expert in decyphering the equivocal allusion, for 
 which they are not on the look-out. To what 
 is this increased nicety owing ? Was it that vice, 
 from being formerly less common (though more 
 fashionable) was less catching than at present? 
 The first inference is by no means in our favour : 
 for though I think that the grossness of manners 
 prevailing in our fashionable comedies was a direct 
 transcript of the manners of the court at the time, 
 or in the period immediately preceding, yet the same 
 grossness of expression and allusion existed long 
 before, as in the plays of Shakspeare and Ben Jon- 
 son, when there was not this grossness of manners, 
 and it has of late years been gradually refining 
 away. Tiiere is a certain grossness or freedom 
 ot expression, wliich may arise as often from un- 
 suspecting binijilicity as ironi avowed piollii;acy
 
 OF THE LAST CENTURY. 329 
 
 Whatever may be our progress either m virtue or 
 vice since the age of Charles II. certain it is, that 
 our manners are not mended since the time of 
 Elizabeth and Charles I. Is it, then, that vice was 
 formerly a thing more to be wondered at than 
 imitated ; that behind the rigid barriers of religion 
 and morality it might be exposed freely, without 
 the danger of any serious practical consequences 
 whereas now that the safeguards of wholesome 
 authority and prejudice are removed, we seem 
 afraid to trust our eyes or ears with a single 
 situation or expression of a loose tendency, as if 
 the mere mention of licentiousness implied a con- 
 scious approbation of it, and the extreme delicacy 
 of our moral sense would be debauched by the 
 bare suggestion of the possibility of vice ? But I 
 shall not take upon me to answer this question. 
 The characters in the Double Gallant are well 
 kept up : At-AU and Lady Dainty are the two 
 most prominent characters in this comedy, and 
 those into which Gibber has put most of his own 
 nature and genius. They are the essence of active 
 impertinence and fashionable frivolity. Cibber, 
 in short, though his name has been handed down 
 to us us a bye-word of impudent pretension and 
 impenetrable diilncss l)y the classical pen of his 
 accomplished rival, who, unfortunately, did not 
 admit oi any mcnf beyond the narrow cntle ot
 
 .\}0 ON THE COMIC WRITER J> 
 
 wit and IViendship in which he himself moved, 
 WHS a gentleman and a scholar of the old school ; 
 a man of wit and pleasantry in conversation, a 
 diverting mimic, an excellent actor, an admirable 
 dramatic critic, and one of the best comic writers 
 of his age. His works, instead of being a caput 
 mortuum of literature, had a great deal of the 
 spirit, with a little too much of the froth. His 
 Nonjuror was taken from Moliere's Tartuffc^, and 
 has been altered to the Hypocrite. Love's Last 
 Shift appears to have been his own favourite; and 
 he received the compliments of Sir John Vanbrugh 
 and old Mr. Southern upon it : the latter said 
 to him, " Young man, your play is a good one ; 
 and it will succeed, if you do not spoil it by your 
 acting." His plays did not always take equally. 
 It is ludicrous to hear liim complaining of the ill 
 success of one of them, Love in a Riddle, a jias- 
 toral comedy, " of a nice morality," and well 
 spoken sentiments, which he wrote in opposition 
 to the Beggar s Opera, at the time when its worth- 
 less and vulgar rival was carrying every thing 
 triumphantly before it. Gibber brings this, with 
 nuich pathetic iiaivcte, as an instance of the lament- 
 able want of taste in the town ! 
 
 The ISuspicious Husband by Hoadky, the Jea 
 lous Wife bv Colmaii, and the riandcsUue Mar-
 
