But though prefcription's force we difallow,
Nor to antiquity fubmiftive bow;
Though we deny imaginary grace,
Founded on accidents of time and place;
Yet real worth of ev'ry growth fhall bear
Due praife, nor muft we, Q-n, forget thee there.
His words bore fterling weight, nervous and firong;
In manly tides of fenfe they roll'd along.
Happy in art, he chiefly had pretence
To keep up numbers, yet not forfeit fenfe.
No actor ever greater heights could reach
In all the labour'd artifice of fpeech.
Speech! Is that all! And fhall an actor found
An univerfal fame on partial ground?
Parrots themselves fpeak properly by rote,
And, in fix months, my dog fhall howl my note.
I laugh at those who, when the ftage they tread,
Neglect the heart to compliment the head;
With strict propriety their care's confin'd
To weigh outwords, while pallion halts behind,
To fyllable-diffeciors they appeal,
Allow them accent, cadence fools
But fpite of all the criticifing elves,
Thofe who would make us feel, muft feel themfelves.
His eyes, in gloomy focket taught to roll,
Proclaim'd the fullen habit of his foul.
Heavy and phlegmatic he trod the ftage,
Too proud for tenderness, too duli for rage.
When Hector's lovely widow (hines in tears,
Or Rowe's gay rake dependent virtue jeers:
With the fame caft of features he is feen
To chide the libertine and court the queen.
From the tame fccne which without paffion flows,
With juft defert his reputation rofe.
Nor lefs he pleas'd, when, on fome furly plan,
He was, at once, the actor, and the man.
In Brute he thone unequall d: all agree
Garrick's not half fo great a brute as he.
When Cato's labour d fcenes are brought to view,
With equal praise the actor labour'd too,
For ftill you'll find, trace paffions to their root,
Small diff rence 'twixt the Stoic and the Brute.
In fancied fcenes, as in life's real plan,
He could not, for a moment, fink the man.
In whate'er caft his character was laid,
Self ftill, like oil, upon the furface play'd.
Nature, in fpite of all his fkill, crept in:
Horatio, Dorax, Falstaff,-ftiil was Q-n.
Mr. Sh-r-dan, from the same.
EXT follows Sh-r-d-n.- A doubtful name,
As yet unfettled in the rank of fame.
This, fondly lavish in his praifes grown,
Gives him all merit; that allows him none.
Between them both, we'll fteer the middle course,
Nor, loving praife, rob judgment of her force.
Juft his conceptions, natural and great:
His feelings ftrong, his words enforc'd with weight,
Was fpeech-fam'd Q-n himself to hear him speak,
Envy would drive the colour from his cheek:
But ftep-dame Nature, niggard of her grace,
Deny'd the focial pow'rs of voice and face.
Fix'd in one frame of feature, glare of eye,
Paffions like chaos, in confufion lie:
In vain the wonders of his skill are try'd
To form diftinctions nature hath deny'd.
His voice no touch of harmony admits,
Irregularly deep and fhrill by fits:
The two extremes appear, like man and wife,
Coupled together for the fake of ftrife.
His action's always ftrong, but fometimes fuch
That candour muft dcclare he acts too much.
Why muft impatience fall three paces back?
three return to the attack?
Why is the right leg too forbid to stir,
Unlefs in motion femircircular?
Why muft the hero with the nailor vie,
And hurl the clofe-clench'd fift at noife or eye?
In Royal John, with Philip angry grown
I thought he would have knock'd poor D-v-s down,
Inhuman tyrant! was it not a fhame,
To fright a king fo harmless and fo tame?
But, fpite of all defect, his glories rife;
And art, by judgment form'd, with nature vies.
Behold him found the depth of Hubert's foul,
Whilft in his own contending paffion's roll.
View the whole fcene, with critic judgment fcan,
And then-deny him merit if you can.
Where he falls fhort, 'tis Nature's fault alone:
Where he fucceeds, the Merit's all his own.
Mr. Garrick, from the same.
AST Garrick came-1
e-Behind him a throng'd train
Of fnarling critics, ignorant as vain.
One finds out," He's of ftature fomewhat low,
Your hero always fhould be tall, you know.
True nat ral greatnefs all confifts in height."
Produce your voucher, critic" Serjeant Kite."
Another can't forgive the paltry arts
By which he makes his way to fhallow hearts;
Mere pieces of fineffe, traps for applaufe.-
"Avaunt unnat ral fiart, affected paufe.”
For me, by nature form'd to judge with phlegm,
I can't acquit by wholefale, nor condemn.
The best things carried to excefs are wrong:
The flart may be too frequent, pause too long.
But only usd in proper time and place,
Severeft judgment muft allow them grace.
If bunglers, form'd on imitation's plan,
Juft in the way that monkies mimic man;
Their copied fcene with mangled arts difgrace,
And paufe and ftart with the fame vacant face;
We join the critic laugh; thofe tricks we fcorn,
Which spoil the fcenes they mean them to adorn.
But when, from nature's pure and genuine fource,
Thefe ftrokes of acting flow with gen'rous force:
When in the features all the foul's pourtrayed,
And paffions, fuch as Garrick's, are difplayed;
To me they feem from quickest feelings caught:
Each start is nature; and each paufe is thought.
