Whether this rule holds good or not, I fhall leave to the determination of those who are better judges than myfelf; if it does, I am fure it tends very much to the honour of those gentlemen who have established it; few of their pieces having been difgraced by a run of three days, and moft of them being fo exquifitely written, that the town would never give them more than one night's hearing. I have a great efteem for a true critic, fuch as Ariftotle and Longinus among the Greeks, Horace and Quintilian among the Romans, Boileau and Dacier among the French. But it is our misfortune, that fome who set up for profeffed critics among us are fo ftupid, that they do not know how to put ten words together with elegance or common propriety, and withal fo illiterate, that they have no taste of the learned languages, and therefore criticife upon old authors only at fecond hand. They judge of them by what others have written, and not by any notions they have of the authors themselves. The words unity, action, fentiment, and diction, pronounced with an air of authority, give them a figure among unlearned readers, who are apt to believe they are very deep because they are unintelligible. The ancient critics are full of the praises of their contemporaries; they difcover beauties which escaped the obfervation of the vulgar, and very often find out reafons for palliating and excufing fuch little flips and overfights as were committed in the writings of eminent authors. On the contrary, most of the fmatterers in criticism who appear among us, make it their business to vilify and depreciate every new production that gains applaufe, to defcry imaginary blemifhes, and to prove by far-fetched arguments, that what pafs for beauties in any celebrated piece are faults and errors. In short, the writings of these eritics compared with those of the ancients, are like the works of the fophifts compared with those of the old philofophers. VOL. VIII. Envy Envy and cavil are the natural fruits of laziness and ignorance; which was probably the reason, that, in the heathen mythology, Momus is faid to be the fon of Nox and Sominus, of darkness and fleep. Idle men, who have not been at the pains to accomplish or diftinguish themselves, are very apt to detract from others; as ignorant men are very fubject to decry thofe beauties in a celebrated work which they have not eyes to discover. Many of our fons of Momus, who dignify themselves by the name of critics, are the genuine defcendants of thofe two illuftrious ancestors. They are often led into those numerous absurdities, in which they daily inftruct the people, by not confidering that, Firft, There is fometimes a greater judgment fhewn, in deviating from the rules of art, than in adhering to them; and, 2dly, That there is more beauty in the works of a great genius, who is ignorant of all the rules of art, than in the works of a little genius, who not only knows, but fcrupulously obferves them. First, We may often take notice of men who are perfectly acquainted with all the rules of good writing, and notwithstanding chufe to depart from them on extraordinary occafions. I could give inftances out of all the tragic writers of antiquity who have fhewn their judgment in this particular; and purpofely receded from an established rule of the drama, when it has made way for a much higher beauty than the obfervation of fuch a rule would have been. Those who have furveyed the nobleft pieces of architecture and ftatuary, both ancient and modern, know very well that there are frequent deviations from art in the works of the greatest masters, which have produced a much nobler effect than a more accurate and exact way of proceeding could have done. This often arifes from what the Italians called the Gufto grande in thefe arts, which is what we call the SubTime in writing. In the next place, our critics do not feem fenfible that that there is more beauty in the works of a great genius who is ignorant of the rules of art; than in thofe of a little genius who knows and obferves them. It is of thefe men of genius that Terence (peaks, in op pofition to the little artificial cavillers of his time: Quorum amulari exoptat negligentiam A critic may have the fame confolation in the illfuccefs of his play, as Dr. South tells us a phyfician has at the death of a patient, that he was killed secundum artem. Our inimitable Shakespear is a ftum. bling block to the whole tribe of thefe rigid critics. Who would not rather read one of his plays, where there is not a fingle rule of the ftage obferved, than any production of a modern critic, where there is not any one of them violated? Shakespear was indeed born with all the feeds of poetry, and may be compared to the ftone in Pyrrhus's ring, which, as Pliny tells us, had the figure of Apollo and the nine mufes in the veins of it, produced by the fpontane ous hand of nature, without any help from art. No. 593. MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 13. Quale per incertam lunam fub luce maligna Eft iter in fylvis. VIRG. Æn. vi. ver. 270 Thus wander travellers in woods by night, MY DRYDEN. Y dreaming correfpondent, Mr. Shadow, has fent me a fecond letter, with feveral curious obfervations on dreams in general, and the method to render fleep improving an extract of his letter will not, I prefume, be difagreeable to my readers. Since we have fo little time to fpare, that none of it may be loft, I fee no reafon why we fhould neglect to examine thofe imaginary fcenes we are prefented with in fleep, only because they have a lefs reality in them than our waking meditations. A traveller would bring his judgment in queftion, who fhould defpife the directions of his map for want of real roads in it, because here ftands a dot instead of a town, or a cipher instead of a city; and it must be a long day's journey to travel through two or three inches. Fancy in dreams gives us • much fuch another landscape of life as that does of countries, and though its appearances may seem ftrangely jumbled together, we may often obferve fuch traces and footsteps of noble thoughts, as, if ⚫ carefully pursued, might lead us into a proper path of action. There is fo much rapture and ecflafy in our fancied blifs, and fomething fo difmal and fhocking in our fancied mifery, that though the inS activity of the body has given occafion for calling • fleep fleep the image of Death, the brifknefs of the fancy affords us a ftrong intimation of fomething within us that can never die. I have wondered that Alexander the Great, who came into the world fufficiently dreamed of by his " parents, and had himself a tolerable knack at dreaming, fhould often say, that fleep was one thing which made him fenfible he was mortal. I, who have not fuch fields of action in the day-time to divert my attention from this matter, plainly perceive, that in thofe operations of the mind, while the body is at reft, there is a certain vastness of conception very fuitable to the capacity, and demonftrative of the force of that divine part in our compofition which will laft for ever. Neither do I much doubt, but had we a true account of the • wonders the hero laft-mentioned performed in his fleep, his conquering this little globe would hardly be worth mentioning. I may affirm, without va⚫nity, that when I compare feveral actions in Quintus Curtius with fome others in my own noctuary, I appear the greater hero of the two." I shall close this subject with obferving, that while we are awake we are at liberty to fix our thoughts on what we please, but in fleep we have not the command of them. The ideas which frike the fancy arife in us without our choice, either from the occurrences of the day paft, the temper we lie down in, or it may be the direction of fome fuperior Being. It is certain the imagination may be fo differently affected in fleep, that our actions of the day might be either rewarded or punished with a little age of happiness or mifery. St. Auftin was of opinion, that if in Paradife there was the fame viciflitude of fleeping and waking as in the present world, the dreams of its inhabitants would be very happy. And so far at present our dreams are in our power, that they are generally conformable to our waking thoughts, O 3 |