 OF THE LAST CExNTURY. 331 
 
 riage by Col man and Garrick, are excellent plays 
 of the middle style of comedy ; which are formed 
 rather by judgment and selection, than by any 
 original vein of genius ; and have all the parts of 
 a good comedy in degree, without having any one 
 prominent, or to excess. The character of Ranger, 
 in the Suspicious Husband, is only a variation of 
 those of Farquhar, of the same class as his Sir 
 Harry Wildair and others, without equal spirit. 
 A great deal of the story of the Jealous Wife is 
 borrowed from Fielding ; but so faintly, that the 
 resemblance is hardly discernible till you are ap- 
 j)rised of it. The Jealous Wife herself is, however, 
 a dramatic chcf-< cewvrc, and worthy of being acted 
 as often, and better than it is. Sir Harry Beagle 
 is a true fox-hunting English squire. The Clan- 
 destine Marriage is nearly without a fault ; and 
 has sonic lighter theatrical graces, which I suspect 
 Garrick threw into it. Canton is, I should think, 
 his ; though this classification of him among the 
 ornamental ])arts of the play may seem whimsical. 
 Ciarrick's genius does not appear to have been 
 c(jual to the construction of a solid drama ; but 
 lie could retouch and embellish with great gaiety 
 and knowledge of the technicalities of his art. 
 (lunick not only produced joint-pieces and aller- 
 picfcs, but oiten set olf the plays of his friends 
 iiid coulenqjoraiirs with the garnish, the sauce
 
 332 ON THE COMIC WRITERS 
 
 piquant, of prologues and epilogues, at which he 
 had an admirable knack. The elder Colman's 
 translation of Terence, I may here add, has always 
 been considered, by good judges, as an equal proof 
 of the author's knowledge of the Latin language, 
 and taste in his own. 
 
 BickerstafF's plays and comic operas are con- 
 tinually acted : they come under the class of 
 mediocrity, generally speaking. Their popularity 
 seems to be chiefly owing to the unaffected ease 
 and want of pretension with which they are writ- 
 ten, with a certain humorous naivete in the lower 
 characters, and an exquisite adaptation of the 
 nmsic to the songs. His Love in a Village is one 
 of the most delightful comic operas on the stage. 
 It is truly pastoral ; and the sense of music hovers 
 over the very scene like the breath of morning. 
 In his alteration of the Tartuffe he has spoiled the 
 Hypocrite, but he has added Maw-worm. 
 
 Mrs. Cowley's comedy of the Belles' Strata- 
 gem, Who's the Dupe, and others, are of the 
 second or third class : they are rather refacci- 
 mentos of the characters, incidents, and materials 
 of former writers, got up with considerable live- 
 liness and ingenuity, than original compositions^ 
 with marked (jualities of their own.
 
 OF THE LAST CENTURY. 333 
 
 Goldsmith's Good-natured Man is inferior to 
 She Stoops to Conquer ; and even this last play, 
 with all its shifting vivacity, is rather a sportive 
 and whimsical effusion of the author's fancy, a 
 delightful and delicately managed caricature, than 
 a genuine comedy. 
 
 Murphy's plays of All in the Wrong and 
 Know Your Own Mind, are admirably written ; 
 with sense, spirit, and conception of character: 
 but without any great effect of the humorous, or 
 that truth of feeling which distinguishes the boun- 
 dary between the absurdities of natural character 
 and the gratuitous fictions of the poet's pen. The 
 heroes of these two plays, Millamour and Sir 
 Benjamin Constant, are too ridiculous in their 
 caprices to be tolerated, except in farce ; and yet 
 their follies are so flimsy, so motiveless, and fine- 
 spun, as not to be intelligible, or to have any 
 effect in their only proper sphere. Both his prin- 
 cipal pieces are said to have suffered by their 
 similarity, first, to Colman's Jealous Wife, and 
 next to the School for Scandal, though in both 
 cases he had the undoubted priority. It is hard 
 that the fate of plagiarism should attend upon 
 originality : yet it is clear that the elements 
 of the School for Scandal are not sparingly scat- 
 tered in Murphy's comedy of Know vour own
 
 334 ON THE COMIC WRITERS 
 
 Mind, which iippearrd hetore the latter play, only 
 to be eclipsed by it. This brings me to speak of 
 Sheridan. 
 
 Mr. Sheridan has been justly called " a dra- 
 matic star of the first magnitude:" and, indeed, 
 among the comic writers of the last century, he 
 " shines like Hesperus among the lesser lights." 
 He has left four several dramas behind him, all 
 different or of different kinds, and all excellent in 
 their way; the School for Scandal, the Rivals, 
 the Duenna, and the Critic. The attraction of 
 this last piece is, however, less in the mock-tragedy 
 rehearsed, than in the dialogue of the comic scenes, 
 and in the character of Sir Fretful Plagiary, which 
 is supposed to have been intended for Cumberland. 
 If some of the characters in the School for Scandal 
 were contained in Murj)hy's comedy of Know 
 your own Mind (and certainly some of Dash- 
 woud's detached sj)eeches and satirical sketches 
 are written with quite as firm and masterly a hand 
 as any of those given to the members of the scan- 
 dalous club, Mrs. Candour or Lady Sneerwell), 
 yet they were buried in it for want of gnmping and 
 relief, like the colours of a well-drawn picture 
 sunk in the canvass. Sheridan hroufcht them out, 
 and exhibited them in all their glorv. If llial 
 gem, the character of Joseph Surface, wajs INIur
 
