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WALPOLIANA;

Or Bons-Mots, Apophthegms, Obfervations on Life and Literature, with Extracts from Original Letters

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OF THE LATE HORACE WALPOLE, EARL OF ORFORD.

NUMBER

LXI. EXTRACTS FROM LETTERS.

Farce.

[R. O'Keefe has brought our audiences to bear with

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MR gance and were there not fuch irrefiftible humour in his utmost daring, it would be impoffible to deny that he has paffed even beyond the limits of nonfenfe but I confine this approbation to his Agreeable Surprife. In his other pieces there is much more untempered nonfenfe than humour. Even that favourite performance I wondered that Mr. Colman dared to produce."

LXII. Dramatic Characters. "Your remark, that a piece full of marked characters would be void of na

ture, is most juft. This is fo ftrongly my opinion, that I thought it a great fault in Mifs Burney's Cecilia, though it has a thousand other beauties, that he has laboured far too much to make all her

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fonages talk always in character. Whereas in the prefent refined, or depraved, ftate of human nature, most people endeavour to conceal their real character, not to display it. A profeffional man, as a pedantic Fellow of a College, or a Seaman, has a characteristic diale&t; but that is very different from continually letting out his ruling paffion."

LXIII. Song-writing.

"I have no more talent for writing a fong, than for writing an ode Ike Dryden's or Gray's. It is a talent per fe, and given like every other branch of nius, by Nature alone. Poor Shentone was labouring through his whole life to write a perfect fong--and, in my opinion

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at leaft, never fucceeded-not better than Pope did in a St. Cecilian ode. I doubt not whether we have not gone a long, long, way beyond the poffibility of writ ing a good fong. All the words in the language have been fo often employed on fimple images, (without which a fong cannot be good ;) and fuch reams of bad verfes have been produced in that kind, that I question whether true fimplicity it felf could pleafe now. At least we are not likely to have any fuch thing. Our prefent choir of Poetic Virgins write in he other extreme. They colour their impofitions fo highly with choice and

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IV.

dainty phrafes, that their own dreffes are not more fantastic and romantic. Their nightingales make as many divifions as Italian fingers. But this is wandering from the fubject: and while I only meant to tell you what I coud not do myself, I am telling you what others do ill."

LXIV. Poetic Epochs.

"I will yet hazard one other opinion, tho' relative to compofition in general. There are two periods favourable to poets -a rude age, when a genius may hazard any thing, and when nothing has been foreftalled. The other is when, after ages of barbarism and incorrection, a master or two produce models formed by purity and tafte. Virgil, Horace, Boileau, Corneille, Racine, Pope, exploded the licen tioufnefs that reigned before them. What happened? Nobody dared to write in contradiction to the feverity established; and very few had the abilities to rival their matters. Infipidity enfues: novelty is dangerous : :- and bombaft ufurps the throne, which had been debafed by a race of Faineants.”

LXV. Criticifm.

"It is prudent to confult others before one ventures on publication-but every fingle perfon is as lyable to be erroneous as an author. An elderly man, as he gains experience, acquires preju dices too: nay old age has generally two faults-it is too quick-fighted into the faults of the time being; and too blind to the faults that reigned in his own youth; which having partaken of, or having admired, though injudiciously, he recollects with complaifance."

LXVI. Dramatic Compofition. "I confefs too that there must be twe diftinct views in writers for the stage; one of which is more allowable to them than to other authors. The one is durable fame-the other, peculiar to dramatic authors, the view of writing to the present tale, (and perhaps, as you fay, to the level of the audience.) I do not mean for the fake of profit but even high comedy must risk a little of its immortality by confulting the ruling tafte. And thence a comedy always lofes fome of its beauties, the tranfient-and fome of its intelligibility. Like its harsher fifter,

Satire,

Walpoliana, No. IV.

