“And oh! ’twas this that ended Cato’s life.”
Pope might have made more objections to the six concluding lines. In the
first couplet the words “from hence” are improper; and the second line is
taken from Dryden’s Virgil. Of the next couplet, the first verse, being
included in the second, is therefore useless; and in the third _Discord_
is made to produce _Strife_.
Of the course of Addison’s familiar day, before his marriage, Pope has
given a detail. He had in the house with him Budgell, and perhaps
Philips. His chief companions were Steele, Budgell, Philips [Ambrose],
Carey, Davenant, and Colonel Brett. With one or other of these he always
breakfasted. He studied all morning; then dined at a tavern; and went
afterwards to Button’s. Button had been a servant in the Countess of
Warwick’s family, who, under the patronage of Addison, kept a
coffee-house on the south side of Russell Street, about two doors from
Covent Garden. Here it was that the wits of that time used to assemble.
It is said when Addison had suffered any vexation from the countess, he
withdrew the company from Button’s house. From the coffee-house he went
again to a tavern, where he often sat late, and drank too much wine. In
the bottle discontent seeks for comfort, cowardice for courage, and
bashfulness for confidence. It is not unlikely that Addison was first
seduced to excess by the manumission which he obtained from the servile
timidity of his sober hours. He that feels oppression from the presence
of those to whom he knows himself superior will desire to set loose his
powers of conversation; and who that ever asked succours from Bacchus was
able to preserve himself from being enslaved by his auxiliary?
Among those friends it was that Addison displayed the elegance of his
colloquial accomplishments, which may easily be supposed such as Pope
represents them. The remark of Mandeville, who, when he had passed an
evening in his company, declared that he was a parson in a tie-wig, can
detract little from his character; he was always reserved to strangers,
and was not incited to uncommon freedom by a character like that of
Mandeville.
From any minute knowledge of his familiar manners the intervention of
sixty years has now debarred us. Steele once promised Congreve and the
public a complete description of his character; but the promises of
authors are like the vows of lovers. Steele thought no more on his
design, or thought on it with anxiety that at last disgusted him, and
left his friend in the hands of Tickell.
One slight lineament of his character Swift has preserved. It was his
practice, when he found any man invincibly wrong, to flatter his opinions
by acquiescence, and sink him yet deeper in absurdity. This artifice of
mischief was admired by Stella; and Swift seems to approve her
admiration. His works will supply some information. It appears, from the
various pictures of the world, that, with all his bashfulness, he had
conversed with many distinct classes of men, had surveyed their ways with
very diligent observation, and marked with great acuteness the effects of
different modes of life. He was a man in whose presence nothing
reprehensible was out of danger; quick in discerning whatever was wrong
or ridiculous, and not unwilling to expose it. “There are,” says Steele,
“in his writings many oblique strokes upon some of the wittiest men of
the age.” His delight was more to excite merriment than detestation; and
he detects follies rather than crimes. If any judgment be made from his
books of his moral character, nothing will be found but purity and
excellence. Knowledge of mankind, indeed, less extensive than that of
Addison, will show that to write, and to live, are very different. Many
who praise virtue, do no more than praise it. Yet it is reasonable to
believe that Addison’s professions and practice were at no great
variance, since amidst that storm of faction in which most of his life
was passed, though his station made him conspicuous, and his activity
made him formidable, the character given him by his friends was never
contradicted by his enemies. Of those with whom interest or opinion
united him he had not only the esteem, but the kindness; and of others
whom the violence of opposition drove against him, though he might lose
the love, he retained the reverence.
It is justly observed by Tickell that he employed wit on the side of
virtue and religion. He not only made the proper use of wit himself, but
taught it to others; and from his time it has been generally subservient
to the cause of reason and of truth. He has dissipated the prejudice that
had long connected gaiety with vice, and easiness of manners with laxity
of principles. He has restored virtue to its dignity, and taught
innocence not to be ashamed. This is an elevation of literary character
“above all Greek, above all Roman fame.” No greater felicity can genius
attain than that of having purified intellectual pleasure, separated
mirth from indecency, and wit from licentiousness; of having taught a
succession of writers to bring elegance and gaiety to the aid of
goodness; and, if I may use expressions yet more awful, of having “turned
many to righteousness.”
