that purpofe, otherwife his ornamented and rhetorical file would have better qualified him for the Epic walk. He is the very poet of eloquence. His verfification is particularly noble and harmonious. He poffeffes, however, no nice difcrimination of paffions, or accurate knowledge of the human heart. He always entrenches himself in generals. He continually facrifices paflion and character to a beautiful fimile or extraneous embellifhment. While defcription sweeps along in all the pomp of words, nature and life deep. But thefe faults are chiefly confpicuous in his meaner performances. In Tamerlane, a tragedy that has had its day, they are particularly difgufting. In his two most admired productions, if he does not always fake them off, he rifes above them, and we lofe fight of them in a conftellation of the molt vigorous beauties.

They are particularly excellent as being founded upon the ftory of private and domeftic wees, and fo being equally directed to the heart of every spectator. The mind of mere fenfibility is tired with the continual repetition of the diftreffes of kings and emperors, and loves to come home to thofe fcenes that are common to every clafs of humanity. For this rea. fon the Fair Penitent is a tragedy equally if not more universally relifhed than any of thofe of the English Theatre. It has been complained of as a minorer; and certain it is that Calita excites but little comparatively of our pity. Her character, however, is drawn with confiderable warmth of conception. And indeed the leading perfonages in general of this piece are painted with a much bolder pencil than Rowe in any other initance would feem to have been capable of. Lothario and Horatio are fo much the characters of real life, that they feem even to entrench upon the higher fpecies of comedy. The tenderneis of Alamont has juftly been cenfured by the common voice as partaking of the fpiritlefs and the witcl. The pathos of the play refts entirely with Sciolto. Perhaps this perfonage may not be of the filt Bot Lemember to have been to much truck with it, in the performance of that maler of every tender emotion of the foul, the incomparable Mr. Pary, that I am fatisfied I thal never be able coolly to decide refpecting it; or perfectly to feparate the merit of the poet and the actor. Jane Shore is ufually confidered as the chef d'oeuvre of Row. It

rate.

may well admit of a queftion; but upon the whole I give the palm to the Fair Penitent.

Shore certainly is, what Califta perhaps is not, a real penitent. Real penitence, efpecially when the crime was furrounded with all temptation's magic, has the ftrongest claim upon our compaffion. And the meek repentance of Shore, put into the harmonious verfification of this writer, infallibly draws tears from every eye.

Dr. Johnfon, the monarch of the critic realm, has told us, that Alicia is a character of empty noife, without either natural paffion, or real madness. This is furely to push the matter too far. It is to concentrate the characteristic defect of this poet into a charge against a fingle picture. A thoufand times in the courfe of the tragedy, dramatic excellence is made to give place to epic defcription, and more than epic amplification. In the mean time, were I to point out that perfonage of the drama in whofe mouth are the greateft number of admirable paffages, I know not but it would be the very perfonage that has fallen fo feverely under the critic lafh. No perfonage ever gave greater fcope to the performer; and it is faid, that the nobleft reputation of the immortal Cibber was founded upon this bafis, her Alicia. The great defect. of this poem is its want of story. It never lacks the fpectator with fufpence. It never agitates with any fudden change. of fortune. And the end is almost certainly forefeen from the beginning. The misfortunes of maternal tenderness or of virtuous love, in the hands of a skilful painter, will agitate the foul even to phrenzy. In every diftrefs, to be truly poetical, there fhould be a mixture of the fublime and the difinterested. In pitying fuch a woe, we are foothed and elevated. in the very moment in which we are melted. But the diftrefs of Shore is entirely perfonal, which tends exceedingly to weaken its pathos. And then the diftreis of tamine is pure finking and mitery, without one fpring by which for the foul to recover its dat city, and borders too mucn upon the fimple regions of pain, to be a proper fubject for poetry. writer probably telt fomething of this, and has therefore endeavoured to complicate and expand the intercit by introducing the character of the busband. But he takes too little room in the canves to be able to contribute much to remove the objection.

The

COMEDY..