 OF THE LAST CENTURY. 535 
 
 phy's, tlie splendid and more valnable settins^ was 
 Sheridan's. He took Mnrpby's Malvil from liis 
 lurking-place in the closet, and " dragged the 
 struggling monster into day" upon the stage. That 
 is, lie gave interest, life, and action, or, in other 
 words, its dramatic being, to the mere conception 
 and written specimens of a character. This is the 
 merit of Sheridan's comedies, that every thing in 
 them tells ; there is no labour in vain. His Comic 
 Muse does not go about prying into obscure cor- 
 ners, or collecting idle curiosities, but shews her 
 laughing face, and points to her rich treasure the 
 follies of mankind. She is garlanded and crowned 
 with roses and vine-leaves. Her eyes sparkle with 
 delight, and her heart runs over with good-natured 
 malice. Her step is firm and light, and her orna- 
 ments consummate ! The School for Scandal is, 
 if not the most original, perhaps the most finished 
 and faultless comedy which we have. When it is 
 acted, you hear people all around you exclainn'ng. 
 " Surely it is impossible for any thing to be 
 cleverer." The scene in which Charles sells all 
 the old familv pictures but his uncle's, who is the 
 purchaser in disguise, and that of the discovery of 
 Lady Teazle when the screen falls, are among the 
 happiest and most highly wrought that comedy, in 
 its wide and brilliant range, can boast. Besides 
 the wit and ingenuity of this ])lay, there is a genial
 
 33G ON THE COMIC WRITERS 
 
 spirit of frankness and generosity about it, that 
 relieves the heart as well as clears the lungs. It 
 professes a faith in the natural goodness, as well 
 as habitual depravity of human nature. While it 
 strips off the mask of hypocrisy, it inspires a con- 
 fidence between man a^d man. As often as it is 
 acted, it must serve to clear the air of that low, 
 creeping, pestilent fog of cant and mysticism, 
 which threatens to confound every native impulse, 
 or honest conviction, in the nauseous belief of a 
 perpetual lie, and the laudable profession of sys- 
 tematic hypocrisy. The character of Lady Teazle 
 is not well made out by the author ; nor has it 
 been well represented on the stage since the time 
 of Miss Farren. The Rivals is a play of even 
 more action and incident, but of less wit and satire 
 than the School for Scandal. It is as good as a 
 novel in the reading, and has the broadest and 
 most palpable effect on the stage. If Joseph Sur- 
 face and Charles have a smack of Tom Jones and 
 Blifil in their moral constitution. Sir Anthony 
 Absolute and Mrs. Malaprop remind us of honest 
 Matthew Bramble and his sister Tabitha, in their 
 tempers and dialect. Acres is a distant descendant 
 of Sir Andrew Ague-cheek. It must be confessed 
 of this author, as Falstaff says of some one, that 
 " he had damnable iteration in him !" The Duenna 
 is a perfect work of art. It has the utmost sweet-
 
 ON THE COMIC WRITERS. 337 
 
 ness and point. The plot, the characters, the 
 dialogue, are all complete in themselves, and 
 they are all his own; and the songs are the 
 best that ever were written, except those in the 
 Beggar's Opera. They have a joyous spirit of 
 intoxication in them, anc! a strain of the most 
 melting tenderness. Compare the softness of that 
 beginning, 
 
 " Had I heart for falsehood framed," 
 
 with the spirited defiance to Fortune in the lines, 
 
 " Half thy malice youth could bear. 
 And the rest a bumper drown." 
 
