Sweeter it is to see the sheet With paradox scribbled fair, Willison preferreth long draughts to long words, Jeremy bringeth up his nine pounders, and declareth that he is a Berkeleian phi losopher. Willison comparethJeremy's Panopticon to a porter pot in a pretty simile. Jeremy calleth on cis Jeffrey. Where jawbreaking words every line you meet, and Master Fran To make poor people stare. And Sir Richard of Bridge-street my books shall puff, And Ensor will swear them fine, And Jeffrey will say, though my style is tough, 9. Jeremy, trust me, the puff of the three, Is not worth the puff you'd get from me, And beneath its fume, while we gaily quaff The beer or the ruin blue, * Theorie de Legislation. Willison disparaging the three; recommendeth to blow a cloud. 10. Jeremy proposeth The world may lay what it likes to my charge, pleasant reading Glass, who thereupon May laugh, or may say I'm crack'd. If it do, I shall swear that the world at large Such a jury as those on which I penn'd * A Treatise genteel and clear; 11. Jeremy, not for a gallon of ale Would I stay that book to hear; parteth to the sign Why, even at its sight my cheek turns pale, of the Jolly Вас- Charlie, and other And my heart leaps up like a deer. I'll toast you, my lad, for an ass. EDITOR. 1 Well, but say candidly, what have you been doing for us? Your active mind must have been after something. I heard lately, (perhaps it was said in allusion to your late detention in London,) that you were engaged with a novel, to be entitled " Fleeting Impressions. ODOHERTY. You are quite mistaken. I have not patience for a novel. I must go off like a cracker, or an ode of Horace. EDITOR. Then why don't you give us an essay for our periodical ? ODOHERTY. To prove what? or nothing. When I last saw Coleridge, he said he considered an essay, in a periodical publication, as merely "a say" for the timean ingenious string of sentences, driving, apparently, with great vehemence, towards some object, but never meant to lead to any thing, or to arrive at any conclusion, (for in what conclusion are the public interested but the abuse of individuals). Fortunately, there is one subject for a critical disquisition, which can never be exhausted. EDITOR. What is this treasure? ODOHERTY. The question, whether is Pope a poet? EDITOR. True! But confess, Odoherty, what have you been after? ODOHERTY. The truth is, I have some thoughts of finishing my tragedy of the Black Revenge. Ye gods! what a scheme! EDITOR. ODOHERTY. The truth is, I must either do this, or go on with my great quarto disquısı tion, on "The Decline and Fall of Genius." EDITOR. I would advise to let alone the drama. I do not think it is at present a good field for the exertion of genius. ODOHERTY. For what reason, Honey? * Elements of Packing. EDITOR. I think the good novels, which are published, come in place of new dramas. Besides, they are better fitted for the present state of public taste. The public are merely capable of strong sensations, but of nothing which requires knowledge, taste, or judgment. A certain ideal dignity of style, and regularity of arrangement, must be required for a drama, before it can deserve the name of a composition. But what sense have the common herd of barbarians of composition, or order, or any thing else of that kind? ODOHERTY. But there is also the more loose and popular drama, which is only a novel without the narrative parts. EDITOR. Yes, the acting is the chief difference. But I think the novel has the advantage in being without the acting, for its power over the feelings is more undisturbed and entire, and the imagination of the reader blends the whole into a harmony which is not found on the stage. I think those who read novels need not go to the theatre, for they are in general beforehand with the whole progress of the story. ODOHERTY. This is true to a certain extent. But novels can never carry away from the theatre those things which are peculiarly its own; that is to say, the powers of expression in the acting, the eloquence of declamation, music, buffoonery, the splendour of painted decorations, &c. EDITOR. You are perfectly right. Novels may carry away sympathy, plot, invention, distress, catastrophe, and every thing-(Vide Blair.) ODOHERTY. Do you mean Dr Blair, or Adam Blair? EDITOR. The latter. I say the novels may carry away all these things, but the theatre must still be strong in its power of affecting the senses. This is its peculiar dominion. Yet our populace do not much seek after what strikes and pleases the senses; for the elegances of sight and hearing require a sort of abstract taste which they do not seem to have. Any thing which is not an appeal through sympathy to some of their vulgar personal feelings, appears to them uninteresting and unmeaning. ODOHERTY. They