Satire, many of its allufions must vanish, as the objects it aims at correcting ceafe to be in vogue-and perhaps that ceffation, the natural death of fashion, is often afcribed by an author to his own reproots. Ladies would have left off patching on the whig or tory fide of their face, tho Mr. Addifon had not written his excellent Spectator. Probably even they who might be corrected by his reprimand, adopted fome new diftinction as ridiculous; not difcovering that his fatire was levelled at their partial animofity, and not at the mode of placing their patches for unfortunately, as the world cannot be cured of being foolish, a preacher who eradicates one folly, does but make room for fome other."

LXVII. TRAGEDY AND COMEDY,

The critics generally consider a tragedy as the next effort of the mind to an epic poem. For my part I eftimate the difficulty of writing a good comedy to be greater, than that of compofing a good tragedy. Not only equal genius is required; but a comedy demands a more uncommon affemblage of qualities knowledge of the world, wit, good fenfe, &c. and thefe qualities fuperadded to thofe requifite for tragical compofition.

Congreve is faid to have written a comedy at eighteen. It may be-for I cannot fay that he, has any characteristic of a comic writer, except wit, which may fparkle bright at that age. His characters are feldom genuine-and his plots are fometimes fitter for tragedy. Mr. Sheridan is one of the most perfect comic writers I know, and unites the most uncommon qualities-his plots are fufficiently deep, without the clumfy intaglement, and muddy profundity, of Congreve-characters ftrictly in nature-wit without affectation. What talents! The

complete orator in the fenate, or in Weftminiter-hall-and the excellent dramatist in the most difficult province of the drama!

LXVIII. OMISSIONS NOT ALWAYS
LAPSES.

Lord **** did a fhocking job for which my father was blamed. There is a filly and falfe account of it, in the laft edition of the Biographia, in a life of him by bishop **** his fon. I had forgotten lord **** in the Catalogue of Royal and Noble Authors: when this was obferved to me I waited on lord **** his son, and begged a lift of his father's works, apologizing at the fame time for the omiffion. His lordship faid "Sir I beg you will not mention

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my father." He was confcious that it was a delicate matter to mention him. LXIX. IMPOSITIONS.

Acute and fenfible people are often the most easily deceived. A deceit, of which it may be faid, "It is impoffible for any one to dare it," always fucceeds.

LXX. REVOLUTIONS.

Good men are never concerned in revolutions, because they will not go the lengths. Sunderland caufed the revolution of 1688, while Devonshire stood aloof-the latter was the angel, the former the storm. Bad men, and poisonous plants, are fometimes of fuperlative ufe in fkillful hands.

LXXI. APPLAUSE THE NURSE OF

GENIUS.

One quality I may fafely arrogate to myfelf: I am not affraid to praije. Many are fuch timid judges of compofition, that they hefitate, and wait for the public opinion. Shew them a manufcript, though they highly approve it in their hearts, they are affraid to commit themfelves by speaking out. Several excellent works have perifhed from this caufe; a writer of real talents being often a mere fenfitive plant with regard to his own productions. Some cavils of Mafon (how inferior a poet and judge!) had almoít induced Gray to deftroy his two beautiful and fublime odes. We should not only praife, but haften to praise.

LXXII. FRENCH TRAGEDY.

I have printed at Strawberry Hill the Cornelie Vejtale, a tragedy by the prefident Henault. It is rather a dramatic poem than a drama-like the other French tragedies. The word drama is derived, I believe, from a Greek word fignifying to act. Now in the French tragedies there is little or no action; and they are in truth mere dramatic poems, compofed wholly of conflicts of interefts, paffions, and fentiments; expreffed, not in the language of nature, but in that of de clamation. Hence thefe interefts, paffions, and fentiments, feem all overstrained, and hors de la nature.

I do not mean to deny juft praise to Corneille and Racine--but their merit, like that of Metaftafio's Operas, is of a peculiar kind. It is not dramatic, not pity and terror moved by incident and action,

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but an intereft created by perplexity, mental conflict, and fituation. Italian, an Englishman, a German, expects fomething very different in a drama, real action, and frequent incident.

LXXIII.

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LXXIII. ON GRACE IN COMPOSITION. Swift's. Eloquence may bestow an im

A LETTER.

June 26, 1785.

