Or well-mouth'd Booth with emphasis proclaims, (Tho' but, perhaps, a muster-roll of Names,) How will our Fathers rise up in a rage,

125

And swear all shame is lost in George's Age!

You'd think "no Fools disgrac'd the former reign, Did not some brave Examples yet remain,

Who scorn a Lad should teach his father skill,
And, having once been wrong, will be so still. 130
He, who to seem more deep than you or I,

W

Extol's old Bards, or Merlin's Prophecy,
Mistake him not; he envies, not admires,
And to debase the Sons, exalts the Sires.
*Had ancient times conspir'd to disallow
What then was new, what had been ancient now?

135

NOTES.

than once, of the profession and abilities of his friend and pupil. Booth was educated at Westminster-school, under the celebrated Dr. Busby, who had himself a great love of theatrical representations; and whose early praises of Booth for performing the Pamphilus of Terence, determined him to try his fortune on the stage. His first appearance was in the part of Oroonoko, on the Irish theatre; and in London, that of Maximus in Valentinian. He was reckoned second to Betterton after he had performed Artaban in Rowe's Ambitious Step-Mother, and Pyrrhus in the Distrest Mother. But Othello was thought his masterpiece. He was a man of considerable literature, strict integrity, and amiable manners. His figure was clumsy, he stooped, had a large head, and very short arms. Roscius squinted. The lines 122 and 123, on Betterton and Booth, contain too feeble an encomium on the merits of these two excellent actors.

Ver. 124. a muster-roll of Names] An absurd custom of several Actors, to pronounce with emphasis the mere Proper Names of Greeks or Romans, which (as they call it) fill the mouth of the Player. P.

Ver. 129, 130.] Inferior to the Original: as Ver. 133-4 excel it. W.

"Ut primum positis nugari Græcia bellis Cœpit, et in vitium fortuna labier æqua; Nunc athletarum studiis, nunc arsit equorum.

NOTES.

Ver. 140. with Charles restor'd ;] He says properly, restor❜d, because the luxury he brought in, was only the revival of that which had been practised in the reigns of his Father and Grandfather.

W.

It was more than a revival.

Ver. 142. A Verse of the Lord Lansdown.

P.

Ver. 143. in Horsemanship t'excel-And ev ry flow'ry Courtier writ Romance.] The Duke of Newcastle's book of Horsemanship: the Romance of Parthenissa, by the Earl of Orrery, and most of the French Romances translated by Persons of Quality. P.

How deep this infection then reached, may be seen (but not without surprise) from the famous George Lord Digby's translating the three first books of Cassandra. Neither Philosophy, Public business, nor the Bigotry of Religion, could keep him (when the folly was become fashionable) from an amusement fit only for boys and girls. W.

Astræa, by Honorè d'Urfè, was the best of these High Romances, the first volume of which was published 1610, and dedicated to Henry the Fourth. Boileau has written a Dialogue in the manner of Lucian, full of wit and pleasantry, to expose the High Romance of Gomberville, Calprenade, and De Scuderi, tom. iii. p. 1.

Ver. 146. And ev'ry flow'ry Courtier writ Romance,] The rise and progress of the several branches of literary science is one of the most curious parts of the history of the human mind; and yet it is that which, amongst us, is least attended to. This of fictitious history, or the Fable, is not below our notice. The close connexion which every individual has with all that relates to MAN in general, strongly inclines us to turn our attention on human affairs, in preference to most other pursuits, and eagerly to wait the course and issue of them. But as the progress of human actions is too slow to gratify our curiosity, observant men very early contrived to satisfy our impatience, by the invention of history. Which, by recording the principal circumstances of past Facts, and laying them close together in a continued narration, kept the mind from languishing, and gave constant exercise to its reflections.

Or what remain'd, so worthy to be read
By learned Critics, of the mighty Dead?

141

"In Days of Ease, when now the weary Sword Was sheath'd, and Luxury with Charles restor❜d; In ev'ry taste of foreign Courts improv'd, "All by the King's Example, liv'd and lov'd." Then Peers grew proud in "Horsemanship t' excel, Newmarket's Glory rose, as Britain's fell; The Soldier breath'd the Gallantries of France, 145 And ev'ry flow'ry Courtier writ Romance.

NOTES.

But as it commonly happens, that in all indulgent refinements on our satisfactions, the Procurers to our pleasures run into excess; so it happened here. Strict matters of fact, however delicately dressed up, soon grew too insipid, to a taste stimulated by the luxury of art; Men wanted something of more poignancy, to quicken and enforce a jaded appetite. Hence in the politer ages, those feigned histories relating the quick turns of capricious Fortune: and, in the more barbarous, the ROMANCES, abounding with the false provocative of enchantment and prodigies.