When reafon yields to paffion's wild alarms,
And the whole ftate of man is up in arms;
What, but a critic, could condemn the play'r
For paufing here, when cool fenfe pauses there?
Whilft, working from the heart, the fire I trace,
And mark it ftrongly aming to the face;
Whilft, in each found, I hear the very man;
I can't catch words, and pity thofe who can.
Let wits, like fpiders, from the tortur'd brain
Fine-draw the critic-web with curious pain;
The gods,- -a kindnefs I with thanks must pay,-
Have form'd me of a coarfer kind of clay;
Nor fiung with envy, nor with fpleen difeas'd,
A poor dull creature, ftill with nature pleas'd;
Hence to thy praifes, Garrick, I agree,
And, pleas'd with Nature, muft be pleas'd with thee.
Now might I tell how filence reign'd throughout,
And deep attention hufh'd the rabble rout;
How ev'ry claimant, tortur'd with defire,
Was paie as afhes, or as red as fire:
But, loose to fame, the Mufe more fimply acts,
Rejects all flourish, and relates mere facts.
The judges, as the fev'ral parties came,
With temper heard, with judgment weigh'd each claim,
And in their fentence happily agreed,
In name of both, great Shakespear thus decreed:
If manly fenfe; if nature link'd with art;
If thorough knowledge of the human heart;
If pow'rs of acting, vaft and unconfin'd;
If feweit faults with greatest beauties join'd;
If ftrong expreflion, and ftrange pow'rs, which lie
Within the magic circle of the eye:
If feelings which few hearts, like his, can know,
And which no face fo well as his can fhew;
Deferve the pref'rence;-Garrick, take the chair;
Nor quit it-till thou place an equal there.
The songs of Selma*. From the original of Ossian, the son of Fingal.
Farte along the wett thy filver ray:
AIR light! that, breaking through the clouds of day,
Whofe radiant locks around their glory fpread,
As o'er the hills thou rear ft thy glittering head:
Bright evening ftar! what fees thy fparkling eye?
What fpirits glide their mouldering bodies nigh?
The form is o'er; and now the murmuring found,
Of diftant torrents creeps along the ground;
* This poem fixes the antiquity of a cuftom, which is well known to have prevalled afterwards, in the north of Scotland, and in Ireland. The bards, at an annual feafi, provided by king or chief, repeated their poems, and fuch of them as were thought, by him, worthy of being prcferved, were carefully taught to their children, in order to have them tranfitted to pofterity.-It was one of thofe occafions that afforded the fubject of the prefent pocm to Offan.It is called in the original, the fong of Selma, which title it was thought proper to adopt in the tranflation.
The poem is entirely lyric, and has great variety of verification. The addrefs to the evening far, with which it opens, has in the original all the harmony that numbers could give it; flowing down with all that tranquillity and foftnets, which the 1.one deferibed naturally inspires.- Three of the fungs which are introduced in this piece, were publifhed among the fragments of ancient poetry, plinteu left year. Sea thein in our latt Volume.
Around the rocks the lafhing billows cling;
And drowsy beetles rife on feeble wing:
Acrofs the plain I hear their humming flight;
But what, bright beam! is feen by thine all-piercing fight?
Ha! thou doft haften fmiling to the weft;
In Oceans wat`ry bed to take thy rest.
With open arms its waves thy form embrace,
Bathe thy bright locks, and hide thy lovely face.
Farewell, thou filent harbinger of night!-
Thine aid s fupplied by Oflian's mental fight.
I fee, I feel, the light arife,
That opes the bard's all-fecing eyes.-
And now, on Lora's rifing ground;
My friends departed gather round;
As when they met in former days,
To hear and fing the fongs of praife.
Lo! Fingal like a watery cloud,
Around him fee! his warriors croud,
And bards, to whom did once belong
The ftrength and sweetness of the fong.
There Ullin's locks of filver gray,
And Ryno, comely as the day:
Alpin, with tuneful voice; and there
The fongftrefs fweet, Minona fair;
On whofe fo foftly plaintive tongue
Enraptur'd chiefs attentive hung.
friends! if thefe my friends I fee,
How chang'd your faded forms appear to me!
How chang'd indeed! fince when, at Fingal's call,
Our fongs were heard in Selma's echoing hall;
When o'er the feftive board and jovial fhell,
Our harps were ftrung of mighty deeds to tell,
Of heroes flain, and tales of inaiden's wrongs;
Our friendly conteft whofe the nobleft fongs.
'Twas there Minona †, then a beauteous maid.
Whofe blufhing cheeks her modeft fears Letray'd.
Alpin is from the fame root with Albion, or rather Albin, the ancient name of Britain; Alp, high inland, or country. The prefent name of our ifiand has its original in the Celt c tongue; fo that those who derived it from any other, betrayed their ignorance of the ancient language of our country.Breact in variegated island, fo called from the face of the country, from the natives painting tamfelves, or from their party coloured cloaths.
Offian introduces Minona, not in the ideal fcene of his own mind, which he had defcribed; but at the annual feaft of Selma, where the bards repeated their works before Fingal.
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