A LETTER TO Mr. DAVID HUME, ON THE TRAGEDY OF DOUGLAS; Its ANALYSIS: AND THE CHARGE against Mr. GARRICK▪ By an ENGLISH CRITIC.
— —
Sic ais, ast ego contra.
So thou fayest; but I am of a contrary Opinion.
LONDON, Printed for J. SCOTT, in Pater-noster-Row. MDCCLVII.
A LETTER TO Mr. DAVID HUME.
SIR,
H AVING for a long time conceived the highest esteem for the variety of your literary merit, a recommendation from you was almost a sanction to pre-engage my implicit approbation. How high were my expectations raised by your dedicatory commendation of
the tragedy of Douglas
; but, alas! how fallen, from seeing its representation: nor has a perusal since won me over as an admirer of it.
Had the tragedy of
Douglas
been ushered into the world as the promise of a dramatic genius, as such it ought to have been received with applause; but its having been forced upon us authoritatively, in competition with all antiquity and the moderns, two obvious effects were produced in the minds of men; to wit, curiosity was excited in some, jealousy provoked in others. I am sorry to inform you, Sir, that in consequence, your
national
judgment has been greatly run upon here, and your critical stocks reduced almost to bankruptcy.
For my part, when I first read your panegyrical paragraph, I for some time hesitated as to the sincerity of it, and could not help reflecting on the passage in
The Art of Sinking in Poetry,
written by your truly ingenious countryman Dr.
Arbuthnot.
Take all the best qualities you can find in the most celebrated heroes; if they will not be reduced to a consistency, lay them
all in a heap
upon him. But be sure they are qualities which your
patron
would be
thought to have
; and to prevent any mistake which the world may be subject to, select from the alphabet those capital letters that compose his name, and set them at the head of a dedication.
But, on a second reading of it, I changed opinion, and have moreover been assured, that what is written you meant, to which, in amaze, I used the famous reply of "
Est il possible,
" is it possible?
The four great and revered names,
Maffei, Voltaire, Olway, Shakespear,
which you have employed as supporters of
Douglas,
put me in mind of the statue of
Lewis
XIV. in
Paris,
where the four nations,
Germany, Spain, Holland,
and
England,
are chained round him as vanquished, and lavishly accompanied with all the tokens of subjection. However this may please the national vanity of the
French,
all foreigners with reason laugh at the folly of the design, and unpardonable foppery of the execution.
I respect you too much, Sir, to make any unmannered or indelicate application: such as "All fools admire, but men of sense approve;" and shall impeach you by an evidence whom I dare say will not be objected to, yourself—and from the standard of taste.
Strong sense united to delicate sentiment, improved by practice, perfected by comparison, and cleared of all prejudice, can alone entitle critics to this valuable character; and the joint verdict of such, whenever they are to be found, is
the true standard of taste and beauty.
Just expressions of passion and nature are sure, after a little time, to gain public vogue, which they maintain for ever.
According to this just and admirable doctrine, what is likely to be the fate of
the tragedy of Douglas?
Neglect and oblivion: however illumined for the present by the flambeau, you (forgive the expression,) too partially, or in the mildest terms, too sanguinely, hold before it.
Not satisfied to have preluded to the assured triumph of this tragedy in your dedication, an unprovoked and congenial enforcer of the extravagance of its merit, has been artfully diffused thro' the public under the title of
The Tragedy of Douglas analysed,
a seeming attack, which the disappointed reader finds to be the second part of the same tune you had begun in your dedication, and which is there quoted, in order to be illustrated true in every article; therefore, to join issue the sooner, we shall follow the method therein observed.
From page seventh to twelfth is a tedious historical account of the fable, quite too long for the proposed limits of this letter, to be quoted, and therefore I refer to it.
The next heads proceeded to, are the characters, manners, and diction. Having nothing to object against what the analyser says relative to the two former, the following citations will sufficiently shew that our disapprobation arises not from caprice, but very justifiable motives.
For in your shades I deem some spirit dwells,
Who from the
chiding
stream, or
groaning
oak,
Still
hears,
and
answers
to MATILDA's moan.
Wherefore
chiding, groaning, hears, answers?
This may be founded on some tradition, or popular error of
Scotland
; but to
English
understandings, if not altogether nonsensical, is at least chimerical.
Thou do'st not think so:
woeful
as I am.—
Woeful indeed!
But whether goest thou now?
Is a question in the low familiar.
