Lives Of The Poets, Vol. 1 (fiscle part-III), Samuel Johnson [good summer reads .TXT] 📗
- Author: Samuel Johnson
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Many Faults: He Showed them, Indeed, With Anger, But He Found Them With
Acuteness, Such As Ought To Rescue His Criticism From Oblivion; Though,
At Last, It Will Have No Other Life Than It Derives From The Work Which
It Endeavours To Oppress.
Why He Pays No Regard To The Opinion Of The Audience, He Gives His
Reason, By Remarking, That,
"A Deference Is To Be Paid To A General Applause, When It Appears That
That Applause Is Natural And Spontaneous; But That Little Regard Is To
Be Had To It, When It Is Affected and Artificial. Of All The Tragedies
Which, In his Memory, Have Had Vast And Violent Runs, Not One Has Been
Excellent; Few Have Been Tolerable; Most Have Been Scandalous. When A
Poet Writes A Tragedy, Who Knows He Has Judgment, And Who Feels He Has
Genius, That Poet Presumes Upon His Own Merit, And Scorns To Make A
Cabal. That People Come Coolly To The Representation Of Such A Tragedy,
Without Any Violent Expectation, Or Delusive Imagination, Or Invincible
Prepossession; That Such An Audience Is Liable To Receive The Impressions
Which The Poem Shall Naturally Make On Them, And To Judge By Their Own
Reason, And Their Own Judgments, And That Reason And Judgment Are Calm
And Serene, Not Formed by Nature To Make Proselytes, And To Control And
Lord It Over The Imaginations Of Others. But That When An Author Writes A
Tragedy, Who Knows He Has Neither Genius Nor Judgment, He Has Recourse
To The Making a Party, And He Endeavours To Make Up In industry What
Is Wanting in talent, And To Supply By Poetical Craft The Absence Of
Poetical Art; That Such An Author Is Humbly Contented to Raise Men'S
Passions By A Plot Without Doors, Since He Despairs Of Doing it By
That Which He Brings Upon The Stage. That Party And Passion, And
Prepossession, Are Clamorous And Tumultuous Things, And So Much The
More Clamorous And Tumultuous By How Much The More Erroneous: That
They Domineer And Tyrannise Over The Imaginations Of Persons Who Want
Judgment, And Sometimes Too Of Those Who Have It; And, Like A Fierce
And Outrageous Torrent, Bear Down All Opposition Before Them." He Then
Condemns The Neglect Of Poetical Justice; Which Is Always One Of His
Favourite Principles.
"'Tis Certainly The Duty Of Every Tragick Poet, By The Exact Distribution
Of Poetical Justice, To Imitate The Divine Dispensation, And To Inculcate
A Particular Providence. 'Tis True, Indeed, Upon The Stage Of The World,
The Wicked sometimes Prosper, And The Guiltless Suffer. But That Is
Permitted by The Governor Of The World, To Show, From The Attribute Of
His Infinite Justice, That There Is A Compensation In futurity, To Prove
The Immortality Of The Human Soul, And The Certainty Of Future Rewards
And Punishments. But The Poetical Persons In tragedy Exist No Longer Than
The Reading, Or The Representation; The Whole Extent Of Their Entity
Is Circumscribed by Those; And, Therefore, During that Reading or
Representation, According to Their Merits Or Demerits, They Must Be
Punished or Rewarded. If This Is Not Done, There Is No Impartial
Distribution Of Poetical Justice, No Instructive Lecture Of A Particular
Providence, And No Imitation Of The Divine Dispensation. And Yet The
Author Of This Tragedy Does Not Only Run Counter To This, In the Fate Of
His Principal Character; But Every Where, Throughout It, Makes Virtue
Suffer, And Vice Triumph: For Not Only Cato Is Vanquished by Caesar,
But The Treachery And Perfidiousness Of Syphax Prevail Over The
Honest Simplicity And The Credulity Of Juba; And The Sly Subtlety And
Dissimulation Of Portius Over The Generous Frankness And Open-Heartedness
Of Marcus."
Whatever Pleasure There May Be In seeing crimes Punished and Virtue
Rewarded, Yet, Since Wickedness Often Prospers In real Life, The Poet Is
Certainly At Liberty To Give It Prosperity On The Stage. For If Poetry
Has An Imitation Of Reality, How Are Its Laws Broken By Exhibiting the
World In its True Form? The Stage May Sometimes Gratify Our Wishes; But,
If It Be Truly The "Mirror Of Life," It Ought To Show Us Sometimes What
We Are To Expect.