Addison, in his life and for some time afterwards, was considered by a
greater part of readers as supremely excelling both in poetry and
criticism. Part of his reputation may be probably ascribed to the
advancement of his fortune; when, as Swift observes, he became a
statesman, and saw poets waiting at his levée, it was no wonder that
praise was accumulated upon him. Much likewise may be more honourably
ascribed to his personal character: he who, if he had claimed it, might
have obtained the diadem, was not likely to be denied the laurel. But
time quickly puts an end to artificial and accidental fame; and Addison
is to pass through futurity protected only by his genius. Every name
which kindness or interest once raised too high is in danger, lest the
next age should, by the vengeance of criticism, sink it in the same
proportion. A great writer has lately styled him “an indifferent poet,
and a worse critic.” His poetry is first to be considered; of which it
must be confessed that it has not often those felicities of diction which
give lustre to sentiments, or that vigour of sentiment that animates
diction: there is little of ardour, vehemence, or transport; there is
very rarely the awfulness of grandeur, and not very often the splendour
of elegance. He thinks justly, but he thinks faintly. This is his general
character; to which, doubtless, many single passages will furnish
exception. Yet, if he seldom reaches supreme excellence, he rarely sinks
into dulness, and is still more rarely entangled in absurdity. He did not
trust his powers enough to be negligent. There is in most of his
compositions a calmness and equability, deliberate and cautious,
sometimes with little that delights, but seldom with anything that
offends. Of this kind seem to be his poems to Dryden, to Somers, and to
the King. His ode on St. Cecilia has been imitated by Pope, and has
something in it of Dryden’s vigour. Of his Account of the English Poets
he used to speak as a “poor thing;” but it is not worse than his usual
strain. He has said, not very judiciously, in his character of Waller—
“Thy verse could show even Cromwell’s innocence,
And compliment the storms that bore him hence.
Oh! had thy Muse not come an age too soon,
But seen great Nassau on the British throne,
How had his triumph glittered in thy page!”
What is this but to say that he who could compliment Cromwell had been
the proper poet for King William? Addison, however, printed the piece.
The Letter from Italy has been always praised, but has never been praised
beyond its merit. It is more correct, with less appearance of labour, and
more elegant, with less ambition of ornament, than any other of his
poems. There is, however, one broken metaphor, of which notice may
properly be taken:—
“Fired with that name—
I bridle in my struggling Muse with pain,
That longs to launch into a nobler strain.”
To _bridle a goddess_ is no very delicate idea; but why must she be
_bridled_? because she _longs to launch_; an act which was never hindered
by a _bridle_: and whither will she _launch_? into a _nobler strain_. She
is in the first line a _horse_, in the second a _boat_; and the care of
the poet is to keep his _horse_ or his _boat_ from _singing_.
The next composition is the far-famed “Campaign,” which Dr. Warton has
termed a “Gazette in Rhyme,” with harshness not often used by the
good-nature of his criticism. Before a censure so severe is admitted, let
us consider that war is a frequent subject of poetry, and then inquire
who has described it with more justice and force. Many of our own writers
tried their powers upon this year of victory: yet Addison’s is
confessedly the best performance; his poem is the work of a man not
blinded by the dust of learning; his images are not borrowed merely from
books. The superiority which he confers upon his hero is not personal
prowess and “mighty bone,” but deliberate intrepidity, a calm command of
his passions, and the power of consulting his own mind in the midst of
danger. The rejection and contempt of fiction is rational and manly. It
may be observed that the last line is imitated by Pope:—
“Marlb’rough’s exploits appear divinely bright—
Raised of themselves their genuine charms they boast,
And those that paint them truest, praise them most.”
This Pope had in his thoughts, but, not knowing how to use what was not
his own, he spoiled the thought when he had borrowed it:—
“The well-sung woes shall soothe my pensive ghost;
He best can paint them who shall feel them most.”
Martial exploits may be _painted_; perhaps _woes_ may be _painted_; but
they are surely not _painted_ by being _well sung_: it is not easy to
paint in song, or to sing in colours.