 It would have been too much for the author of 
 these elegant and classic productions not to have 
 liad some drawbacks on his felicity and fame. But 
 even the applause of nations and the favour of 
 princes cannot always be enjoyed with impunity. 
 Sheridan was not only an excellent dramatic writer, 
 but a first-rate parliamentary speaker. His cha- 
 racteristics as an orator were manly, unperverted 
 good sense, and keen irony. Wit, which has been 
 thought a two-edged weapon, was by him always 
 employed on the same side of the question I 
 think, on the right one. His set and more laboured 
 speeches, as that on the Begum's affairs, were pro-
 
 338 ON THE COMIC WRITERS. 
 
 portionably abortive and unimpressive: but no 
 one >vas equal to him in replying, on the spur of 
 the moment, to pompous absurdity, and unravel- 
 ing the web of flimsy sophistry. He was the last 
 accomplished debater of the House of Commons. 
 His character will, however, soon be drawn by 
 one who has all the ability, and every inclination 
 to do him justice ; who knows how to bestow praise 
 and to deserve it ; by one who is himself an orna- 
 ment of private and of public life ; a satirist, be- 
 loved by his friends ; a wit and a patriot to-boot ; 
 a poet, and an honest man. 
 
 Macklin's Man of the World has one power- 
 fully written character, tliat of Sir Pertinax Mac- 
 bvcophant, but it required Cooke's acting to make 
 it thoroughly effectual. 
 
 Mr. Holcroft, in his Road to Ruin, set the 
 example of that style of comedy, in which the slatig 
 phrases of jockey-noblemen and the humours of 
 the four-in-hand club are blended with the ro- 
 mantic sentiments of distressed damsels and philo- 
 sophic waiting-maids, and in which he has been 
 imitated by the most successful of our living 
 writers, unless we make a separate class for the 
 school of Cumberland, who was almost entirely 
 devoted to the comedie larmoycaUe, and who, passing
 
 ON THE COMIC WRITERS. 339 
 
 from the light, volatile spirit of his West-Indian 
 to the mawkish sensibility of the Wheel of Fortune, 
 linked the Muse of English comedy to the genius 
 of German tragedy, where she has since remain- 
 ed, like Christobel fallen asleep in the Witch's 
 arms, and where I shall leave her, as I have not 
 the poet's privilege to break the spell. 
 
 There are two other writers whom I have 
 omitted to mention, but not forgotten : they are 
 our two immortal farce-writers, the authors of the 
 Mayor of Garratt and the Agreeable Surprise. If 
 Foote has been called our English Aristophanes, 
 O'Keeffc might well be called our English Moliere. 
 The scale of the modern writer was smaller, but 
 the spirit is the same. In light, careless laughter, 
 and pleasant exaggerations of the humorous, Ave 
 have had no one equal to him. There is no labour 
 or contrivance in his scenes, but the drollery of his 
 subject seems to strike irresistibly upon his fancy, 
 and run away with his discretion as it does with 
 ours. His Cowslip and Lingo are Touchstone and 
 Audrey revived. Fie is himself a Modern Antique. 
 His fancy has all the quaintness and extravagance 
 of the old writers, with the ease and lightness 
 which the moderns arrogate to themselves. Ail 
 his pieces are delightful, but the Agreeable Surprise 
 is the most so. There are in this soiiu ol" tlie
 
 340 ON THE COMIC WRITERS. 
 
 most felicitous blunders in situation and cha- 
 racter that can be conceived ; and in Lingo's superb 
 repHcation, " A scholar ! I was a master of scho- 
 lars," he has hit the height of the ridiculous. 
 Foote had more dry, sarcastic humour, and more 
 knowledge of the world. His farces are bitter 
 satires, more or less personal, as it happened. 
 Mother Cole, in the Minor, and Mr. Smirk the 
 Auctioneer, in Taste, with their coadjutors, are rich 
 cut-and-come-again, " pleasant, though wrong." 
 But the Mayor of Garratt is his magnum opus 
 in this line. Some comedies are long farces : 
 this farce is a comedy in little. It is also one of 
 the best acted farces that we have. The acting 
 of Dowton and Russell, in Major Sturgeon and 
 Jerry Sneak, cannot be too much praised : Foote 
 himself would have been satisfied with it. The 
 strut, the bluster, the hollow swaggering, and tur- 
 key-cock swell of the Major; and Jerry's meek- 
 ness, meanness, folly, good-nature, and hen-pecked 
 air, are assuredly done to the life. The latter 
 character is even better than the former, which is 
 saying a bold word. Dowton's art is only an 
 imitation of art, of an affected or assumed charac- 
 ter ; but in Russell's Jerry you see the very soul 
 of nature, in a fellow that is " pigeon-livered and 
 hicks gall," laid open and anatomized. You can 
 bee that his heart is no bigger than a pin, and his
 