THE firft writer that deferves our notice, or indeed whofe attempts in the comic line are almoft at all remembered by us, is the immortal Shakespeare. The attention of this eagle genius was principally directed to the ferious drama, and it is not by his comedies that his reputation is to be estimated. His happiest production in this kind, the As You Like It, is almoft entirely paftoral, and therefore, though it certainly does not yield in beauty to any poem in the world, it does not properly fall under our prefent confideration. His comic fame in its strictest fenfe muft indeed be wholly refted upon thefe two performances, The Merry Wives of Windfor, and the Much Ado About Nothing. The former of thefe contains feveral excellent characters, and many ftrokes of the trueft humour; but its plot is cold and uninterefting. The idea of founding a drama upon the pranks by which a lecherous old man is punished for fo prepofterous a tafte, is in itself fufficiently barren; and it is rendered still lefs interefting by the regular declenfion of the pranks in point of spirit and invention. The affair of the buck-basket, though it cannot boast much of what the French require under the term bienfeance, is infinitely ridiculous, and is very highly painted. But the Fairy fcheme, with which the piece is concluded, is furely one of the most miferable conceits that ever entered into the mind of man. The character of Falltaff is certainly one of the happieft pictures that ever graced the comic fcene. But it is generally allowed to have been written with much more wit and spirit than here, in the piece in which it was originally introduced, the Firit Part of King Henry IV.

The Much Ado, &c. is a moft excellent and extraordinary perform nce. Comedy, and efpecially genteel comedy, is juftly confidered as, of all the different fpecies of poetry, that whofe production is latest to be expected. It is very long ere the manners of any people are carried to their higheit pitch of refinement. And till that time arrives, there are a thouland delicacies incident to this fpec.es of compofition, of which it is fcarcely poffible for the poet to have any idea. In the mean time we may challenge the world to produce a more fpirited picture of high life than is contained in this comedy.

The reputation of Ben Jonion has been very great, and has, in my opinion, much exceeded his merits. The charac

ters chiefly prefented by this writer and his contemporaries, Beaumont and Fletcher, are fo truly fingular, and fo much out of the road of our prefent manners, that, though in general very faintly sketched, it is yet frequently poffible for an actor of a vigorous conception, and great art of reprefentation, to make them highly entertaining. Hence it is that many pieces which appear inimitably tedious and dull in the clofet, are great favourites upon the theatre. They refemble a heap of dead bodies, the fight of which in themselves yields little more than fimple pain and difguft. But a man who, like Fadlalla's dervife in the Arabian Nights, poffeffes the fecret of injecting his foul into them, can make them riie upon their feet, and go hither and thither, to the amusement and furprife of every fpectator. The Silent Woman, however, must be excepted from this charge, and does indeed contain a very confiderable portion of the vis comica.

But the first writer in this country who has entitled himself to a confiderable degree of reputation, merely by the production of comedies, is Wicherley. He is indeed far from fhaking off entirely the veftigia ruris; and partly from the time in which he lived, and partly from his perfonal difpofition, his characters are univerfally marked with a particular barnnefs and aggravation of feature. His Plain Dealer has certainly, however, great merit, and is fuperior to almost all the comedies that had been produced in the English language before his time. As a proof of its extenfive reputation, it may be obferved, that Voltaire has paid it the compliment of tranflating it for the French theatre.

But the writer who has carried this species of compofition to the highest perfection it has yet reached among us, is Con. greve. His genius is rich and inexhauftible. In the mean time, his comedies are disfigured by a uniform obfcurity and complication of plot. His wit is fcattered upon us with unlimited profusion, and it is too often put indifcriminately into the mouth of any of his perfonages, without a fufficient regard to the truth of character. What Lord Dorfet is reported to have faid of Love for Love, may be adopted as well for blame as praife, That his pieces generally contain wit enough for feven comedies. The character, however, of Sir Sampfon Legend will not probably yield to any comic picture that

was

was ever produced. His laft production, the Way of the World, is more chalte in this refpect than any of the rest. And in fpite of a few errors that cold penetration might difcover in it, the more it is read, and the oftener it is feen, the more will it be admired.

The ketches of Farquhar have much vigour and fpuit; but he feems to have been of too indolent a turn ever to have produced a finished work.

The fame remark may with fome accommodation be applied to Mr. Focte, who was one of the happiest geniufes in this line, that the prefent age has produced.

Thus far an impartial critic muft acknowledge that we have produced no writer fo accomplished as Moliere among the French. But there is an author, now living, who feems not to yield in point of abilities to any comic writer that ever

exifted. I need not fay that I mean Mr. Sheridan. The Sufpicious Husband of Hoadley is equal in merit to any comedy in the language; but unfortunately for his country, its author never produced another. Muft we learn to tremble left this example fhould be repeated among us? I have nothing to do with Mr. Sheridan's political purfuits. May their fuccefs be equal to the greatnefs of his abilities and the integrity of his views! but I could with him to remember one thing. The obstacles are innumerable, if indeed they can at all be furmounted, in the way of his making a principal figure in the political world. In the line that he first chalked out to himself he may reign without a rival. And I remember Cæfar oblerved, as he passed among a few fcattered cottages in Gaul, "I had "rather be the firit man in this village, "than the fecond man in Rome." T.