To your book, fir, I am much obliged on many accounts, particularly for having recalled my mind to fubjects of delight, to which it was grown dulled by age and indolence. In consequence of your reclaiming it, I asked myself whence you feel fo much difregard for certain authors whofe fame is eftablished. You have affigned good reasons for withholding your approbation from fome, on the plea of their being imitators--it was natural then, to ask myself again, whence they had obtained fo much celebrity? I think I have discovered a caufe, which I do not remember to have seen noted; and that caufe I fufpect to have been, that certain of thofe authors pofleffed grace-do not take me for a difciple of Lord Chelterfield, nor imagine that I mean to erect grace into a capital ingredient of writing but I do believe that it is a perfume that will preferve from putrefaction; and is diftinct even from ftyle, which regards expreflion; grace I think belongs to manner. It is from the charm of grace that I believe fome authors, not in your favour, obtained part of their renown. Virgil in particular-and yet I am far from difagreeing with you on his fubject in general. There is fuch a dearth of invention in the Eneid [and when he did invent, it was often fo foolishly]; fo little good fenfe, fo little variety, and fo little power over the paffions, that I have frequently faid, from contempt for his matter, and from the charm of his harmony, that I believe I should like his poem better, if I was to hear it repeated, and did not understand Latin. On the other hand he has more than harmony; whatever he utters is faid gracefully, and he enobles his images, especially in the Georgics, or at least it is more fenfible there from the humility of the fubject. A Roman farmer might not understand his diction in agriculture-but he made a Roman courtier understand farming, the farming of that age; and coud captivate a lord of Auguftus's bedchamber, and tempt him to liften to themes of rufticity. Statius and Claudian, though talking of war, would make a foldier defpife them as bullies. That graceful manner of thinking in Virgil feems to me to be more than ftyle, if I do not refine too much; and I admire, I confefs, Mr. Addison's phrafe, that Virgil toffed about his dung with an air of majesty. A ftyle may be excellent without grace-for inftance, Dr.

mortal style, and one of more dignity; yet eloquence may want that ease, that genteel air that flows from, or conftitutes, grace. Addifon himself was master of that grace, even in his pieces of humour, and which do not owe their merit to ftyle; and from that combined fecret he excells all men that ever lived, but Shakespeare, in humour, by never dropping into an approach towards burlefque and buffoonery, even when his humour defcended to characters that in any other hands would have been vulgarly low. Is it not clear that Will Whimble was a gentleman, though he always lived at a diftance from good company? Fielding had as much humour perhaps as Addison; but having no idea of grace, is perpetually dif gufting. His innkeepers and parfons are the groffeft of their profeffion; and his gentlemen are awkward when they shoud be at their ease.

The Grecians had grace in every thing, in poetry, in oratory, in ftatuary, in architecture, and probably in mufic and painting. The Romans, it is true, were their imitators; but having grace too, imparted it to their copies, which gave them a merit, that almoft raises them to the rank of originals. Horace's Odes acquired their fame, no doubt, from the graces of his manner and purity of his ftyle; the chief praife of Tibullus and Propertius, who certainly cannot boast of more meaning than Horace's Odes.

Waller, whom you profcribe, fir, owed his reputation to the graces of his manner, though he frequently ftumbled, and even fell flat: but a few of his fmall pieces are as gracefull as poffible: one might fay, that he excelled in painting ladies in enamel, but could not fucceed in portraits in oil large as life. Milton had fuch fuperior merit, that I will only fay, that if his Angels, his Satan, and his Adam, have as much dignity as the Apollo Belvedere, his Eve has all the delicacy and graces of the Venus of Medici, as his defcription of Eden has the colouring of Albano. Milton's tenderness imprints ideas as gracefull as Guido's Madonnas; and the Allegro, Penferofo, and Comus, might be denoted from the three Graces; as the Italians give fingular titles-to two or three of Petrarch's best fonnets.