No passage in the “Campaign” has been more often mentioned than the
simile of the angel, which is said in the _Tatler_ to be “one of the
noblest thoughts that ever entered into the heart of man,” and is
therefore worthy of attentive consideration. Let it be first inquired
whether it be a simile. A poetical simile is the discovery of likeness
between two actions in their general nature dissimilar, or of causes
terminating by different operations in some resemblance of effect. But
the mention of another like consequence from a like cause, or of a like
performance by a like agency, is not a simile, but an exemplification. It
is not a simile to say that the Thames waters fields, as the Po waters
fields; or that as Hecla vomits flames in Iceland, so Ætna vomits flames
in Sicily. When Horace says of Pindar that he pours his violence and
rapidity of verse, as a river swollen with rain rushes from the mountain;
or of himself, that his genius wanders in quest of poetical decorations,
as the bee wanders to collect honey; he, in either case, produces a
simile: the mind is impressed with the resemblance of things generally
unlike, as unlike as intellect and body. But if Pindar had been described
as writing with the copiousness and grandeur of Homer, or Horace had told
that he reviewed and finished his own poetry with the same care as
Isocrates polished his orations, instead of similitude, he would have
exhibited almost identity; he would have given the same portraits with
different names. In the poem now examined, when the English are
represented as gaining a fortified pass by repetition of attack and
perseverance of resolution, their obstinacy of courage and vigour of
onset are well illustrated by the sea that breaks, with incessant
battery, the dykes of Holland. This is a simile. But when Addison, having
celebrated the beauty of Marlborough’s person, tells us that “Achilles
thus was formed of every grace,” here is no simile, but a mere
exemplification. A simile may be compared to lines converging at a point,
and is more excellent as the lines approach from greater distance: an
exemplification may be considered as two parallel lines, which run on
together without approximation, never far separated, and never joined.
Marlborough is so like the angel in the poem that the action of both is
almost the same, and performed by both in the same manner. Marlborough
“teaches the battle to rage;” the angel “directs the storm:” Marlborough
is “unmoved in peaceful thought;” the angel is “calm and serene:”
Marlborough stands “unmoved amidst the shock of hosts;” the angel rides
“calm in the whirlwind.” The lines on Marlborough are just and noble,
but the simile gives almost the same images a second time. But perhaps
this thought, though hardly a simile, was remote from vulgar conceptions,
and required great labour and research, or dexterity of application. Of
this Dr. Madden, a name which Ireland ought to honour, once gave me his
opinion. “If I had set,” said he, “ten schoolboys to write on the battle
of Blenheim, and eight had brought me the angel, I should not have been
surprised.”
The opera of _Rosamond_, though it is seldom mentioned, is one of the
first of Addison’s compositions. The subject is well chosen, the fiction
is pleasing, and the praise of Marlborough, for which the scene gives an
opportunity, is, what perhaps every human excellence must be, the product
of good luck improved by genius. The thoughts are sometimes great, and
sometimes tender; the versification is easy and gay. There is doubtless
some advantage in the shortness of the lines, which there is little
temptation to load with expletive epithets. The dialogue seems commonly
better than the songs. The two comic characters of Sir Trusty and
Grideline, though of no great value, are yet such as the poet intended.
Sir Trusty’s account of the death of Rosamond is, I think, too grossly
absurd. The whole drama is airy and elegant; engaging in its process, and
pleasing in its conclusion. If Addison had cultivated the lighter parts
of poetry, he would probably have excelled.
The tragedy of _Cato_, which, contrary to the rule observed in selecting
the works of other poets, has by the weight of its character forced its
way into the late collection, is unquestionably the noblest production of
Addison’s genius. Of a work so much read, it is difficult to say anything
new. About things on which the public thinks long, it commonly attains to
think right; and of _Cato_ it has been not unjustly determined that it is
rather a poem in dialogue than a drama, rather a succession of just
sentiments in elegant language than a representation of natural
affections, or of any state probable or possible in human life. Nothing
here “excites or assuages emotion:” here is “no magical power of raising
phantastic terror or wild anxiety.” The events are expected without
solicitude, and are remembered without joy or sorrow. Of the agents we
have no care; we consider not what they are doing, or what they are
suffering; we wish only to know what they have to say. _Cato_ is a being
above our solicitude; a man of whom the gods take care, and whom we leave
to their care with heedless confidence. To the rest neither gods nor men
can have much attention; for there is not one amongst them that strongly
attracts either affection or esteem. But they are made the vehicles of
such sentiments and such expression that there is scarcely a scene in the
play which the reader does not wish to impress upon his memory.
