By the School for Scandal the ftyle of Congreve was again brought into fashion; and sentiment made way for wit, and delicate humour. That piece has indeed the beauties of Congreve's comedies, without their faults: its plot is deeply enough perplexed, without forc ing one to labour to unravel it; its incidents fufficient, without being too numerous; its wit pure; its fituatious truly dramatic. The cha racters however are not quite fo ftrong as Con greve's; which may be regarded as the princi pal fault of this excellent piece. Leffer faults are Charles's fometimes blundering upon fentiments; nay fometimes upon what are the worst of all fentiments, fuch as are of dan gerous tendency, as when Rowley advises him to pay his debts, before he makes a very libe ral present, and so to act as an honest man ere he acts as a generous one. Rowley. Ah, Sir, I wish you would remember the proverb Charles. Be juft before you are generous. Why fo I would if I could, but Juftice is an old lame hobbling beldame, and I can't get her to keep pace with Generofity for the foul of me. This fentiment, than which nothing can be more falfe and immoral, is always received by the filly audience with loud applaufe, whereas no reprobation can be too fevere for it. A leffer blemith lies in the verfes tagged to the end of the play, in which one of the characters addreffes the audience. The verfes are an abfurdity, the addrefs a ftill greater; for the audience is by no good actor fuppofed to be prefent and any circumftance that contributes to destroy the apparent reality of theatrical representation, cannot meet with too fharp cenfure. But it gives me pain to remark any faults in a piece that in general fo well merits the applause it conftantly receives. I fhall only observe that the fentiment put into Charles's mouth in the laft fcene, tho not liable to the objections brought against the former, is yet incompatible with the character, which is fet in ftrongest oppofition to the fentimental one of Jofeph. The words I mean are If I don't appear mortified at the exposure of my follies, it is because I feel at this moment the • warmest satisfaction at seeing you my liberal • benefactor.' It may be obferved that every thing like á sentiment is fure to meet with applause on our theatre; which the actors well exprefs by calling fentiments clap-traps. This trick of fecuring applaufe by fentiments lately proved the falvation of the very worst tragedy that ever appeared on any ftage: for the audience had fo much applauded the two first acts, from the number of those clap-traps, that they were ashamed to retract, so that the piece took a little run very quietly, to the disgrace of our tafte, it being one of thofe very farragos of nonfenfe that The Rehearfal was written to expofe to due fcorn: and, had it been fabricated before the æra of that witty performance, it would certainly have had the honour of being placed in the first shelf of abfurdity. LETTER LETTER VIII. OW can you treat Petrarch with fo How can you treat P much contempt? Tho I agree with you that there is a tedious famenefs in moft of his compofitions, yet I by no means think him without his merit. The very idea indeed of reading upwards of three hundred fonnets gives pain; the stated form and measure of that kind of poetry being fo difguftingly fimilar, that I believe no man of genius would now write twenty in a life time. Yet it has its beauties: and tho your comparison of a defert of fand, where the fame objects always meet the eye, were allowed in fpeaking of Petrarch; neverthelefs in travelling that defert you will now and then, at great intervals, I confefs, light on a fpring furrounded with verdure and flowers. In his own country, I fuppofe, the purity of his language, and his antiquity, fecure his fame, independent of his poetical beauties, which are not many. E 2 I ALSO I ALSO grant you that he abounds with falfe beauties; among which the most grofs and disgusting is his playing on the name of his mistress, which unhappily fignified a laurel tree, in every other line: but I cannot affent to your propofition, that a writer of real genius. may be in a fault, but can never happen on a falfe beauty. Shakspere has many false beauties; and fo has Milton. Ir is amazing that a writer, who in fome paffages discovers great force of mind, should fo utterly lose himself in the unnatural metaphyfics of love. Yet, by a fingular fate, it is to his weakness that he owes his fame; for his platonic paffion threw fuch a fairy light round himfelf and his writings, as rendered them very confpicuous in these dark times. But in fome of his Odes, or Canzoni, he proves himself not wholly undeferving of his fame at this day; witnefs the Vth, in which there are beauties of the highest kind, as in this stanza: Una parte del mondo è che si giace Mai fempre in ghiaccio, ed in gelate nevi, La, fotto i giorni nubilo e brevi, |