THIS requires much imagination; it is not fufficient to remember what was feen at any one place; to follow that exactly would be impoffi ble, or if it could be done, the whole would be one piece of plagiarism.

THE art lies in felecting the most striking objects, which have affected the mind with any kind of paffion or fenfation, and then by recal ling those ideas, give a combination to these ob. jects, which has never yet been seen in nature, and yet which the eye of a judge will a judge will agree to be natural when put together.

THIS, tho' it may feent a tafk of no great dif ficulty, is yet much more fo than may be at firft imagined; for tho' many people remember what they have seen, yet very few in nature have the power of uniting the parts of various fubjects, fo as to make one whole that fhall be ftriking, characteristic and affecting.

the

Ir is in the combination of visible objects, fo as that they may affect the mind with any

pafton, pleading or difpleafing fenfation, as it is

in that of combining founds, which may affect us with fimilar feelings.

IN the latter, the tones which accompany the expreffions of tenderness, grief, rage, or other paffions, must be distinguished and combined, fo as to characterize an air either complaining, foft, or angry, which is much the fame kind of genius, with that of combining the objects of fight in light and fhade, open and obfcure, creat ing horror or delight, indulging love or forrow.

As there are few muficians who have excelled in all parts of a grand compofition, fo there are few who have fucceeded in the planning and defigning gardens.

ONE mafter in mufic is excellent in compofing the first violin of a concerto, and meagre in all the reft; others in their favourite inftruments with the like imperfections; Corelli fills all, and makes the whole piece one fimple and united found of various inftruments, each fuftaining and fuftained.

IN gardening alfo, one defigner plans the gay part, and fails in the ferious; he trills along a

little ftream with elegance and propriety, an., brobdignags the expanfe of water and almoft makes a new deluge, Kent, the best defigner in this way, is the Corelli of gardeners, as may be feen wherever he has followed his own inclination, in the gardens he has defigned.

Alas! the bane of men of fine and elegant taste, and the cause of its fudden decline, is the belief in every rich man who has an inclination to build, or plant, that he has a taste equal to his wealth, and to the undertaking, and a right to obtrude his opinion on the most accomplished judge, in architecture and gardening: this epiftle I fear is too much in the dictating strain, when I recollect to whom I am writing, to you whose taste in these arts is certainly juft and ele gant, from what you have fhewn in poetry their fifter. I am,

Your most obedient..

VOL. II.

T

LET

LETTER

LVIII.

To the Countess of

at Rome.

Madam,.:

F the wits of England were as happy as I am, in knowing the fuperior tafte, which you manifeft in all you examine in literature, they would have reafon to be well pleafed with the preference which you give to their favorite 'dramatic poet, above all thofe, that any nation has yet produced.

I AGREE with you, his characters are better drawn, and better understood than any other dramatic writer, as you have proved in the many inftances which you have mark'd out to me; all his imitators have fwelled into the gigantefque in their attempts: their pretended characters, by endeavouring to reach the very fummit of the fublime, have been like very tall men in nature, half ́animated bodies, which, wanting fouls proportioned to their fubftance, appear a languid lump of fomething bigger in body, yet less than man in true spirit.

and

C.

PERHAPS

PERHAPS there is no inftance amongst the whole race of writers, where it can be fo truly distinguished how a poet may be fuperior to all men in his conceptions, and sustaining characters in full power in his writings, and yet deficient in giving life, propriety, and action, to the productions of his own genius on the stage.

SHAKESPEARE, the firft of dramatic writers, is faid to have been one of the leaft of dramatic actors.

WILL you, Madam, have the goodness to tell me whence this difference took its rife; or fince I am upon this fubject, and have a peculiar ambition of pleafing and appearing favourable in your eyes; will you permit me to rifque fome fuggeftions on that head?

THE variety of characters to be found in Shakespeare, is no where else to be paralleled; not only almost all ranks amongst the living, from the lowest peasant to the crowned head, madmen, fools, philofophers, patriots, tyrants, wits, and men of all kinds of humour; he has paft the bounds of this world, and brought back. T 2

the