But satiety, in things unnatural, brings on disgust. And the reader at length began to see, that too eager a pursuit after adventures had drawn him from, what first engaged his attention, MAN and his ways, into the fairy walks of Phantoms and Chimeras. And now, those who had run farthest after these delusions, were the first to stop short and recover themselves. For the next species of fiction, which took its name from its NOVELTY, was of Spanish invention. These presented us with something of humanity; but in a forced unnatural state. For as every thing before had been conducted by Necromancy, so all, now, was managed by intrigue. And though this humanity had indeed a kind of life, it had, yet, as in its infancy, nothing of manners. On which account, those who could not penetrate into the ill constitution of its plan, grew, however, disgusted at the dryness of the Conduct, and want of ease in the Catastrophe.

The avoiding of these defects gave rise to the HEROICAL ROMANCES of the French, here ridiculed by our Poet; in which,

"Marmorit aut eboris fabros aut æris amavit; Suspendit picta vultum mentemque tabella;

NOTES.

some celebrated story of antiquity was so disguised by modern fable and invention, as was just sufficient to shew that the contrivers of them neither knew how to lie nor speak truth. In these voluminous extravagances, Love and Honour supplied the place of Life and Manners. But the over-refinement of Platonic sentiments always sinks into the dregs of the gentle passion. Thus in attempting a more natural representation of it, in the little AMATORY NOVELS which succeeded those heavier volumes, though the Writers avoided the dryness of the Spanish intrigue, and the extravagance of the French Heroism, yet, by giving too natural a picture of their subject, they introduced a worse evil than a corruption of Taste.

At length this great people (to whom, it must be owned, every branch of Science has been infinitely obliged) hit upon the true secret by which alone a deviation from fact and reality, in the commerce of Man, could be really amusing to an improved mind, or useful to promote that improvement. And this was by a faithful and chaste copy of LIFE and MANNERS.

In this species of Writing, Mr. De Marivaux in France, and Mr. FIELDING in England, stand the foremost. And by enriching it with the best part of the Comic art, may be said to have brought it to its perfection. But the rage of appetite for these amusements, which succeeded, and the monstrous things that now serve for our entertainment, will put us in mind of a story, which Plutarch tells of Cæsar: who observing certain Barbarians at Rome caressing young puppy-dogs and apes, asked if the women bred no children amongst those strangers, that they were so fond of these grotesque resemblances. Yet amidst all this nonsense, when things were at the worst, we have been lately entertained with what I venture to call, a Masterpiece, in the Fable; and of a new species likewise. The piece I mean is THE CASTLE OF OTRANTO. The scene is laid in Gothic Chivalry. Where a beautiful imagination, supported by strength of judgment, has enabled the Author to go beyond his subject, and effect the full purpose of the ancient Tragedy, that is, to purge the passions by pity and terror, in colouring as great and harmonious as in any of the best Dramatic Writers. W.

a

Then Marble, soften'd into life, grew warm,
And yielding Metal flow'd to human form:
Lely on animated Canvas stole

The sleepy eye, that spoke the melting soul.

No wonder then, when all was Love and Sport,
The willing Muses were debauch'd at Court:

150

NOTES.

Ver. 149. Lely on animated Canvas] If Wycherley in his Comedies had nature, says Mr. Walpole, it is nature stark naked. "The painters of that time veiled it but little more; Sir Peter Lely scarce saves appearances but by a bit of fringe or embroidery. His nymphs, generally reposed on the turf, are too wanton and too magnificent, to be taken for any thing but maids of honour. Yet fantastic as his compositions seem, they were pretty much in the dress of the times, as is evident by a Puritan tract in the year 1678, entitled, Just and Reasonable Reprehensions of Naked Breasts and Shoulders."

When Oliver Cromwell sat to Sir Peter Lely, he said to him while sitting," Mr. Lely, I desire you would use all your skill to paint my picture truly like me, and not flatter me at all; but remark all these roughnesses, pimples, warts, and every thing as you see me, otherwise I will never pay a farthing for it."

Ver. 150. The sleepy eye,] This charming line bears a wonderful resemblance to one in an exquisite Greek Epigram of Antipater, which it is not probable Pope could have seen:

Ἡ τακεραῖς λεύσσουσα κόραις μαλακώτερον ὕπνου.
Liquiscentibus tuens oculis mollius somno.

Ver. 151. all was Love and Sport,] The memoirs of the Count Grammont, without Burnet's History, would be alone a sufficient monument of the unexampled and coarse corruption and debauchery of the Court of Charles the Second, who diffused a taste, not only for French manners, but for French government, into this Country, full of low admiration of that vain, unfeeling, ambitious, profuse Despot, Louis XIV.

Ver. 152. debauch'd at Court:] In a letter to Lord Clarendon, January 27, 1658; the Duke of Ormond says of Charles II.