swell into the subsequent tangibility of actual existence, and sometimes to evaporate into airy nothing. Can any one avoid sympathizing with Milton's proud consciousness of power and difficulty of determinate object, when, after promising to undertake something, he yet knows not what, that might be of use and honour to his country, he proceeds: "This is not to be obtained but by devout prayer to the Eternal Spirit that can enrich with all utterance and knowledge, and sends out his seraphim with the hallowed fire of his altar to touch and purify the lips of whom he pleases. To this must be added industrious and select reading, steady observation, and insight into all seemly and generous arts and affairs; till which in some measure be compassed, I refuse not to sustain this expectation." Well might Johnson add, that.from a promise like this, at once fervid, pious, and rational, might be expected "Paradise Lost." In Milton's Latin verses to Manso, Marquis of Villa, whom Tasso in his Jerusalem compliments, "Fra cavalier' magnanimi e cortesi he indicates his intention of selecting the exploits of King Arthur for his muse. Prince Arthur, as well as King Arthur, fell subsequently into the very different hands of Blackmore; and the blind bard, "long choosing and beginning late," having at length made good advances in his sacred poem, seems to rejoice that he had not sung the exploits of chivalry, not being sedulous by nature "To describe races and games, Or tilting furniture, emblazon'd shields, While, still preserving his proud confidence in his subject, he adds: "Me of these Nor skilled, nor studious, higher argument Pope, besides many hints and schemes of intended works, has left behind him the complete plan of au epic poem, to be written in blank verse, upon the subject of the Trojan Brutus. Dr. Johnson gave Mr. Langton a catalogue of books which he had projected, amounting to forty-four in prose, and five in poetry. Hayley contemplated a grand national poem about king John's barons and Magna Charta. Mr. Coleridge in our own days, is understood to be so voluminous an author of unwritten books as to be obliged to keep a copious catalogue for the purposes of reference to them. "Half of your book is to an index grown; You give your books contents, your readers none." "Tis true, 'tis pity, and pity 'tis 'tis true," that a mind so richly stored as his should impart so little of its intellectual opulence. His overloaded head is like an overful bottle of nectar, whose particles, in their contention for preference of escape, do mutually "choke their utterance." STANZAS TO PUNCHINELLO. THOU lignum-vite Roscius, who The Queen of smiles is quite outdone Thou grinning, giggling, laugh extorting fellow! At other times mine ear is wrung And makes the heart rebound with freak and frolic. Ere of thy face I get a snatch, O with what boyish glee I catch Thy twittering, cackling, bubbling, squeaking gibberSweeter than Syren voices-fraught With richer merriment than aught That drops from witling mouths, though utter'd glibber! What wag was ever known before To keep the circle in a roar, Nor wound the feelings of a single hearer? Engrossing all the jibes and jokes, Unenvied by the duller folks, A harmless wit-an unmalignant jeerer. The upturn'd eyes I love to trace Is all alight with an expected gladness; I love those sounds to analyse, From childhood's shrill ecstatic cries, To age's chuckle with its coughing after; To see the grave and the genteel Rein in awhile the mirth they feel, Then loose their muscles, and let out the laughter. Sometimes I note a hen-peck'd wight, To him a beatific beau ideal; He counts each crack on Judy's pate, Then homewards creeps to cogitate The difference 'twixt dramatic wives and real. But, Punch, thou 'rt ungallant and rude In plying thy persuasive wood; Remember that thy cudgel's girth is fuller Than that compassionate, thumb-thick, Establish'd wife-compelling stick, Made legal by the dictum of Judge Buller. When the officious doctor hies To cure thy spouse, there's no surprise Thou shouldst receive him with nose-tweaking grappling; Nor can we wonder that the mob Encores each crack upon his nob, When thou art feeing him with oaken sapling. As for our common enemy Old Nick, we all rejoice to see The coup de grace that silences his wrangle: Dramatic justice claims its prey, And thou in hempen handkerchief must dangle. Now helpless hang those arms which once Rattled such music on the sconce ; Hush'd is that tongue which late out-jested Yorick; No longer heaves that paunch before, Which swagg'd with such a pleasantry plethorick. But Thespian deaths are transient woes, Suffer'd by lignum-vitæ malefactors; Thou wilt return, alert, alive, And long, oh long may'st thou survive, First of head-breaking and side-splitting actors! AN ATTEMPT TO EXPLAIN THE CAUSES OF THE DECLINE OF BRITISH COMEDY, No. I. NOTHING is more common than to hear lamentable complaints of the downfall of the British Drama, and nothing is more rare than to find that the authors of these doleful exclamations have bestowed any pains in investigating the extent, causes, or consequences of the calamity they deplore. Like other ill news, the dictum flies apace from mouth to mouth, and its circulators are too busy in spreading the report to stop to analyze its truth. The assertion, however, is neither limited to the present time, nor to the stage itself; for men, in all ages, have been prone to speak in raptures of the ancient poets, dramatists, painters, and historians, while they bewailed the inferiority of their own days; to reason as if the progress of knowledge were retrograde, and to indulge in gloomy reveries, as if the world, instead of advancing in intellectual refinement, were relapsing into darkness and barbarism. "There are some prejudices," as Dr. Aikin justly observes,* "which, when once broken through, leave the mind. in astonishment that it could ever have submitted to them. Such is that of annexing authority to antiquity. In consequence of a false analogy, we associate the idea of age and experience to the circumstance of having lived long ago; and thus we invert the proper notice of the wisdom of ages,' and look for it at the wrong end." He proceeds to remark, that, "in fact, all the authority which accumulated knowledge and experience can bestow, is on the side of a modern, when compared with an ancient." Yet few old men will allow the operation of this principle upon their contemporaries! although they are very ready to admit the conjunctive progress of improvement with the march of time, so far as it respects themselves. To men of this sort every thing appears to be wofully altered for the worse, since the days of their youth: they are sailing from the land of promise, and fancy it is receding from them; they are changed themselves, and imagine that the world is altered, as the old beauty complained that the looking-glasses were not half so good as they used to be when she was young. This mental delusion must be attributed to the confused association of our ideas, in confounding our own aptitude to receive delight from certain objects with the power of those objects to impart it. Losing, with the buoyant susceptibility of youth, the novelty which supplied it with a constant round of pleasurable impressions, we eagerly attach to every thing rather than to ourselves the fault of this decay in * Letters to his Son, vol. ii. page 89. |