 ON THE COMIC WRITERS. 341 
 
 head as soft as a pippin. His whole aspect is 
 chilled and frightened, as if he had been dipped in 
 a pond ; and yet he looks as if he would like to be 
 snug and comfortable, if he durst. He smiles as if 
 he would be friends with you upon any terms ; and 
 the tears come in his eyes because you will not 
 let him. The tones of his voice are prophetic as 
 the cuckoo's under-song. His words are made of 
 water-gruel. The scene in which he tries to make 
 a confidant of the Major :s great ; and his song of 
 *' Robinson Crusoe " as melancholy as the island 
 itself. The reconciliation-scene with his wife, and 
 his exclamation over her, " to think that I should 
 make my Molly mep!'" are pathetic, if the last 
 stage of human infirmity is so. This farce appears 
 to me to be both moral and entertaining ; yet it 
 does not take. It is considered as an unjust 
 satire on the city, and the country at large ; and 
 there is a very frequent repetition of the word 
 " nonsense " in the house, during the perform- 
 ance. Mr. Dowton was even hissed, either 
 from the upper boxes or gallery, in his speed: 
 recounting the marching of bis corps " froiri 
 Brentford to Ealing, and from Ealing to Acton:"' 
 and several persons in the pit, who thought the 
 wliolc low, were for going out. This shows well 
 for the progress of civilization. I suppose the 
 manners described in the Mavor of Garratt have.
 
 342 ON THE COMIC WRITERS. 
 
 in the last forty years, become obsolete, and the cha- 
 racters ideal : we have no longer either hen-pecked 
 or brutal husbands, or domineering wives ; the 
 Miss Molly Jollops no longer wed Jerry Sneaks, 
 or admire the brave Major Sturgeons on the other 
 side of Temple-bar ; all our soldiers have become 
 heroes, and our magistrates respectable, and the 
 farce of life is o'er. 
 
 One more name, and I have done. It is 
 that of Peter Pindar. The historian of Sir Joseph 
 Banks and the Emperor of Morocco, of the 
 Pilgrims and the Peas, of the Royal Academy, 
 and of Mr. Whitbread's brewing-vat, the bard in 
 vFhom the nation and the king delighted, is old 
 and blind, but still merry and wise: remember- 
 ing how he has made the world laugh in his 
 time, and not repenting of the mirth he has given ; 
 with an involuntary smile lighted up at the mad 
 pranks of his Muse, and the lucky hits of his pen 
 "^ faint picture of those flushes of his spirit, that 
 were wont to set the table in a roar;" like his 
 own Expiring Taper, bright and fitful to the last ; 
 tagging a rhyme or conning his own epitaph ; 
 and waiting for the last summons, Grateful 
 
 and Cox TF NT ED*! 
 
 " J'iii> iiig(jni,iu"j ;intl poijular writer u since dead.
 
 ON THE COMIC WRITERS. 34S 
 
 I have thus gone through the history of that 
 part of our literature, which I had proposed to 
 myself to treat of. I have only to add, by way of 
 explanation, that in some few parts I had antici- 
 pated myself in fugitive or periodical publications ; 
 and I thought it better to repeat what I had 
 already stated to the best of my ability, than alter 
 it for the worse. These parts bear, however, a 
 very small proportion to the whole ; and I have 
 used such diligence and care as I could, in adding 
 to them whatever appeared necessary to complete 
 the general view of the subject, or make it (as far 
 as lay in my power) interesting to others. 
 
 THF END. 
 
 T Mil'er. Sot'.e Street, ChKipiide
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY 
 
 Los Angeles 
 
 This book is DUE on the last date stamped below. 
 
 
 35m-8,'71(P6347s4)-C-120
 
 ,\^i!RRAR>r,)^, ,^ll!BR'\RY/> A\i lN;V[!?r;^ ^.inSANGflij;^ 
 
 -k iili 
 
 l^jjlgjja, Los Angeles 
 
 L 005 849 958 3 
 
 li 
 
 lUS^^ .< 
 
 AA 000 052 673 i