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Take him as a poet, his Traveller is a very fine performance; ay, and so is his Deserted Village, were it not sometimes too much the echo of his Traveller. Whether, indeed, we take him as a poet, as a comick writer, or as an historian, he stands in the first class. BOSWELL. 'An historian!
The Nurse is one of the characters in which the Authour delighted: he has, with great subtility of distinction, drawn her at once loquacious and secret, obsequious and insolent, trusty and dishonest. His comick scenes are happily wrought, but his pathetick strains are always polluted with some unexpected depravations.
In tragedy he often writes with great appearance of toil and study, what is written at last with little felicity; but in his comick scenes, he seems to produce without labour, what no labour can improve. In tragedy he is always struggling after some occasion to be comick, but in comedy he seems to repose, or to luxuriate, as in a mode of thinking congenial to his nature.
And should the Ladies assert their Esteem of Vertue, and declare openly on the Side of Modesty, the most attractive Beauty of the fair Sex, as certainly they would do, if they understood how much those amiable Qualities have been expos'd and affronted by our most eminent Comick Poets; this would lay the Ax to the Root, and at one Blow destroy this pernicious Practice; for after this, what Writer would transgress the Rules of Decency and Purity of Expression, when he knows, that by his immodest Mixtures he shall fright the Ladies from the House?
"Why, yes," says he, "it is, Mr. Deuceace, a long time." "Not, I think, since we dined at Sir George Hookey's. By-the-by, what an evening that was hay, Mr. Blewitt? What wine! what capital songs! I recollect your 'May-day in the morning' cuss me, the best comick song I ever heard. I was speaking to the Duke of Doncaster about it only yesterday. You know the duke, I think?" Mr.
Posidippus, a comick poet, utters this complaint: "Through which of the paths of life is it eligible to pass?
The ludicrousness, absurdity, and extraordinary contrast between what the fellow fancied, and the reality, was truly comick. It grew dusky; and we had a very tedious ride for what was called five miles; but I am sure would measure ten. We had no conversation. I was riding forward to the inn at Glenelg, on the shore opposite to Sky, that I might take proper measures, before Dr.
Tho several Assaults have been made upon the Comick Poets in Fashion, and many Batteries have been rais'd against the Theatre, yet hitherto they have prov'd unsuccessful; the Stage is become Impregnable, where loose Poets, supported by Numbers, Power, and Interest, in Defiance of all Rules of Decency and Vertue, still provide new Snares and Temptations to seduce the People, and corrupt their Manners.
As to original literature, the French have a couple of tragick poets who go round the world, Racine and Corneille, and one comick poet, Moliere. BOSWELL. 'They have Fenelon. JOHNSON. 'Why, Sir, Telemachus is pretty well. BOSWELL. 'And Voltaire, Sir. JOHNSON. 'He has not stood his trial yet.
Now were the Comick Writers provided of a Subsistence some other way, they would be deliver'd from the Necessity of complying with their Actors, by writing such Plays as they shall bespeak, or at least approve, as the most likely to invite a profitable Audience.
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