Dennis Objects To The Characters, That They Are Not Natural, Or
Reasonable; But As Heroes And Heroines Are Not Beings That Are Seen Every
Day, It Is Hard To Find Upon What Principles Their Conduct Shall Be
Tried. It Is, However, Not Useless To Consider What He Says Of The Manner
In Which Cato Receives The Account Of His Son'S Death.
"Nor Is The Grief Of Cato, In the Fourth Act, One Jot More In nature Than
That Of His Son And Lucia In the Third. Cato Receives The News Of His
Son'S Death Not Only With Dry Eyes, But With A Sort Of Satisfaction; And,
In The Same Page, Sheds Tears For The Calamity Of His Country, And Does
The Same Thing in the Next Page Upon The Bare Apprehension Of The Danger
Of His Friends. Now, Since The Love Of One'S Country Is The Love Of One'S
Countrymen, As I Have Shown Upon Another Occasion, I Desire To Ask These
Questions: Of All Our Countrymen, Which Do We Love Most, Those Whom We
Know, Or Those Whom We Know Not? And Of Those Whom We Know, Which Do We
Cherish Most, Our Friends Or Our Enemies? And Of Our Friends, Which Are
The Dearest To Us, Those Who Are Related to Us, Or Those Who Are Not? And
Of All Our Relations, For Which Have We Most Tenderness, For Those Who
Are Near To Us, Or For Those Who Are Remote? And Of Our Near Relations,
Which Are The Nearest, And, Consequently, The Dearest To Us, Our
Offspring, Or Others? Our Offspring most Certainly; As Nature, Or, In
Other Words, Providence, Has Wisely Contrived for The Preservation Of
Mankind. Now, Does It Not Follow, From What Has Been Said, That For A Man
To Receive The News Of His Son'S Death With Dry Eyes, And To Weep At The
Same Time For The Calamities Of His Country, Is A Wretched affectation,
And A Miserable Inconsistency? Is Not That, In plain English, To Receive
With Dry Eyes The News Of The Deaths Of Those For Whose Sake Our Country
Is A Name So Dear To Us, And, At The Same Time, To Shed tears For Those
For Whose Sake Our Country Is Not A Name So Dear To Us?"
But This Formidable Assailant Is Least Resistible When He Attacks The
Probability Of The Action, And The Reasonableness Of The Plan. Every
Critical Reader Must Remark, That Addison Has, With A Scrupulosity Almost
Unexampled on The English Stage, Confined himself In time To A Single
Day, And In place To Rigorous Unity. The Scene Never Changes, And The
Whole Action Of The Play Passes In the Great Hall Of Cato'S House At
Utica. Much, Therefore, Is Done In the Hall, For Which Any Other Place
Had Been More Fit; And This Impropriety Affords Dennis Many Hints Of
Merriment, And Opportunities Of Triumph. The Passage Is Long; But As Such
Disquisitions Are Not Common, And The Objections Are Skilfully Formed
And Vigorously Urged, Those Who Delight In critical Controversy Will Not
Think It Tedious.
"Upon The Departure Of Portius, Sempronius Makes But One Soliloquy, And
Immediately In comes Syphax, And Then The Two Politicians Are At It
Immediately. They Lay Their Heads Together, With Their Snuffboxes In
Their Hands, As Mr. Bayes Has It, And League It Away. But In the Midst Of
That Wise Scene, Syphax Seems To Give A Seasonable Caution To Sempronius:
'_Syph_.
But Is It True, Sempronius, That Your Senate
Is Call'D Together? Gods! Thou Must Be Cautious;
Cato Has Piercing eyes.'
"There Is A Great Deal Of Caution Shown Indeed, In meeting in a
Governor'S Own Hall To Carry On Their Plot Against Him. Whatever Opinion
They Have Of His Eyes, I Suppose They Had None Of His Ears, Or They Would
Never Have Talked at This Foolish Rate So Near:
'Gods! Thou Must Be Cautious.'
Oh! Yes, Very Cautious, For If Cato Should Overhear You, And Turn You Off
For Politicians, Caesar Would Never Take You; No, Caesar Would Never Take
You.