The misplaced and
Hors d'Oeuvre
compliment to the union—
A river here, there an ideal line, &c.
is tedious and insipid; the line it closes with flat.
The youthful warriour, is a
clod
of
clay.
Clod
and
clay
are not only mean words, but also cacophonous to the ear.
To dry
These piteous tears, I'd
throw
my life
away.
For but a confident, there is a quality-ease in this offer to oblige a friend. But she soon relapses into a diction more apposite to her condition;
I-will-speak-so-no-more,
and presents us at the same time with a nasty image.
But silent mix
My tears with hers.
Can thy feeble pity
Roll
back the
flood
of never
ebbing
time?
Is this strictly correct,
ebb
and
flood
being opposites?
Roll
is inadequate here.
And with him,
In spite of all my tears did MALCOLM go.
That tears should have been shed rather to detain her but three weeks married husband
Douglas,
than an unsubstitutive brother, will be assented to by all young married ladies who are so unfashionable as to love their husbands.
Fault'ring I took
An oath equivocal, that I ne'er would
Wed one of
Douglas
' name.
This is a pretty jesuitical device, she having been married to one already.
Never did I hear
A tale so sad as this.
Nor any body else.
The good priest
Who join'd our hands, my brother's antient tutor,
With his lov'd
Malcolm
in the battle fell,
They
two, alone,
were privy to the marriage.
The poet is hard run here, in order to distress his
heroine.
Why kill the priest in battle? Perhaps this action happened in the days of the
Church militant!
Across the
Carron
lay
The
destin'd
road.
This name of a river in
Scotland,
from its likeness in sound to our
English
word
carrion,
is grating to the ears of a
London
audience. Why
destin'd
road?
The hand that spins th' uneven thread of life.
May smooth the length that's yet to come of yours.
This may appear a pretty figure to those acquainted with the art of spinning, tho' it does not to me. The last line is monosyllabically harsh, a fault our author is often guilty of.— To
Anna
replies
Not in this world.
I should be glad to know in what other.
Never were vice and virtue pois'd so ill
As in GLENALVON'S unrelenting mind.
On the contrary, I think never better, if he played his varied parts with that subtlety and
Protean
art she ascribes to him.
Blush not,
flower
of
modesty,
Is an odd expression from one man to another, and would be better addressed to one of the gentle sex.
I will be sworn thou wilt not.
This is inelegant, and not suited to the rank of the speaker.
Go with me, NORVAL, and thine eyes shall see
The chosen warriours of thy native land,
Who languish for the fight, and beat the air
With brandish'd swords.
I dislike this picture of
Scotch
warriours
beating the air
; the renowned Don
Quixote
indeed encountered wind-mills.
And
waves
the
flag
of her displeasure o'er me.
This would not be improper from a sea-officer.
Persistive
wisdom is the
fate
of man.
I do not understand this line; and confess my ignorance of what
persistive
means.
We found him lurking in the hollow
glynn.
Glynn
is a word used in
Scotland
and
Ireland,
but not in the meridional parts of
England.
Red
came the river down, and loud and oft
The angry spirit of the water shriek'd.
The meaning of
red
here, and the
angry spirit of the water shrieking,
are unknown to us
South Britons.
By the moon's light I saw, whirl'd round and round,
A basket: soon I drew it to the bank,
And nestled curious there an infant lay.
Quite the contrary, and all drenched in water, is most likely, unless the basket had been purposely caulked, from a fore-knowledge of the event.
Sir MALCOLM of our barons was the
flower.
Our author seems fond of the word
flower,
to mark male eminence; wherefore, pursuant to the baptismal vows you have made for him as his sponsor, (not at all alluding to the song) let him be called the
flower
of
Edinburgh
's tragic writers; for, on this side of the
Tweed,
nothing more will, or ought to be allowed him.
The panegyrical analyser
place="foot" n="*" A pamphlet in favours of this play, entituled,
Douglas Analysed,
was lately published at London, where a great number of passages are quoted, as the most exalted sentiment, as well as poetical fancy, that has appeared in our day
, who has quoted many indifferent, has, in my sense, omitted several of the most beautiful passages, which, as they occur, I shall insert in this letter; for instance.
What does my ANNA think
Of the young eaglet of a valiant nest?
How soon he gaz'd on bright and burning arms,
Spurn'd the low dunghill where his fate had thrown him
And tower'd up to the region of his fire!
Mysterious nature, with the unseen cord
Of powerful instinct, drew you to your own.
A
cord
is a visible substance; besides, this is too gross and material an image of the power of instinct.