SIR,

P. 63. "I have read that the Siamese fent ambaffadors to Louis Quatorze, but I never heard that the King of France thought it worth his while to fend am befadors from his court to that of Siam."

Dr. Robertfon might have humbled his antagonist, by informing him, that in the year 1685 Louis XIV. actually did fend the Chevalier de Chaumont and the Abbé de Choity as his ambaffadors to the King of Siain; and that the latter, and the Chevalier de Forbin, pubdifhed relations of the voyage, &c.

P. 163. "Seu viri curas pia nupta mu'cet, #Seu fovet mater fobolem benigna,

he was like the ghofts, who never fpeak till they are fpoken to."

This compariton was borrowed from Fielding's Tom Jones, Book XI. Chapter 2. The other who, like a gholt, only wanted to be spoke to, readily anfwered, &c.”

The character of Tom Reflefs in the Idier, No. 48, was meant by Dr. Johnfon for Tom Tyers.

P. 210.

"We must not ridicule a

paffion [Love] which he who never felt was never happy, and he who laughs at deferves to feel;-a paffion which has caufed the change of empires, and the lofs of worlds;-a paflion which has infpired heroifm, and fubdued avarice.”

Surely there is fome contradi&tion between this fentiment and another of the fame author, in his Preface to Shakefpeare, p. 6. Mr. Reed's edition.

"Love is only one of the many pa^fons; and as it has no great influence on the fum of life, it has little operation in

TH

the dramas of a Poet who caught his ideas from a living world, and exhibited only what he faw before him."

And yet, per aps, a third of the Plays of Shakespeare impole a flat negative on this laft affertion or their editor.

P. 265. "6 Walking in a wood when it rained, was, I think, the only rural image he pleased his fancy with."

His partiality for this circumftance perhaps was occafioned by a paffage in Milton, which is thus p raphrated in his obfervations on the Penforofo of that great poct." When the morning comes, a morning gloomy with wind and rain, he [the penfive man] walks into the dark trackltfs woods."--Who, that was intimate with Dr. Johníon, can exprefs furprize on finding him adopt an amufement appropriated by Milton to Il Pen. forofo?

I am, Sir,

Your very humble fervant, &c.

SIR,

HE infatuation fo prevalent of late, refpecting the Slave Trade, and the many arguments which have been ufed to make it appear in the moft odious light, have induced me to hit a few remarks, that feem to have efcaped the generality of its numerous enemies, who, led away by a miaken humanity, would facrifice every thing to a blind impulfe, without once confidering the fatal confequences that might too probably ensue on its luppreflion. They have certainly carried on their endeavours with every degree of refolution and perfeverance; and had they chote a properer object, would have been entitled to much praife: but their humanity has no caule to be baulked. If they will look around them, they will find calamities and diftrefes fufficient to exercile their bounty upon; and thofe fums they have gathered for the purpofe of carrying on their favourite prej&t, will be much more beneficially employed in te lieving the wants of the honeft, the laborious poor of our own country. But to proceed to the bufnels. The Siaves purchafed by the Captains of veffels on the Coaft of Guinea, are perfons who have forfeited their lives to the laws of their country, or elle captives that are ta ken in their wars. In either cafe the fe of the victim is preferved. But it is argued, that the Slave Trade is the caute

of thofe wars among the natives; (f the caufe is removed, I fhould prefume the effect mult likewife ceafe) but will any one affirm this feriously? Let me ask, Why do the European powers make war with each other? We are endowed with a greater portion of reafon-we profefs the Chriftian religion we have no market for our prifoners-and yet we may mangle and butcher each other in bloody and continued wars. And would it not be unjust that the native of Africa, who ass under the immediate impulfe of his paffions, (uncurbed by either Reafon or Religion) fhould be debarred from the fame privilege? Confider the extent of country,the many tribes that inhabit it; and if in the final! ifland of Otaheite two powers are continually at variance, is it reafonable to fuppofe, that where they are fo numerous, they are likely to live on amicable terms? Their wars would be more bloody, as all prifoners would be undoubtedly facrificed; but I will be bold enough to affirm that they would not be lefs frequent. The Captains of fhips have been faid (as another argument) to treat the Slaves, while in their poffeffion, with the greatest barbarity. Tales of this fort, we may know from experience, never lofe any thing by the way. But let it be remembered (as an antwer to this) that it is by no means