When _Cato_ was shown to Pope, he advised the author to print it, without
any theatrical exhibition, supposing that it would be read more
favourably than heard. Addison declared himself of the same opinion, but
urged the importunity of his friends for its appearance on the stage. The
emulation of parties made it successful beyond expectation; and its
success has introduced or confirmed among us the use of dialogue too
declamatory, of unaffecting elegance, and chill philosophy. The
universality of applause, however it might quell the censure of common
mortals, had no other effect than to harden Dennis in fixed dislike; but
his dislike was not merely capricious. He found and showed many faults;
he showed them indeed with anger, but he found them indeed 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 the
applause is natural and spontaneous; but that little regard is to be had
to it when it is affected or 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
imagination 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 one of his
favourite principles:—
“’Tis certainly the duty of every tragic 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 enmity 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 everywhere, throughout it, makes virtue
suffer, and vice triumph: for not only Cato is vanquished by Cæsar, 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 sakes our country is not a name so dear to us?”
But this formidable assailant is less 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 snuff-boxes in
their hands, as Mr. Bayes has it, and feague 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 called 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 have 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, Cæsar would never take you.
“When Cato, Act II., 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 domestics 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 Macs, and the Teagues; even Eustace
Commins 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 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 midday, 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_. Our first design, my friend, has proved abortive;
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 Cæsar’s camp.
_Semp_. Confusion! I have failed of half my purpose;
Marcia, the charming Marcia’s left behind.’
Well, but though he tells us the half-purpose he has failed of, he does
not tell us the half that he has carried. But what does he mean by
“‘Marcia, the charming Marcia’s left behind’?
He is now in her own house! and we have neither seen her nor heard of her
anywhere else since the play began. But now let us hear Syphax:—
“‘What hinders, then, but that you find her out,
And hurry her away by manly force?’
But what does old Syphax mean by finding her out? They talk as if she
were as hard to be found as a hare in a frosty morning.
“‘_Semp_. But how to gain admission?’
Oh! she is found out then, it seems.
“‘But how to gain admission? for access
Is giv’n to none but Juba and her brothers.’
But, raillery apart, why access to Juba? For he was owned and received
as a lover neither by the father nor by the daughter. Well, but let that
pass. Syphax puts Sempronius out of pain immediately; and, being a
Numidian, abounding in wiles, supplies him with a stratagem for admission
that, I believe, is a _nonpareil_.
“‘_Syph_. Thou shalt have Juba’s dress, and Juba’s guards;
The doors will open when Numidia’s prince
Seems to appear before them.’
“Sempronius is, it seems, to pass for Juba in full day at Cato’s house,
where they were both so very well known, by having Juba’s dress and his
guards; as if one of the Marshals of France could pass for the Duke of
Bavaria at noonday, at Versailles, by having his dress and liveries. But
how does Syphax pretend to help Sempronius to young Juba’s dress? Does
he serve him in a double capacity, as general and master of his wardrobe?
But why Juba’s guards? For the devil of any guards has Juba appeared
with yet. Well, though this is a mighty politic invention, yet, methinks,
they might have done without it: for, since the advice that Syphax gave
to Sempronius was
“‘To hurry her away by manly force,’
in my opinion the shortest and likeliest way of coming at the lady was by
demolishing, instead of putting on an impertinent disguise to circumvent
two or three slaves. But Sempronius, it seems, is of another opinion. He
extols to the skies the invention of old Syphax:—
“‘_Semp_. Heavens! what a thought was there!’
“Now, I appeal to the reader if I have not been as good as my word. Did I
not tell him that I would lay before him a very wise scene?
