Fabula, si dubitem, clament periisse pudorem Cuncti penè patres: ea cum reprehendere coner, Quæ gravis Esopus, quæ doctus Roscius egit. Vel quia nil "rectum, nisi quod placuit sibi, ducunt, Vel quia turpe putant parere minoribus, et quæ Imberbi didicere, senes perdenda fateri. NOTES. Ver. 122. Which Betterton's grave action dignified, The epithet gravis, when applied to a tragedian, signifies dignity of gesture and action; and in this sense the imitator uses the word grave: nothing being more destructive of his character than ranting, the common vice of stage-heroes, from which this admirable actor was entirely free. The epithet well-mouth'd, a term of the chase, here applied to his successor, was not given without a particular design, and to insinuate, that there was as wide a difference between their performances, as there is between scientific music and the harmony of brute sounds, between elocution and vociferation. This compliment was paid to BETTERTON, as the earliest of our author's friends; whom he no less esteemed (as Cicero did Roscius) for the integrity of his life and manners, than for the excellence of his dramatic performance. Our author lived to see with pleasure, though after a considerable interruption, these qualities again revive and unite in the person of a third accomplished actor, the present ornament of the English theatre. Warburton. Ver. 122. Which Betterton's grave] There are few characters drawn with such precision, life, nature, and truth, as what Cibber has given us of Betterton, in the fourth chapter of his life. It required no small mastery of language, and knowledge of the diffieult art of acting, to be able to convey to the reader an exact and complete idea of the manner in which Betterton so admirably personated the characters of Othello, Hamlet, Hotspur, Brutus, and Macbeth. It were to be wished the same justice could be done *Mr. Garrick. One tragic sentence if I dare deride Which 'Betterton's grave action dignified, Or well-mouth'd Booth with emphasis proclaims, (Though 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! NOTES. done to Mr. Garrick, who perhaps would not suffer much by a comparison with Betterton. It is at least to be lamented that Dr. Johnson should speak so contemptuously, as he has done more 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 Distressed 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. Warton. Ver. 124. a muster-roll of names,] An absurd custom of several actors, to pronounce with emphasis the mere proper names of Greeks and Romans, which (as they call it) fill the mouth of the player. Ver. 129, 130.] Inferior to the original: as ver. 133-4 excel it. Pope. Warburton. Jam Saliare Numæ carmen qui laudat, et illud, Quod mecum ignorat, solus vult scire videri; Ingeniis non ille favet, plauditque sepultis, Nostra sed impugnat, nos nostraque lividus odit. 'Quòd si tam Græcis novitas invisa fuisset, Quàm nobis; quid nunc esset vetus? aut quid haberet, Quod legeret tereretque viritim publicus usus? NOTES. Ver. 140. luxury with Charles restored;] He says properly restored, because the luxury he brought in, was only the revival of that which had been practised in the reigns of his father and grandfather. It was more than a revival. Warton. Warburton. Pope. Ver. 142. A verse of the Lord Lansdown. Ver. 143. in horsemanship to excel,—And every flowery 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. Pope. 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. Warburton. 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. Warton. Ver. 146. And every flowery courtier writ romance.] The rise and progress of the several branches of literary science is one of the He, who to seem more deep than you or I, 135 And to debase the sons, exalts the sires. 'In days of ease, when now the weary sword Was sheath'd, and luxury with Charles restored, 140 In every taste of foreign courts improved, "All, by the king's example lived and loved." Then peers grew proud in 'horsemanship to excel, Newmarket's glory rose, as Britain's fell, The soldier breath'd the gallantries of France, 145 And every flowery courtier writ romance. NOTES. 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. 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 a Marmoris aut eboris fabros aut æris amavit; Suspendit "pictâ vultum mentemque tabellâ ; NOTES. 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 furthest 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, 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 extravagancies, 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 se cret |