"When Cato, Act The Second, Turns The Senators Out Of The Hall, Upon
Pretence Of Acquainting juba With The Result Of Their Debates, He Appears
To Me To Do A Thing which Is Neither Reasonable Nor Civil. Juba Might
Certainly Have Better Been Made Acquainted with The Result Of That Debate
In Some Private Apartment Of The Palace. But The Poet Was Driven Upon
This Absurdity To Make Way For Another; And That Is, To Give Juba An
Opportunity To Demand Marcia Of Her Father. But The Quarrel And Rage Of
Juba And Syphax, In the Same Act; The Invectives Of Syphax Against The
Romans And Cato; The Advice That He Gives Juba, In her Father'S Hall, To
Bear Away Marcia By Force; And His Brutal And Clamorous Rage Upon His
Refusal, And At A Time When Cato Was Scarcely Out Of Sight, And, Perhaps,
Not Out Of Hearing, At Least Some Of His Guards Or Domesticks Must
Necessarily Be Supposed to Be Within Hearing; Is A Thing that Is So Far
From Being probable, That It Is Hardly Possible.
"Sempronius, In the Second Act, Comes Back Once More In the Same Morning
To The Governor'S Hall, To Carry On The Conspiracy With Syphax Against
The Governor, His Country, And His Family; Which Is So Stupid, That It Is
Below The Wisdom Of The O--'S, The Mac'S, And The Teague'S; Even Eustace
Cummins Himself Would Never Have Gone To Justice-Hall To Have Conspired
Against The Government. If Officers At Portsmouth Should Lay Their Heads
Together, In order To The Carrying off[201] J---- G----'S Niece Or
Daughter, Would They Meet In j--- G---'S Hall, To Carry On That
Conspiracy? There Would Be No Necessity For Their Meeting there, At Least
Till They Came To The Execution Of Their Plot, Because There Would Be
Other Places To Meet In. There Would Be No Probability That They
Should Meet There, Because There Would Be Places More Private And More
Commodious. Now There Ought To Be Nothing in a Tragical Action But What
Is Necessary Or Probable.
"But Treason Is Not The Only Thing that Is Carried on In this Hall; That,
And Love, And Philosophy, Take Their Turns In it, Without Any Manner
Of Necessity Or Probability Occasioned by The Action, As Duly And As
Regularly, Without Interrupting one Another, As If There Were A Triple
League Between Them, And A Mutual Agreement That Each Should Give Place
To, And Make Way For The Other, In a Due And Orderly Succession.
"We Now Come To The Third Act. Sempronius, In this Act, Comes Into The
Governor'S Hall, With The Leaders Of The Mutiny; But, As Soon As Cato
Is Gone, Sempronius, Who But Just Before Had Acted like An Unparalleled
Knave, Discovers Himself, Like An Egregious Fool, To Be An Accomplice In
The Conspiracy.
'_Semp_.
Know, Villains, When Such Paltry Slaves Presume
To Mix In treason, If The Plot Succeeds,
They'Re Thrown Neglected by; But, If It Fails,
They'Re Sure To Die Like Dogs, As You Shall Do.
Here, Take These Factious Monsters, Drag Them Forth
To Sudden Death.'--
"'Tis True, Indeed, The Second Leader Says, There Are None There But
Friends; But Is That Possible At Such A Juncture? Can A Parcel Of Rogues
Attempt To Assassinate The Governor Of A Town Of War, In his Own House,
In Mid-Day, And, After They Are Discovered, And Defeated, Can There
Be None Near Them But Friends? Is It Not Plain, From These Words Of
Sempronius,
'Here, Take These Factious Monsters, Drag Them Forth
To Sudden Death'--
And From The Entrance Of The Guards Upon The Word Of Command, That
Those Guards Were Within Ear-Shot? Behold Sempronius, Then, Palpably
Discovered. How Comes It To Pass, Then, That Instead Of Being hanged
Up With The Rest, He Remains Secure In the Governor'S Hall, And There
Carries On His Conspiracy Against The Government, The Third Time In the
Same Day, With His Old Comrade Syphax, Who Enters At The Same Time That
The Guards Are Carrying away The Leaders, Big With The News Of The Defeat
Of Sempronius; Though Where He Had His Intelligence So Soon Is Difficult
To Imagine? And Now The Reader May Expect A Very Extraordinary Scene:
There Is Not Abundance Of Spirit Indeed, Nor A Great Deal Of Passion, But
There Is Wisdom More Than Enough To Supply All Defects.
'_Syph_.
Still There Remains An After-Game To Play:
My Troops Are Mounted, Their Numidian Steeds
Snuff Up The Winds, And Long To Scour The Desert.
Let But Sempronius Lead Us In our Flight,
We'Ll Force The Gate, Where Marcus Keeps His Guard,
And Hew Down All That Would Oppose Our Passage;
A Day Will Bring us Into Caesar'S Camp.
'_Semp_. Confusion! I Have Fail'D Of Half My Purpose;
Marcia, The Charming
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