“But now let us lay before the reader that part of the scenery of the
fourth act which may show the absurdities which the author has run into,
through the indiscreet observance of the unity of place. I do not
remember that Aristotle has said anything expressly concerning the unity
of place. ’Tis true, implicitly he has said enough in the rules which he
has laid down for the chorus. For by making the chorus an essential part
of tragedy, and by bringing it on the stage immediately after the opening
of the scene, and retaining it there till the very catastrophe, he has so
determined and fixed the place of action that it was impossible for an
author on the Grecian stage to break through that unity. I am of opinion
that if a modern tragic poet can preserve the amity of place, without
destroying the probability of the incidents, ’tis always best for him to
do it; because by the preservation of that unity, as we have taken notice
above, he adds grace and clearness and comeliness to the representation.
But since there are no express rules about it, and we are under no
compulsion to keep it, since we have no chorus as the Grecian poet had;
if it cannot be preserved without rendering the greater part of the
incidents unreasonable and absurd, and perhaps sometimes monstrous, ’tis
certainly better to break it.
“Now comes bully Sempronius, comically accoutred and equipped with his
Numidian dress and his Numidian guards. Let the reader attend to him with
all his ears, for the words of the wise are precious:—
“‘_Semp_. The deer is lodged; I’ve tracked her to her covert.’
“Now I would fain know why this deer is said to be lodged, since we have
not heard one word since the play began of her being at all out of
harbour: and if we consider the discourse with which she and Lucia begin
the act, we have reason to believe that they had hardly been talking of
such matters in the street. However, to pleasure Sempronius, let us
suppose, for once, that the deer is lodged:—
“‘The deer is lodged; I’ve tracked her to her covert.’
“If he had seen her in the open field, what occasion had he to track her
when he had so many Numidian dogs at his heels, which, with one halloo,
he might have set upon her haunches? If he did not see her in the open
field, how could he possibly track her? If he had seen her in the
street, why did he not set upon her in the street, since through the
street she must be carried at last? Now here, instead of having his
thoughts upon his business, and upon the present danger; instead of
meditating and contriving how he shall pass with his mistress through the
southern gate, where her brother Marcus is upon the guard, and where he
would certainly prove an impediment to him (which is the Roman word for
the _baggage_); instead of doing this, Sempronius is entertaining himself
with whimsies:—
“‘_Semp_. How will the young Numidian rave to see
His mistress lost! If aught could glad my soul
Beyond th’ enjoyment of so bright a prize,
’Twould be to torture that young, gay barbarian.
But hark! what noise? Death to my hopes! ’tis he,
’Tis Juba’s self! There is but one way left!
He must be murdered, and a passage cut
Through those his guards.’
“Pray, what are ‘those guards’? I thought at present that Juba’s guards
had been Sempronius’s tools, and had been dangling after his heels.
“But now let us sum up all these absurdities together. Sempronius goes at
noon-day, in Juba’s clothes and with Juba’s guards, to Cato’s palace, in
order to pass for Juba, in a place where they were both so very well
known: he meets Juba there, and resolves to murder him with his own
guards. Upon the guards appearing a little bashful, he threatens them:—
“‘Hah! dastards, do you tremble?
Or act like men; or, by yon azure heav’n!’—
“But the guards still remaining restive, Sempronius himself attacks Juba,
while each of the guards is representing Mr. Spectator’s sign of the
Gaper, awed, it seems, and terrified by Sempronius’s threats. Juba kills
Sempronius, and takes his own army prisoners, and carries them in triumph
away to Cato. Now I would fain know if any part of Mr. Bayes’s tragedy is
so full of absurdity as this?
“Upon hearing the clash of swords, Lucia and Marcia come in. The question
is, why no men come in upon hearing the noise of swords in the governor’s
hall? Where was the governor himself? Where were his guards? Where
were his servants? Such an attempt as this, so near the governor of a
place of war, was enough to alarm the whole garrison: and yet, for almost
half an hour after Sempronius was killed, we find none of those appear
who were the likeliest in the world to be alarmed; and the noise of
swords is made to draw only two poor women thither, who were most certain
to run away from it. Upon Lucia and Marcia’s coming in, Lucia appears in
all the symptoms of an hysterical gentlewoman:—
“‘_Luc_. Sure ’twas the clash of swords! my troubled heart
Is so cast down, and sunk amidst its sorrows,
It throbs with fear, and aches at every sound!’