Cowley, I think, would have had grace (for his mind was graceful) if he had had any ear, or if his tafte had not been vitiated by the pursuit of wit; which, when it does not offer itself naturally, degenerates

Walpoliana, No. IV.-Grace in Compofition.

generates into tinfel or pertnefs. Pertnefs is the miltaken affectation of grace, as pedantry produces erroneous dignity: the familiarity of the one, and the clumfinefs of the other, diftort, or prevent, grace. Nature, that furnishes famples of all qualities, and in the fcale of gradation exhibits all poffible fhades, affords us types that are more appofite than words. The eagle is fublime, the lion majestic, the fwan graceful, the monkey pert, the bear ridiculously awkward. I mention thefe as more expreffive and comprehensive than I coud make definitions of my meaning; but I will apply the fwan only, under whofe wings I will shelter an apology for Racine, whofe pieces give me an idea of that bird. The colouring of the fwan is pure, his attitudes are graceful, he never difpleafes you when failing on his proper element. His feet may be ugly, his notes hiffing not mufical, his walk. not natural; he can foar, but it is with difficulty. Still the impreffion the fwan leaves is that of grace—so does Racine.

Boileau may be compared to the dog, whose fagacity is remarkable, as well as its fawning on its master, and its fnarling at those it diflikes. If Boileau was too auftere to admit the pliability of grace, he compenfates by fenfe and propriety. He is like (for I will drop animals) an upright magiftrate whom you refpect; but whofe juftice and feverity leave an awe, that discourages familiarity. His copies of the ancients may be too fervilebut if a good tranflator deserve praise, Boileau deferves more: he certainly does not fall below his originals; and, confidering at what period he wrote, has greater merit ftill. By his imitations he held out to his countrymen models of tafte, 'and banifhed totally the bad taste of his predeceffors. For his Lutrin, replete with excellent poetry, wit, humour, and fatire, he certainly was not obliged to the ancients. Excepting Horace, how little idea had either Greeks or Romans of wit and humour! Ariftophanes and Lucian, compared with moderns, were, the one a blackguard, the other a buffoon. In my eyes, the Lutrin, the Difpenfary, and the Rape of the Lock, are standards of grace and elegance, not to be paralleled by antiquity; and eternal reproaches to Voltaire, whofe indelicacy in the Pucelle degráded him as much, when compared with the three authors I have named, as his Henriade leaves Virgil, and even Lucan, whom he more refembles, by far his fuperiors. The Dunciad is blemished by the offenfive images of the games, but MONTHLY MAG. No. XXXII,

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the poetry appears to me admirable; and tho' the fourth book has obfcurities, I prefer it to the three others. It has defcriptions not furpaffed by any poet that ever exifted; and which furely a writer merely ingenious will never equal. The lines on Italy, on Venice, on Convents, have all the grace for which I contend, as diftinct from poetry, tho' united with the moft beautifull; and the Rape of the Lock, befides the originality of great part of the invention, is a ftandard of graceful writing.

In general I believe that what I call grace, is denominated elegance; but by grace I mean fomething higher. I will explain myself by inftances; Apollo is gracefull, Mercury elegant.

Petrarch perhaps owed his whole merit to the harmony of his numbers, and the graces of his ftyle. They conceal his poverty of meaning, and want of variety. His complaints too may have added an intereft, which, had his paffion been fuccefsfull, and had expreffed itfelf with equal famenefs, would have made the number of his fonnets infupportable. Melan-, choly in poetry I am inclined to think contributes to grace, when it is not disgraced by pitiful lamentations, fuch as Ovid's and Cicero's in their banishments. We refpect melancholy, because it imparts a fimilar affection, pity. A gay writer, who fhould only exprefs fatisfaction without variety, would foon be naufeous.