The field
Must man to man, and foot to foot, be
ought.
This rather excites an idea of two armies wrestling, than fighting with offensive weapons.
Here follow other unpardonable omissions by the analyser.
An army knit like ours would pierce it thro':
Brothers, that shrink not from each other's side,
And fond companions, fill our warlike files:
For his dear offspring, and the wife he loves,
The husband, and the fearless father arm.
In vulgar breasts heroic ardour burns,
And the poor peasant mates his darling lord.
The cross of Christ.
Christian cross
would sound less harsh to the ear; what follows is a fine picture of decayed beauty, and some judicious sentiments.
Arise, my son! in me thou dost behold
The poor remains of beauty once admir'd:
The autumn of my days is come already;
For sorrow made my summer haste away.
Yet in my prime I equall'd not thy father;
His eyes were like the eagle's, yet sometimes
Liker the dove's; and, as he pleas'd, he won
All hearts with softness, or with spirit aw'd.
Thou dost not know what perils and injustice
Await the poor man's valour. O! my son!
The noblest blood in all the land's abash'd,
Having no lacquey but pale poverty.
There burst the smother'd flame!
How do bad women find
Unchanging aspects to conceal their guilt?
When I by reason, and by instinct urg'd,
Full hardly can dissemble with these men
In nature's pious cause.
The following remark deserves the attention of all men ambitious of the matrimonial state:
Let no man, after me, a woman wed,
Whose heart he knows he has not; tho' she brings
A mine of gold, a kingdom for her dowry.
She too that seem'd
Pure
as the
winter stream
when
ice emboss'd
Whitens
its course.
This is strained, quaint, and affected; and what follows sheer bombast.
He's in a proper mood
To chide the thunder if
it at him roar'd.
Glenalvon
is answered with a sensible, and manly ingenuity by
Douglas.
Sir, I have been accustomed all my days
To hear and speak the plain and simple truth:
And tho' I have been told that there are men
Who borrow friendship's tongue to speak their scorn,
Yet, in such language I am little skill'd.
Therefore I thank
Glenalvon
for his counsel,
Tho' it sounded harshly.
What will become of you?
is an unheroic interrogation.
Thy truth! thou'rt all a lye.
This brutality does not meet with an instantaneous and proper retort from one of young
Douglas
's supposed feeling, which, by the following sentiments, is farther manifested.
To the liege lord of my dear native land
I owe a subject's homage: but, ev'n him,
And his high arbitration I'd reject.
Within my bosom reigns another lord;
Honour, sole judge and umpire of itself.
If my free speech offend you, noble
Randolph,
Revoke your favour, and let
Norval
go
Hence as he came, alone, but not dishonour'd.
Imposes silence with a
stilly
sound.
What means
stilly
here? is it tantamount to
stilling?
I know the word is in
Shakespear,
but do not understand it, in the place he uses it.
And
ever
and
anon
they vow'd revenge.
Ever
and
anon,
are no doubt, supposed defensible, because in a shepherd's mouth, and in imitation of
Homer
's practice, are in p. 60, faithfully repeated by
Douglas
to his mother.
May heav'n inspire some fierce gigantic
Dane
To give a bold defiance to our host!
Before he speaks it out, I will accept!
How accept it before he speaks it out? Does not this at least border on a blunder?
Sad
fear
and
melancholy
still divide
The empire of my breast with
hope
and
joy.
This, Sir, is an abridgment of your Dissertation on the Passions.
Too well I see
Which way the current of thy temper
sets
;
Drives
would perhaps be more explicit.
The sentiments of dying
Douglas
are not amiss; nor is the mother's affliction ill drawn; nay, somewhat affecting. But why she should plunge from a precipice head-foremost into the sea, I cannot see any reason, nor for her, or her son's deaths. He might have killed
Glenalvon,
tho' previously wounded by him in the back, but, not mortally; and lord
Randolph,
in expiation of his groundless jealousy and rash attempt resign to victorious
Douglas
his rightful inheritance.
The prologue, a learned allusion to the old song of
Chevy-Chase,
is of the true
poetical profound.
In
ancient times
when
Britain's trade
was arms,
Why not
pride
instead of
trade
; but the
Scotch
have always sneered at the
English
as a trading nation.
And the lov'd music of her youth alarms.
The sense of this line, not intelligible to us, alludes rather to the musical alarms of
Highlan
bagpipes.
It would be too much to take in the whole
prologue
here; to read it is enough; where it emerges from confusion and obscurity, it gently subsides in kindred lines to this,
They knock'd alternate at each other's gate!