think it has no reference to meum and tuum. EDITOR. It probably would not be easy to find a people more lamentably deficient in all those liberal and general feelings which partake of the quality of taste. ODOHERTY. You sink me into despair. I think I must betake myself to my old and favourite study of theological controversy, and furnish a reply to Coplestone. I perceive that Lord Byron, in his Mystery of Cain, tends very much to go off into the same disputes. EDITOR. A sceptically disputatious turn of mind, appears a good deal here and there in his poetry. ODOHERTY. I suppose you think Sardanapalus the best Tragedy he has written. EDITOR. Yes. The Foscari is interesting to read, but rather painful and disagreeable in the subject. Besides, the dialogue is too much in the short and pointed manner of Alfieri. When a play is not meant to be acted, there is no necessity for its having that hurry in the action and speeches, which excludes wandering strains of poetical beauty, or reflexion and thought, nor should it want the advantages of rhyme. The Faustus of Goethe seems to be the best specimen of the kind of plan fit for a poem of this kind not meant to be acted. Pindarum quisquis. ODOHERTY. 13 EDITOR. Byron's Manfred is certainly but an Icarian flutter in comparison; his Sar danapalus is better composed, and more original. ODOHERTY. How do you like Nimrod and Semiramis ? EDITOR. That dream is a very frightful one, and I admire the conception of Nimrod. ODOHERTY. You know that I am not subject to nocturnal terrors, even after the heaviest supper; but I acknowledge that the ancestors of Sardanapalus almost made my hair stand on end; and I have some intention of introducing the ghost of Fingal in my "Black Revenge." The superstitious vein has not lately been waked with much success. I slight the conception of Norna in relation tofear. The scorpion lash, which Mr David Lindsay applied to the tyrant Firaoun, is not at all formidable to the reader; but there is solemnity and sentiment in the conception of the people being called away one by one from the festival, till he is left alone. That same piece of the Deluge would be very good, if it were not sometimes like music, which aims rather at loudness than harmony or expression. The most elegant and well composed piece in Lindsay's book is the Destiny of Cain. ODOHERTY. How do you like the Nereid's love? EDITOR. It is vastly pretty, but too profuse in images drawn from mythology. However, there are many fables of the ancients on which poems might be successfully made even in modern times, and according to modern feeling, if the meaning of the fables were deeply enough studied It does not necessarily follow that all mythological poems should be written in imitation of the manner of the ancients, much less in the pretty style of Ovid, and those moderns who have adopted the same taste. ODOHERTY, You do not think Mr Lindsay's Nereid French? EDITOR. : By no means. It is free from any fault of that kind. In some of Wordsworth's later poems, there appears something like a reviving imagination for those fine old conceptions, which have been, and always will be. An age hath been when earth was proud Of lustre too intense To be sustain'd; and mortals bow'd ODOHERTY. Beautifully recited, and now touch the bell again, for we're getting prosy. Having now relinquished the army, I rise by sitting still, and applying either to study, or Will you ring? VOL. XI. *3A EDITOR. 'Tis time to be going, I believe. I see the day-light peeping down the chimney. But sing one good song more, Odoherty, and so wind up the evening. ARIA. With boisterous expression. ODOHERTY. (Sings). THERE was a la- dy lived at Leith, a la-dy ve-ry stylish, man, And yet, in spite of all her teeth, she fell in love with an I-rish-man, A CHORUS-CHRISTOPHER! nas-ty ugly I-rish-man, a wild tremendous I-rish-man, A A tearing, swearing, thumping, bumping, ramping, roaring I-rishman 2. His face was no ways beautiful, For with small-pox 'twas scarr'd across ; And the shoulders of the ugly dog Were almost double a yard across. O, the lump of an Irishman, The whisky-devouring Irishman The great he-rogue, with his wonderful brogue, the fighting, rioting, Irishman. 3. One of his eyes was bottle-green, And the other eye was out, my dear; And the calves of his wicked-looking legs Were more than two feet about, my dear. O, the great big Irishman, The rattling, battling Irishman The stamping, ramping, swaggering, staggering, leathering swash of an Irishman. 4. He took so much of Lundy-Foot, That he used to snort and snuffle-0; And in shape and size, the fellow's neck, Was as bad as the neck of a buffalo. O, the horrible Irishman, The thundering, blundering Irishman The slashing, dashing, smashing, lashing, thrashing, hashing, Irishman. |