Madame de Sevignè shines both in grief and gaiety. There is too much of forrow for her daughter's abfence; yet it is always expreffed by new turns, new images; and often by wit, whofe tendernefs has a melancholy air. When the forgets her concern, and returns to her natural difpofition, gaiety, every paragraph has novelty her allufions, her applications, are the happieft poffible. She has the art of making you acquainted with all her acquaintance; and attaches you even to the spots the inhabited. Her language is correct, tho' unstudied; and when her mind is full of any great event, she interefts you with the warinth of a dramatic writer, not with the chilling impartiality of an hiftorian. Pray read her accounts of the death of Turenne and of the ar rival of K. James in France, and tell me whether you do not know their perfons, as if you had lived at the time. For my part, if you will allow me a word of digreffion (not that I have written with any method), I hate the cold impartiality recommended to hiftorians; fi vis me flere, dolendum est primum ipfi tivi-but that Í 3 L

may

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Account of Schiller.

may not wander again, nor tire, ner contradict you any more, I will finish now: and fhall be glad if you will dine at Strawberry-Hill next Sunday, and take a bed there; when I will tell you how many more parts of your book have pleafed me, than have ftartled my opinions, or, per

haps, prejudices. I am, fir, your obedi. ent humble fervant, HOR. WALPOLE. P. S. Be fo good as to let me know, by a line by the post to Strawberry-Hill, whether I shall have the pleasure of seeing you on Sunday.

ORIGINAL ANECDOTES, LETTERS, &c. Characteristic Account of Foreign Literati.

SCHILLER.

HIS dramatic writer has acquired

as well among the Germans as the Englifh. None of his performances have efcaped the lafh of criticifm, which, perhaps, never has been more juftly inflicted than upon his eccentric compofitions. It will hence be understood, that, in his own country, particularly among critics who combine a correct tafte with a judicious arrangement of facts-facts founded upon the purity of moral motives-he holds but a middle rank.

SCHILLER is a native of Stutgard, the capital of the dutchy of Wurtemberg, born in 1760. As his father was an officer in the army of the late reigning Duke of Wurtemberg, who had erected a military academy, in imitation of that eftablished at Berlin, by the late Great Frederick; our bard was naturally placed in this feminary, where he received the first rudiments of his education—by no means congenial to his talents. Under all the difadvantages of a military fchool, he, however, foon diftinguished himself among his companions, by his metaphorical language in converfation, and his poetical turn in compofition. Though the leader in almoft every clafs through which he paffed, his talents did not render him the object of envy and hatred among his fchoolfellows; for he was a 'perfect ftranger to referve and artifice.

SCHILLER'S parents obviously wished him to try his fortune in the army; but his natural propenfity to dramatic ftudies foon determined him to prefer the elegant purfuits of the Mufes, to the riotous and diffipating fcenes of a military life.

We are not informed at what period of life SCHILLER left Stutgard; but he must have been very young (perhaps, not twenty years of age), when he wrote, at Manheim, his famous tragedy, "The Robbers." Manheim then poffeffed one of

the best theatres in Germany, and was well fupported by the dramatic talents of Beck and Ifland, two excellent performers the latter of whom has also written a confiderable number of good plays, amounting to 25 at least, with various of

men are well acquainted.

SCHILLER'S next performances were "Cabal and Love," (tranflated into Englifh by Mr. Lewis, under the title of "The Minifter;") "The Confpiracy of Fiefco," and "Don Carlos." Each of thefe plays, particularly the latter, met with a favourable reception on the German stage. It is, however, worthy of remark, that, though all SCHILLER'S Compofitions bear the ftamp of great genius, fupported by a brilliant and fertile imagination, yet they are neither calculated to become completely popular, nor to withstand the attacks of the most lenient critics. In fact, they are meteors on the German horizon; they are not only deficient in the defign, or arrangement of parts, but are likewife written in fo extravagant, or rather infuriated a dialogue, as to excite the idea, that they must be acted by beings inhabiting a very different world from that we live in. Befides, the style and phrafeology of SCHILLER cannot be held out as a pattern of German writing, to thofe who apply to the study of that copious and energetic language. The natives of Germany, who have studied their language grammatically, and critically, are annoyed in every page of his earlier compofitions, with Swabian and Bavarian provincialisms.

Soon after the four dramatic pieces above mentioned had made their appearance, SCHILLER prefented the public with a volume of poems, which greatly increafed his reputation, already eftablished among a certain clafs of readers, who delight in the marvellous, and which, not undefervingly, were the means of introducing him into the higher circles of life. The reigning Duke of Saxe-Weimar, a true Mæceñas in German literature, is faid to have been so much pleased

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