more, this great book is made by a foreign gentleman, who writes and speaks clear another lan guage from Mr. Addifon; furely he must be a dunce indeed, who is to be taught his mother tongue by a stranger! I was apt to be tickled with some of our English poets, Dryden and Pope and Milton, and one Gray, that turns out to be a very contemptible fellow truly, for he has fhewn me all their fecret hiftories in print, written by a learned man greater than them all put together, and now I would not give a rush for one of them; I could find in my heart to fend Bell and all his books to the devil. As for all the writers now living, my neighbour, who by the way has a hand in reviewing their works, affures me he can make nothing of them, and indeed I wonder that a man of his genius will have any thing to fay to them. It was my cuftom to read a chapter or two in the Bible on a Sunday night; but there I am wrong again; I fhall not enter upon the fubject here, but it won't do, that I am convinced of, Sir; it pofitively will not do. The reafon of my writing to you at all is only to let you know, that I received a volume of your Obferver by the coach; my friend has caft his eye over it, and I have returned it by the waggon, I fhall give no other anfwer to my correfpondent but to lament his lofs of fo, innocent a refource as reading, which I fufpect his new acquirements will hardly compenfate. I ftill think that half an hour paffed with Mr. Addison over a Spectator, notwithstanding all his falfe grammar, or even with one of the poets, notwithftanding their infirmities, might be as well employed as in weaving nets for the currant-bushes, or playing at all-fours with his housekeeper. No man has a right to complain of the critic, whofe fagacity discovers inaccuracies in a favourite author, and fome readers may probably be edified by fuch difcoveries; but the bulk of them, like my correfpondent Rufticus, will get nothing but difguft by the information: Every man's work is fair game for the critic; but let the critic beware that his own production is not open to retaliation. As for our late ingenious biographer of the poets, when I compare his life of Savage with that of Gray, I must own he has exalted the low, and brought down the lofty; 1 1 with what justice he has done this the world muft judge. On the part of our authors now living, whom the learned gentleman in the letter condemns in the lump, I have only this to obferve, that the worfe they fare now, the better they will fucceed with pofterity; for the critics love the fport too well to hunt any but thofe, who can stand a good chace; and authors are the only objects in nature, which are magnified by diftance and diminished by approach: Let the illustrious dead change places with the illustrious -living, and they shall escape no better than they have done who make room for them; the more merit they bring amongst us, the heavier the tax they fhall pay for it. Let us fuppofe for a moment that Shakespear was now an untried poet, and opened his career with any one of his beft plays: The next morning ushers into the world the following, or fomething like the following, critique. "Laft night was prefented for the first time a "tragedy called Othello or the Moor of Venice, "avowedly the production of Mr. William "Shakespear, the actor. This gentleman's reputation in his profeffion is of the mediocre << fort, and we predict that his prefent tragedy "will not add much to it in any way.-Medi"ocribus effe poetis--the reader can fupply the "reft "reft-verb. fap. As we profefs ourselves to be "friendly to the players in general, we shall re"serve our fuller critique of this piece, till after its third night; for we hold it very ftuff of the confcience (to use Mr. Shakespear's own "words) not to war againft the poet's purfe; "though we might apply the author's quaint "conceit to himself "Who feals his purse, feals trafb; 'tis fomething; "nothing. In this laft reply we agree with Mr. Shakefpear that 'tis nothing, and our philofophy tells "us ex nihilo nihil fit. "For the plot of this tragedy the most we can fay is, that it is certainly of the moving fort, "for it is here and there and every where; a "kind of theatrical hocus-pocus; a creature of "the pye-ball breed, like Jacob's muttons, be"tween a black ram and a white ewe. It "brought to our mind the children's game of— "I love my love with an A-with this difference only, that the young lady in this play loves "her love with a B, because he is black"Rifum teneatis ? "There is one lago, a bloody-minded fellow, "who ftabs men in the dark behind their backs; now this is a thing we hold to be most vile "and "and ever-to-be abhorred. Othello fmothers "his white wife in bed; our readers may think "this a fhabby kind of an action for a general "of his high calling; but we beg leave to ob"serve that it fhews fome fpirit at least in "Othello to attack the enemy in her strong cc quarters at once. There was an incident of a pocket-handkerchief, which Othello called out "for moft luftily, and we were rather sorry that "his lady could not produce it, as we might "then have seen one handkerchief at least "employed in the tragedy. There were fome' "vernacular phrases, which caught our ear, such as where the black damns his wife twice in a "breath-Oh damn her, damn her!-which we "thought favoured more of the language spoken "at the doors, than within the doors of the "theatre; but when we recollect that the author "used to amuse a leisure hour with calling up gentlemen's coaches after the play was over, "before he was promoted to take a part in it, we could readily account for old habits. Tho' cc we have seen many gentlemen and ladies kill "themselves on the ftage, yet we muft give the "author credit for the new way in which his "hero puts himself out of the world: Othello, "having fmothered his wife, and being taken up "by the officers of the ftate, prepares 'to dispatch VOL. III. O " himself |