It concludes with an humble petition in behalf of
Scotland.
The
epilogue
is a priggish affectation; and I hope will never be relished by a genuine
British
audience. The far-fetched comparison of the
Nile
is stolen. I object to the epithet of
celestial
joined to
melancholy
in the last line. Heaven, by all information I have ever had of it, is the kingdom of joy, it is therefore a
dissenting
opinion to make it the abode of
melancholy.
Why has the panegyrist taken notice but of three performers, and natives of
Ireland?
shameful partiality! This appears a flagrant combination of the
Scotch
and
Irish
against the true sons of old
English
roast-beef, as if, forsooth, the former are only qualified to write tragedy, and the latter to perform. But, to thy teeth, partial Analyst, I will do my country-folks the justice they deserve.
He who figured in the character of
Glenalvon
manifested a projectile spiritedness of person, and strictly adherent to
Horace
's rule,
Semper sibi constans,
without any variation throughout: now, this is what may be called, supporting a character.
The actor of lord
Randolph
was self-collected, having the curb of his passions in hand. He exhibited a commanding calmness of deportment, and a level, stomach-fetched, dignity of voice.
The liquid toned actress of
Anna
irradiated sorrow with her smiles; how sweetly did she speak?
Thy vassal's grief great nature's order break,
And change the noon-tide to the midnight hour.
I should not have been surprised if the superior beings descended from heaven to her pretty manner of uttering this invitation.
Ye ministers
Of gracious heav'n who love the human race,
Angels and seraphs who delight in goodness!
Forsake your skies, and to her couch descend!
There from her fancy chase those dismal forms
That haunt her waking; her sad spirit charm
With images celestial, such as please
The bless'd above upon their
golden beds.
I owed this to my country; so now my mind is at ease.
Golden beds
savours of
Epicurism.
The ground-work of the play is an absolute absurdity, for either the lady
Randolph
must have been very artful, who had a chopping boy 18 years before, to pass on her husband for a maid; or he, lord
Randolph,
must have been very unacquainted with the affairs of women. I fear the latter case; and from ineffectual nights sprung the daily cause of her tears; and certainly a very material one.
Penelope,
it is true, mourned twenty years for
Ulysses
; but then she did not admit an
apathic
lover to tantalize her in bed.
The shepherd, the jewels, and recognition of this doleful piece, are worn-out devices of the stage, and expletive pegs of the human invention.
The protracted monotony of lady
Randolph
's grief is irksome. One character often exhibited in the same piece, must be agitated by variety of passions, otherwise we grow tired of the sameness.
After the discovery of
Douglas,
he is not thrown into any interesting situation, nor is there any dramatic anxiety throughout, arising from the intricacy of the plot; for from the beginning to the end, it is an uninterrupted downhill greensword course, entirely against the revolutionary spirit of the scenic laws, which perhaps, (nay by your miscalled dissertation, or rather dissertatiuncle on tragedy, it appears) you are no
acquainted with. We had, however, a righ
to expect at least, unexceptionable correctness of stile, in a work by you so immoderately praised, not to say, profanely.
I now take leave of
Douglas,
this
aurora borealis
of tragedy, that had so long corruscated ove
us from the North, to execute the last part o
my task, to wit, to defend Mr.
Garrick,
by disculpating him from a heavy charge, disseminated every where from the drawing-room in
St. James!
to the night-cellars; which is, that he had th
impudence to refuse
The Tragedy of Douglas,
th
best play ever acted, not only on the
English
stage, but on any other, ancient or modern.
The author not only absolves, but apologis
for Mr.
Garrick
by his motto.
Non ego sum vates, sed prisci conscius avi.
"I am not a poet; but well read in old ballads."
Mr.
Garrick
acquiesced to the former part o
his confession; and told him that but poor mat
rials for the stage could be derived from the la
ter. This is the upshot of his crime. Has h
then deserved all the foul-mouthed abuse that has been lavished on him? I think not, who am not partial to him.
The pulpit and clergy of
Scotland
are irreverently treated in the
analysis,
which ends with a bullying line, that might waggishly be retorted, to wit,
The blood of
Douglas
will
defend
itself,
That is, people will keep aloof from it; because,
Nemo impune lacessit.
No body rubs to it with impunity.
The drift of the whole being now seen thro'; with a dislike to your partiality, but esteem and veneration for your
genius
and erudition.
I am, Sir, Your, &c.
FINIS.